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Netwerkmiddag - Moving Forward: betere zorg, een betere toekomst

4 oktober 2013

Elize Coetzee - Resource Development Director at Give a Child a Family, South Africa

After a career in nursing and various senior management positions in Sales and Marketing, Elize joined Give a Child a Family (GCF) in Margate, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa in 2004. She became Director in 2006 to oversee programmes for children in temporary safe care (childcare, therapy and counselling, health, education, facility management, human resources, finance and administration and funding) and their transition into family-based care (reintegration with own families and foster care). In the 2009 “First International Conference on Family-based care for African Children”, she served on the planning and fundraising committee and was one of the speakers delivering an opening address.

Besides her work for GCF, she has been in other ways active in the field of alternative care for children. Among others she was involved as a consultant to UNICEF and the Namibian Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare on the Standards and Guidelines for Foster Care in Namibia including a toolkit for support groups for foster families and as a consultant to an NGO in Namibia on governance, management systems and a careleavers programme. She is a trust member of the Summerlee Trust Foundation focussing on the care and protection of children with disabilities in communities and she is a cross-cultural adoption mother.

Over the past 9 years she has partnered with various Dutch organisations and networks including Better Care Network (networking partner), Wilde Ganzen (education for Orphans and Vulnerable Children) Kinderpostzegels (roll out of parenting skills program to 20 Community-Based Organisations in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa) and Wereldkinderen (family strengthening and informal front line child protection).

Stephen Ucembe - founder of the Kenya Society of Careleavers and social worker with HIAS Refugee Trust of Kenya

Stephen Ucembe grew up as an orphan in an institution in Kenya. He is passionate about serving children and young people without parental care. He holds a BA in Social Work, and a Masters of Arts in Child Development.

Currently Stephen is a Social Worker/Counsellor with HIAS Refugee Trust of Kenya. In 2009, he started an organization called Kenya Network of Careleavers, currently known as Kenya Society of Careleavers. The organisation’s mission is to improve the wellbeing/welfare of young people who grew up in institutional care in Kenya; helping young people cope socially, emotionally and psychologically in the society. Stephen has been involved in advocacy internationally and nationally on matters of children without parental care. In addition, Stephen is a member of the Better Care Network International advisory team.