Stadtlandkind and Save the Children: For refugee children in Switzerland!

Background

Stadtlandkind has been supporting the child rights organisation Save the Children since 2018. Together among other things, we work for refugee children in Switzerland. And the recently published asylum figures show: The proportion of asylum applications by children in Switzerland has also increased in the past year: in 2019, 45% of asylum applications came from minors (in 2018 it was only 41%). More than 60% of these children were under the age of six.

Many of them have seen terrible things in their country of origin or while fleeing, or have themselves been victims of violence, abuse and neglect. In order to come to terms with their traumatic experiences, affected children and young people need child-centred care and support services as soon as possible. This is still lacking in most Swiss asylum centres.

Child and youth friendly rooms

Save the Children has therefore launched the pilot project "Child-friendly rooms in Swiss asylum accommodation centres" in 2016. Child-friendly rooms are an internationally applied programme for the professional support and protection of children and under-age youths living in shared accommodation during and after crisis situations. Like, for example, in asylum shelters in Switzerland.

In recent years, child-friendly rooms have been set up in three asylum centres, each of which is supervised for one year by Save the Children staff. A safe retreat, age-appropriate activities, development-promoting suggestions and clear structures allowed the children to regain a bit of normality and security. Save the Children successfully completed the pilot project in 2018. A total of more than 1,000 refugee girls and boys were reached, who were able to benefit from age-appropriate professional care services up to five days a week. The employees of the operating organisations were trained by Save the Children in the psychosocial care of children and in child protection, so that they have been able to continue the programme on their own since the project was handed over.

Since 2019, child-friendly rooms and activities have been compulsory for every asylum centre at federal level, also thanks to the successful Save the Children pilot project. This is a huge step - but it does not mean the end of Save the Children's work. Today, Save the Children offers specialist advice, training and tools for authorities, partner organisations and carers in asylum centres - not only at federal level. For in many communities and cantons where child-friendly accommodation is not prescribed, there is still an urgent need for improvement in the support of vulnerable children. Save the Children provides advice to asylum centres on how to design child-friendly rooms, implement child-friendly activities and develop measures to ensure child protection. Find out more about Save the Children's work in Switzerland here.

It is enormously gratifying for us to be able to use our partnership to help, among other things, provide refugee children in Switzerland with the support they urgently need, and we look forward to the joint activities in 2020. More about this soon.