AFRUCA

Community Champions

Initiative

The Work and Achievements:

AFRUCA employs a volunteer-led approach to addressing many of the issues that affect children in the BME community across England. The idea is to create a ripple effect of change through peer-to-peer learning. We have devised a range of community Champions initiatives focusing on a range of issues, including Modern Slavery, Child Protection and Female Genital Mutilation. Over 200 volunteers are involved in our Community Champions initiative, helping to promote new knowledge within their own community as active citizens, reaching thousands of people in the process.

From 2013 to 2016, with funding from the Department for Education, we ran the Children’s Champion’s project. This project aimed to help address the over-representation of Black children in the care system through the recruitment and training of 150 volunteers to be “Children’s Champions” creating a ripple effect of change by going into their own communities to train other people about how to keep children safe from abuse and harm. Based on this, we trained over 4,000 community members, helping to increase knowledge of child protection and how to safeguard children in the community. We now aim to continue this project through a Big Lottery funding which we are working on.

With funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government, we recruited and trained 20 young people to become Anti-FGM champions, as part of a pilot project across Greater Manchester. The idea is to enable young people to become Peer-Educators, going into schools across the region to train and educate other young people about how Female Genital Mutilation can be harmful and what to do to support young people at risk. Through this programme, we worked in over 20 schools, churches, mosques and youth groups across Greater Manchester. Our young people took part in media programmes, helping to promote the anti-FGM message and educating people in the process. We are awaiting funding from Tudor Trust to help us continue this exciting piece of work.

In December 2017 with funding from the Home Office, we launched a pilot champion’s programme to help address the prevalence of domestic slavery in the Nigerian community. AFRUCA statistics mirror those collated by the government in relation to the trafficking of children for use as domestic slaves in the Nigerian community. We recruited and trained 25 Anti Slavery Champions to help raise awareness of the impact this form of slavery can have on children and the position of the law in relation to offending. We now aim to reach over 1000 community members as part of this pilot project which will be continued if impact can be proven.

Quote: “The knowledge and delivery of these trainings gave me better skills in parenting my children and the children around me.” (AFRUCA Children’s Champion)

Funders: Home Office, Department for Education and Families, Department for Communities and Local Government