A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Rome between the Italian Episcopal Conference/CEI and the Italian Committee for UNICEF – Fondazione Onlus, which starts a mutual collaboration aimed at protecting children on Italian soil both during the health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and after it can be considered contained and over.
The Protocol – which will last three years – was signed by the Secretary General of the CEI, HE Mons. Stefano Russo, and by the President of UNICEF Italy, Francesco Samengo.
See also: www.facebook.com/conformazioneepiscopaleitaliana
“It takes a village to educate a child,” Pope Francis has repeatedly recalled, “and the Church, in its community, looks with responsibility and concern to the young generations,” said Monsignor Russo. “There can be no path of authentic development,” he added, “that leaves children and adolescents behind in poverty, abandonment, hardship, and illness. Every child has the right to be accompanied in their growth with all possible support, even and especially after a global emergency of this type. The Protocol signed today with UNICEF contributes to building a future of care and safety for the little ones, which has its foundations in the terrain of prevention.”
“All children have the right to survive, grow and realize their potential to build a more child-friendly world,” said Samengo: “I am certain that, thanks to this Protocol with the CEI, we will be able to carry out concrete activities to address the health emergency and, above all, to prevent its serious secondary effects on the living conditions of many children and adolescents, in particular the consequences on the growth of poverty and inequalities, paying particular attention to the most vulnerable and invisible”.
These are the main objectives envisaged by the Protocol:
identify, promote and implement joint initiatives to support communities in Italy in the context of the health emergency and its secondary effects, such as, among others, the worsening of poverty, the worsening of social inequalities, the risk of dropping out of school or educational deficiencies, the risk of deficiencies in health protection, the risk of violence with particular attention to the rights and living conditions of girls and boys and adolescents, including minors with disabilities, those outside their families or refugee children and adolescents, asylum seekers and migrants, accompanied or not;
identify, develop and implement joint initiatives for the protection of minors in Italy and for the improvement of their living conditions and their full participation even after the emergency; encourage joint proximity initiatives aimed at the prevention, promotion and protection of minors residing in Italy and their families in conditions of social, economic and educational hardship.
See also: www.unicef.it
Article published on 2 July 2020 - 08:55
