Hungary Mario is on the move!
Project : MARIO 29 Mar 2009
Budapest, Hungary: Who is Mario? Mario is at first a joint action against child exploitation in Europe. Mario is an alliance of four child rights NGOs already implementing for years child protection projects in the European context. The partners of this 3-year project are ECPAT Nederland (and its partner in Bulgaria: Neglected Children Society), Nobody’s Children Foundation in Poland, Save the Children in Albania and Terre des hommes – Child Relief in Albania, Kosovo and Hungary.
The first concrete step of Mario was made this week in Budapest with the active participation of all partners to the “kick off” meeting. They agreed all together on the operational plan for the first year of the project, and the partners discussed on the development of a common monitoring and evaluation system. The main orientation of this innovative regional initiative is the reinforcement of national advocacy coalitions targeting child exploitation and trafficking, and the exchange of expertise for a combined European advocacy strategy.
At the national level, the partners gathered in Mario initiative will promote the coordination between NGOs and State actors for the identification and referral mechanism of children at risk or victims of exploitation and trafficking. At the transnational level, the aim of the project is develop effective and rapid response to changing trends of child exploitation and trafficking in Europe.
The four leading NGOs in the field of child protection and their networks will coordinate their activities and exchange information on a regular basis. For the project partners, the protection standards and rights of children at risk or victims of exploitation and trafficking should be promoted at national and regional level.
The geographic coverage of Mario is quite large. At the national level, direct activities will be implemented in Albania, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and Poland. At the transnational level, several ways of cooperation with actors in charge of service delivery to migrant children are envisaged in Spain and Italy (destination for children from South Eastern Europe), in the Netherlands (destination for children from Bulgaria), in Hungary (as transit country), in Greece and Macedonia (destination for children from Kosovo and Albania), and in Belarus and Ukraine (countries of origin for children on the move to Poland).
Mario project is based on nearly two years of common planning among project partners. In this way, project partners could insure that the necessity of these interventions are justified, previously assessed, tailor-made and planned. In addition, the members of this initiative possess widely recognised experience, routine and expertise in respective parts of the planned activities, ensuring secure and successful implementation of the project. For instance Save the Children in Albania and ECPAT strengths would be the advocacy and research component of the project, the ECPAT network has vast experience in providing multi-stakeholder trainings, Tdh and NCF could contribute with specific expertise either on transnational investigation, or direct service provision to children at risk or victims of exploitation and campaigning.
