E Kazakhstan and UNICEF to boost cooperation to improve state of children

During a meeting on 9 April in Ust-Kamenogorsk with the representatives of the East Kazakhstan Regional Akimat, departments of health, education, emergency situations, child right protection, the Regional Healthy Life Style Centre, Youth Friendly Services as well as social workers, psychologists and district and rural akims, UNICEF officials talked about the joint achievements in 2011 and discussed plans for further interventions for 2012, the press release of the UNICEF Office in Kazakhstan reads.

UNICEF is collaborating with the Akimat of East Kazakhstan region in the following areas: Disaster Risk Reduction in education, introduction of the Child Friendly Initiative, the improvement of Mother and Child Health, prevention of suicide among adolescents and youth, modeling of integrated child protection system, prevention of violence against children, justice for children (juvenile justice), creation of the system for the monitoring of the well-being of children, as well as capacity building of the local media and Communication for Development.

East Kazakhstan region is prone to different kinds of natural disasters, which is why the Disaster Risk Reduction is being introduced in three pilot schools and two kindergartens there and it is aimed at enhancing knowledge and skills of teachers and children on how to behave before, during and after a natural disaster.

Ust-Kamenogorsk and Semey cities joined the CFC Initiatives, and UNICEF is currently developing criteria of city friendliness in order to strategize the municipal authorities' efforts to improve the state of children through an intersectoral approach to solving child rights issues. CFC is an umbrella over different departments, state bodies and authorities responsible for children, and they have to coordinate their efforts to create best conditions for the lives and development of children.

UNICEF conducted training for specialists of three maternities in Semey and developed a plan of action to improve the quality of perinatal care in order to reduce mortality and introduce effective perinatal care. UNICEF will continue training medical workers at PHC level in order to prevent child abandonment and to identify special needs of children at early age.

Also, UNICEF is going to conduct studies of reasons for autodestructive behaviour and suicides among youth and adolescents and in parallel introduce suicide prevention programme, engaging and bringing international experts on suicidology to the region.