An Assessment of the Impacts of Institutional Intervention on the Livelihood of Orphan and Vulnerable Children: The Case of ECC-SDCOH, Dire Dawa Administration, Ethiopian (original) (raw)

2017, Humanities and Social Sciences

In line with the government's poverty reduction strategy program, Ethiopian Catholic Church (ECC) Social Rehabilitation Strategy and ECC-Social and Development Coordinating Office of Harar (ECC-SDCOH), in partnership with Secours Catholique/Caritas France and DKA Austria, has implemented community Based Orphan and Vulnerable Children Prevention and Rehabilitation Projects in Kebele 02, Kebele 06 and Kebele 04 of Dire dawa administration with the objective to improve the social, economic and psychological situation of Orphan and Vulnerable Children living in the community with special emphasis to children of the street. This particular study has been conducted with the objective to investigate and analyze the impacts of social and capacity building service provision as well as project implementation experiences focusing on the life and livelihood (social, economic and psychological situation) of Orphan and Vulnerable Children living in the community with special emphasis to children of the street in order to identify, value and document success and failure stories thereby to scale up and better design future intervention; implementation strategies and service provision approach. In view of this, the study has purposefully selected sample group and conducted intensive discussion with targeted OVC; parents/guardians of targeted OVC; Community based organization (CBOs); governmental and non-governmental organizations, private firm owners, community representatives, and school communities with the view to generate primary information about the project and its impacts on the beneficiaries. Besides, the project has analyzed secondary documents such as project proposal, project terminal report, and other associated documents. The information gathered from the aforementioned sources has revealed that the project has significantly improved the social, economic and psychological situation of targeted Orphan and Vulnerable Children and their families. However, the study has also identified and documented certain limitation in the process of project implementation and management. In conclusion, this particular study has recommended that the work of ECC-SDCOH can be used as a model and hence be reproducible in future interventions for OVC in different localities.