Strategic Plan For NGO: Protecting Child Rights In UAE (Essay).

Situation Faced by Organization

Discuss about the Strategic Plan for Non Governmental Organization.

This report describes the strategic plan for an organization which is focused on child rights and welfare of children. People basically live in a world having no boundaries. There are some responsibilities of every person towards the society and community. There are some issues in the society of every country. Those are issues of class and ethnicity, inequality, geography and many other issues. In all the issues, there is one more issue i.e. children rights. Child and their right protection must be a priority for the society. This report provides the strategic plan for a new nongovernmental organization which is working in the United Arab Emirates. The report proposes the concept of new organization which will protect the rights of children in the society (Courtney, 2002).

Children are basically experience neglect, violence, abuse, and exploitation in most of the areas in the society. There are millions of children who are affected and even more are at risk. So, child and their rights protection must be the key priority for the society and its people. The proposed organization will work as the child protector in the community of Dubai. The organization will focus in the partnership with the other organizations and government, child-led initiatives, and people to stop the violence against children. It is important for the children to protect them from abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation so that they can enjoy their rights to development, participants and survival in the society. There are many children who drop out of school due to safety and protection issues. Failure in protecting children rights has negative impact on the children that continue in their adult life.  It is essential to save their rights for making them future citizens of the country. The name of nongovernmental organization will be ‘Smile Foundation’ which will spread happiness on the faces of children (Ritchie & Weinberg, 2000).

It is stated that the organization is going to start work in the United Arab Emirates. Before starting, it is important t for the organization to analyze the problems related to the children in the country. The children face discrimination in the country. Non-citizen children in the country have limited access to the basic rights. There is the issue of education and child trafficking and force labor is the main and big issue in the country. Children are used to be kidnapped and sold at the age of 4 or 5 years. Further, there is the issue of child abuse. Child marriage is still widespread in the UAE. According to one report of UNICEF, it is estimated that around 55% of women younger than 20 years are already married in the country. So, the priority areas for organization are:

• Physical and humiliating punishment,
• Children and work,
• Children protection in emergencies, and
• Children without appropriate care (UNICEF, 2014).

Publics and Target People

Each and Every child deserves a life without neglect, violence, abuse and exploitation. This can be happen when a child grows up in the safe family. Abuse and valance are the serious issues that occur in all parts of the world. Violence against children includes unsafe migration, child trafficking, child abusive images, and climate related disasters. So, the organization will define the appropriate strategies to save the rights of the children. These are the issues by which the organization has to deal in the country (Lewis, 2007).

The organization wants to reach out as many helpless children and orphans as much as possible. The organization will mainly focus on the rights and well-being of the children in the United Arab Emirates.  The children who have the age of zero to 18 will be targeted by the organization. In the country, most of the children have age of 12 and above of this age, children are to be considered as young people rather than children. So, organization will focus on the rights and well-being of children and young people. Along with this, the member of the organization will work with young people over 18 as they need particular care such as children having disabilities. The organization will advocate for more integrated child and youth policies to make sure for smooth move into maturity (Andreasen & Kotler, 2003).

Organization understands the right of education for children. Organization believes in the education for the full development of the children in terms of personality, talent, sense of dignity and capacity. For this, the organization will promote education inclusive education to minimize the discrimination and allow each boy and girl to get basic education. This education will be child-centered and will be based on motivation, characteristics, dream, experience and realities of children. This goal has further three objectives:

• Right to education- The aim is creating important and necessary conditions to provide basic education to all the children in the country without any kind of differentiation by the organization.
• Right in education- The aim of organization is to implement the relevant, important and creative learning and teaching process which will be student centered to help the children in developing their talent, personality and capacities for the future.
• Right through education- Organization has aim to promote critical, inclusive and participatory education to the children in Dubai which will respect to human rights and will teach to engage with the society.

As the organization is working for the children, the goal of the organization is to protect them from any violation. Organization understands the right to protection so; organization will try to provide healthy environment to the children that will be free of any kind of discrimination, exploitation, and degrading punishment. Further objectives under this goal are:

• Promote the family and society environment for children which will be free of violence, negligence, abuse and mistreatment,
• Reduction of child labor and abolition which are the cause of child exploitation by increasing the number of children for the education system, and
• Protection of children in the country from the natural disasters by providing them community residences and resilience (Muturia & Oeba, 2012).

There is the need of good governance which will involve active and efficient participation of children. There is the requirement of the process which will provide the effective governance to the children in the country to promote their rights. The objectives under this are:

• Organization will fulfill its duties by establishing the effective structure, laws and policies which will focus on child rights. For this, organization will work with the local government to develop the child right strategies,
• The aim is to ensure effective role of community and civil society to build and monitor the strategies to promote and defend the child rights, and
• Children are right holder for organization will participate actively in the society to express their ideas and viewpoints, and will claim their rights related to them.

Goals and Objectives

After setting the goals and objectives, it is the time to implement the strategies and actions to save the child rights. First goal of the organization is to provide education to the children. To achieve this goal:

• Organization will identify the main cause for children who are not getting the opportunities of the education system i.e. health, family, community or poverty etc.
• Organization will provide safe, healthy and proactive educational environment to the children, and
• Will cooperate and partnership with the various schools in UAE.

