The Future of Orphans and Vulnerable Children: An Interrogation of Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms in Eldoret Uasin Gishu County-Kenya

The vulnerability of children in most Kenyan communities is evident. Its manifestation in different spheres is an implication of widespread disorders in the society such as poverty, family breakdown, wars, displacement, sexual exploitation, HIV/AIDS among others. The categories of children exposed to these vulnerabilities include street children, abandoned, abused, neglected and those exploited hence posing challenges to their survival and development. This has led to development of several interventions to address child protection concerns at national and local level. One of these interventions is the adoption of community based child protection mechanisms. Academic evidences from various studies done on child protection in other countries in Africa and particularly Kenya have shown how adoption of these mechanisms can effectively address child protection issues. This paper is an upshot of the exploratory studies done by the authors and other researchers and particularly interrogates the disconnect that exist between the local and national child protection mechanisms that threaten the future of vulnerable children. The paper argues that not much has been done to strengthen community child protection mechanisms, which play the role of prevention and coordination of resources at the community level in addressing child protection issues. Moreover, interventions employed by various stakeholders to establish and/or strengthen child protection systems, have achieved little and are not sustainable without full support from the central government. Further, the interventions have been blamed on employing approaches that are not reflective of the needs of children hence fail to make impact. `The paper concludes that community based child protection structures are fundamental instruments in prevention of children vulnerabilities and create a link between children, community and national structures. The paper recommends that for community based child protection structures to be effective, a creation of collaborative networks and coordination of these mechanisms in addressing children vulnerabilities is paramount.