The public has been urged to adopt vulnerable children in families to ensure they are protected against abuse.

Dr Claudine Uwera Kanyamanza, the executive secretary of the National Children’s Commission (NCC), made the call during an international dialogue on kinship care and child protection.

This week’s event was co-hosted by Uyisenga n’Imanzi, a local organisation that supports children affected by the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and Family for Every Child, an alliance of local civil society organisations that work together to improve the lives of vulnerable children.

The event,  organised under the theme "Caring our children: an international  dialogue on kinship care and child protection systems”, aimed at discussing  the  essential role grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives play in caring for vulnerable children in Rwanda and beyond.

"Everyone should bear in mind that those vulnerable children need our support to grow both mentally and physically in a healthy way. We, therefore, need to adopt them in our families and care for them as we do for our own children to ensure they are protected from rights violations and abuse,” Dr Kanyamanza said.

"The government has come up with initiatives like Tubarerere mu muryango to encourage people to adopt children in their families but we still have over 1400 children that are still in orphanages. It is necessary for us to keep in mind that these children need to be brought up in families to ensure they are protected,” she explained.

According to figures from the National Children Commission, 1892 children out of 3323 registered in 2012 have since been reintegrated in families where 60 per cent of them were reintegrated in their families or families of relatives, while the rest were adopted.

Chaste Uwihoreye, the country director for Uyisenga n’Imanzi, said caring for vulnerable children is preparing a bright future.

He said, "When we bring those children to our families, we build them mentally and physically, and empower them. Yet, if we don’t care for them, we are keeping them in despair which can lead them to venture into unlawful practices. For instance, if we do not care for them they could be engaged in drug abuse which could affect public order. There is, therefore, need for us to care for them to ensure they are not left behind in the development agenda.”

Kinship care is family based care within the child’s extended family or within close friends of the family known to the child, whether formal or informal in nature.

It is both a form of permanent family based care and a temporally alternative care, according to the United Nations.

Claudia Cabral, the director of Terra Dos Homens, A Brazil-based organisation caring for vulnerable children said caring for vulnerable children, should matter to everyone.

NCC extended the deadline to have all children in orphanages join foster families to 2016.

 The decission to phase out all orphanages in the country was one of the recommendations from the annual 7th National Children’s Summit held in Kigali in 2011; its implementation started the same year and was supposed to be completed by the end of 2014.