Grant by USAID to Instituto Nacional del Nino y la Familia for improved quality of life for Ecuadorean children project

Specifically, the project will develop and enhance INNFA"s ability to influence government policy, facilitate inter-institutional collaboration, and mobilize grassroots support for a network of local child welfare programs. INNFA"s internal management will be strengthened, partially through new data processing systems, and the project will sponsor research to identify those segments of the child population most at risk (e.g., children of working mothers, children from broken homes, child laborers, abandoned or handicapped children, and children with inadequate family influence or who have been exposed to an inappropriate environment). Other studies will examine formal and nonconventional institutional child care models and undertake comprehensive surveys of child care resources in Ecuador"s public and private sectors. This work will allow INNFA to create a permanent system for defending children at risk (including, e.g., advocacy activities and the establishment of monitoring committees at neighborhood and trade union levels); redefine its structural relationship with its 52 branch offices and its volunteer groups, in order to strengthen local capacities to develop child welfare programs (branch offices will prepare annual activity plans with the assistance of the INNFA head office); serve as a catalytic agent in helping other public and private agencies to develop and coordinate child welfare activities; and develop a special unit to provide training and TA to personnel providing child welfare services. Over the course of the project, INNFA will add 800 new volunteers (for a total of 1,000) and 10 new branch offices, and will serve as a catalyst for at least 10 new pilot projects by other agencies. By the end of the project, about 12,000 children will be covered (vs. 3,900 currently) by programs directly administered by INNFA, and 100,000 more by programs in which INNFA is indirectly involved.