What is the mission of ICRI?

 

The International Child Resource Institute (ICRI) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) international non-profit organization committed to improving the lives of children around the world enabling them to survive and to succeed. Since 1981, ICRI has been providing services for families and children around the world.  ICRI makes a difference by providing technical assistance and consultation and conducting projects with a wide variety of national and international partner organizations, businesses, governments, non-profits and others interested in such children’s issues as child care, child abuse prevention, child survival, maternal and child health, placement alternatives for abandoned and traumatized children and promotion of children’s rights. As an international NGO with a long history of successfully implemented international projects, ICRI has worked on the ground to establish and improve over 300 child-related programs in more than 50 countries since 1981.  ICRI has made a positive difference in the lives of children and families by providing technical assistance and consultation and conducting projects with a wide variety of national and international partner organizations, businesses, governments, non-profits and others interested in such children’s issues as child care, child abuse prevention, child survival, maternal and child health, placement alternatives for abandoned and traumatized children and promotion of children’s rights.

 

Using an extensive information base of model national and international children’s programs, ICRI is able to bring the best from around the world to each consultation or project. The most up-to-date and appropriate data regarding programs, needs assessments, curricula, program implementation and evaluation, training, cost effectiveness, and more is incorporated into each contract or project. ICRI has offices or collaborates with organizations around the world to provide services to children and families and has field representatives in over 52 countries. ICRI utilizes a distinguished international advisory board that consists of such individuals as Dr. Jane Goodall and other experts in the international arena who have provided critical support and expertise on early childhood care and youth development.  ICRI has in the last 21 years received diversified funding from foundations, the U.S. federal government and local government agencies, non-U.S. governments including Malaysia, Singapore, and Sweden, and individual donors. The Ford Foundation, WHO, UNICEF, Packard Foundation, and USAID are some of the organizations that have supported the work of ICRI in the U.S. and around the globe.

 

What kind of projects does ICRI lead?

 

ICRI projects include work in Sudan, Ghana, Eritrea, Chile, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.  Each project has contributed to ICRI’s rich knowledge and understanding of successfully working in vastly different cultures and circumstances around the globe.

 

In Sudan, ICRI led the Sudanese Education Project in collaboration with UNICEF/Operation Lifeline Sudan and Mundri Relief and Development Association.  ICRI trained over 1000 teachers and supplied educational materials in Southern Sudan where the primary education system had been seriously disrupted by 15 years of war. The newly trained teachers reopened schools serving more than 20,000 children.

 

ICRI’s excellent reputation for collaboration and working with orphaned and displaced children lead to the ICRI Project for Children in Former Yugoslavia.  There ICRI strengthened local organizations by developing infrastructure and local partnerships to implement programs such as crisis intervention for teenagers, peer support, food supplies for infants, early childhood care and education, and psycho-social support of traumatized children.

 

In Eritrea, ICRI developed the Eritrean Unaccompanied Children's Project (EUCP) to create a good environment for the orphans by reunifying them with their close relatives and empowering the host families by the provision of economic support. The ultimate goal of the project was to improve the well being of orphaned children. The project took advantage of the deep-rooted kinship system that exists in Eritrea's extended family network. Uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents became social safety nets for orphans despite the external threats such as wars, famine and poverty. More than 800 children were placed into their relatives' homes. Those families received economic support, which increased their income and food security, thus, enabling them to care for the newly adopted children.

 

The Ghana Child Survival and Empowerment Project (CSEP) empowers children to become active equal members of Ghanian civil society using health improvement and education and by improving their economic and social conditions. The project seeks to create a sense of independence and initiative for children and youth to grow into healthy adulthood as productive members of Ghanian society. The CSEP program in the Upper Volta region provides clothing, shelter, and individually conceived development plans for children in rural villages who are orphaned or displaced, while the CSEP program in Accra seeks to train young girls living in the slums of Accra so that they can become self-sufficient. The ICRI Ghana House provides a safe place where the young girls can converge for a shower, a hot meal, often the only meal they have and where their children receive care in a healthy and safe environment.

 

Over the past three years ICRI has undertaken the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse in Chile Project.  In 2000, the Chile Ministry of Justice, an agency under the Servicio Nacional de Menores (SENAME) asked ICRI to train the 150 staff of their 18 Treatment Centers throughout Chile's 12 regions, on in-depth forensic evaluation and play and expressive therapies for sexually abused children. SENAME's evaluations of each participant suggested that they were very pleased and satisfied with the course content, relevance and delivery.