INTER-AMERICAN CHILDREN'S INSTITUTE

TOPICS:

• Inter-American Information Program on Children and Family
• Inter-American Program for strengthening Child Welfare Systems (PROINFBI)
• Drug Addiction Prevention Program
• Legal Affairs Program
• Program on Children, the Family and Disability
• Civil Records and Vital Statistics Program

Created by the Fourth Pan American Child Congress in 1924 and founded in 1927, the purpose of the Inter-American Children's Institute is to further the study of problems relating to children and the family and to help solve them. It has its headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay, and its Director General is Eugenia Zamora Chavarría.

The Inter-American Children's Institute is implementing the Inter-American Plan of Action for Disadvantaged Children, which the General Assembly approved in 1989.

Inter-American Information Program on Children and Family.

This program is receiving technical and financial support from Canada and Spain and a special contribution from the United States, in addition to the funding it receives under the OAS Regular Fund. The Documentary Information Project (PID), has developed Latin America's largest Documentary Data System on Children and the Family. It has nine centers, one in each of the following countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay and Uruguay. It serves over 3,500 user institutions, providing 34,000 bibliographic references. Paraguay was the site of the fifth annual workshop held to evaluate the project. Eight countries are participating in the Child Data Systems Project (SIPI). Implementation of that project in Ecuador was completed and its activities will shortly get under way in Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador. The Statistical Data Project (PIE) has been put together; financing for its second phase has been obtained from the United States Government. The Children's Thesaurus Project, a new instrument for organizing, cataloguing, accessing and retrieving data, was put to a practical test before the thesaurus is translated into English and Portuguese. The Secondary Information Reference System Project is being established, which is a database on institutions and projects in the region which will be available in the nine focal centers. The Disability Data System (SINDI) has been designed, together with the Institute's program on disabled children, to be installed at nine specialized data subcenters.

Inter-American Program for Strengthening Child Welfare Systems (PROINFBI)

A research study done under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice and the National Children's Service of Chile was published. Two missions were conducted to evaluate training activities being conducted by state agencies in charge of children's affairs in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica, and information was obtained on training and social indicators that pertain to children. Two missions were conducted to Brazil to evaluate the research in progress there. Under the Regional Training Program in Children's Rights and Political Science for Children and Adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is the product of an agreement signed with UNICEF, a meeting was held with coordinators in Rio de Janeiro to evaluate the progress achieved.

Drug Addiction Prevention Program

In coordination with PAHO and CICAD, two workshops were held to train teachers of teachers in participatory education to prevent drug abuse and promote health among adolescents. These workshops took place in Uruguay and Managua, Nicaragua. Cochabamba, Bolivia, was the site of the Second Pilot Meeting on Preventing Alcohol and Drug Abuse for Indigenous Farm Youth and Parents. In Uruguay, workshops on Awareness of and Introduction to Drug Abuse Prevention were held for teachers and a multidisciplinary team from the Secondary Education Board. The Institute participated in the Meeting of the Advisory Group on Participatory Methods for Working with Adolescents, organized by PAHO and held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the Institute shared its experience. It also participated in the International Seminar on Drug Addiction Prevention, in Medellín, Colombia, where a paper was introduced on the regional situation and on the use of alcohol and drugs among adolescents.

Legal Affairs Program

The Meeting of Experts in Preparation for CIDIP-V approved the Convention on the International Traffic in Minors and its Final Report was prepared according to guidelines that emerged from that meeting. Advisory assistance was provided to Honduras for the Minors Code project, which concerns the age at which someone can be held criminally liable. The program participated in the following meetings: the National Congress on Down Syndrome, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Fourteenth Congress of the International Association of Minors and Family Magistrates, Bremen, Germany; Southern Tier Meeting on the Mental Health and Psychosocial Development of Children, Solís, Uruguay; the Eighth World Congress on Family Law, Caracas, Venezuela; the Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Adoption, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Workshops on Family Law, Montevideo, Uruguay; and the Colloquium on International Adoption, Paris, France.

Program on Children, the Family and Disability

Under the Project "Growing Together in Community Life: a New Model for Developing Policies for the Disabled", prepared in conjunction with the Canadian Association for Community Life and the Inter-American Federation of the International Union of Societies for Mental Health, the research, information and training modules that will be used to conduct four subregional seminars were completed. Working with the Beach Center of the University of Kansas in the United States, the 1995 contest for the "Eloísa Lorenzo" Inter-American Prize is being announced, which is for research in the social sciences, on an issue that concerns persons with disabilities and their families.

Civil Records and Vital Statistics Program

The Institute gave the OAS General Secretariat technical support in the cooperative project being conducted in Paraguay on this subject, with the IDB's support. The Institute was instrumental in designing the project, including its methods and strategies of execution. At PAHO's request, the Institute conducted an initial technical mission to Belize, whose Government has decided to begin the process of organizing a Vital Records Office.

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