For achieving second goal i.e. protection, the strategies of organization will:

• Promoting birth registration system and fighting against the negligence for the survival of the children,
• Fighting against the worst form of child labor, and
• Developing and implementing the disaster risk-management plan to fulfill the specific needs of children (Kameri-Mbote, 2008).

For achieving third goal i.e. governance, the strategies and actions will be:

• Supporting the designs of all local and national strategies which have the agenda of child development,
• Collaborating with teachers, parents and society as the active agent to change their attitude towards children rights and
• Supporting the effective participation of children in decision making with the places and communities (Bennett & Sargeant, 2005).

The aim of the ‘Smile Foundation’ is that the child rights for every child must be protected. The organization will strengthen the community based child protection system and will work with the other partners i.e. government and other social actors in community. The slogan for the organization will match its aim. The slogan will be “Rights for children, Rights for future.”

The mission of the organization will be to improve the lives of children by the better realization of their human rights in society. For this part, organization will work to ensure that children in Dubai freely enjoy their rights and live their life in which they will free from discrimination, their best interest will always be taken into account, and they will get opportunities to maximize and improve their development etc.

The vision of the organization will be for all the children to understand their rights in Dubai. The aim of organization is to provide the experience to the children about their rights in every day of their lives.

To create awareness among the community of the country regarding children rights and to provide effective education to the children, organization will use the various public relations tools in the strategic plans (Basil, 2011). Those public relations tools are:

Online media will be used to create awareness about the child issues in the society. In present time, online and social media is the most effective tool to make the people aware about any issue. In the online media, social medial tools will be used by the organization. social media tools will include YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter which will be used to send the message regarding child issues and their protections. Social media will be effective to make the people creative and aware (Macedo & Pinho, 2006).

Direct mailing is the part of online media which will also be used by the organization. The messages and mails related to child education, child protection, care and child trafficking will be send so that the people in the society will know this face of human beings. This will be two ways communication method by which people will be able to share their viewpoints and thoughts for protecting the child rights (Liao, Foreman & Sargeant, 2001).

Actions and Strategies

Due to various newspapers and magazines organization will be able to show the real life of needed children and their conditions in the society. Organization can show this by pictures and images and ask the people for help the needed people.

Although, this is the traditional method but it is considered as the most effective communication method. This method is expensive but still it will be used to show the issues of the child by various short films and news. This communication tool will be helpful for the organization to reach the people and make them aware for their bright society (Williamson, 2009).

Conclusion

Children are the important contribution of the society. By focusing on the child issues in Dubai, there is the need of effective nongovernmental organization in the country which will work for the child rights and protections. From the above analysis, it has observed that if the ‘Smile Foundation’ will work properly with the proposed strategic plan then the society will be free from the serious child issues. The goals and objectives are the organizations are clear i.e. education, protection and governance.  By these objectives, organization will be able to make the discrimination free environment for the children of the country. It is not only important to create strategic plan but also important to evaluate and monitor it time to time. The organization will monitor the plan by forming a review committee and the evaluation will be done on three times i.e. initial evaluation, mid-term evaluation and final evaluation for the effective strategic plan to protect the child’s rights.

References

Andreasen, A.R. & Kotler, P., (2003). Strategic Marketing for Non-profit Organizations.  NJ: Prentice-Hall

Basil, M., (2011). Marketing and social enterprises: implications for social marketing: Journal of Social Marketing. 5(4), pp.285 – 306

Bennett, R. & Sargeant A., (2005). The non-profit marketing landscape: guest editors’ introduction to a special section: Journal of Business research. 58. 797-805.

Courtney, R. (2002). Strategic Management for Voluntary and Non-profit Organisations.  UK: Routledge

Kameri-Mbote, P. (2008). Strategic planning and implementation of public involvement in environmental decision: Environmental Law Research Centre Working. Nairobi

Lewis, D. (2007). The management of non-governmental development organizations. London: Routledge Publications

Liao, M., Foreman, S. & Sargeant, A., (2001). Market versus societal orientation in the non-profit context:  International Journal of Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Marketing. 6(3).  pp. 254–268.

Macedo, I.M. & Pinho, J.C., (2006). The relationship between resource dependence and market orientation:  The specific case of non profit organisations’, European Journal of Marketing. 40(5/6). pp. 533–553.

Muturia, J. M. & Oeba, L. K., (2012). Strategic planning, planning outcomes and

organizational performance. University of Nairobi

Ritchie, R.J.B. & Weinberg C. B., (2000). A typology of nonprofit competition: Insights for social marketers. Social Marketing Quarterly.  6(3). 64-71.

UNICEF, (2014). Ending Violence against children. Retrieved on 17^th April 2017 from https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Ending_Violence_Against_Children_Six_strategies_for_action_EN_2_Sept_2014.pdf

Williamson, D., (2009). Marketing & Communications in Non-profit Organizations. Centre for Public and Non-profit Leadership. Georgetown University.