The Refugee Children’s Project (RCP) is a relief organisation that was founded by a group of refugees in 2002. The organisation was originally formed to facilitate the integration of refugee children and refugee unaccompanied minors into South African society, the initial area of intervention being the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.

As an advocacy and relief organisation with more than eight years of experience in working with refugee children by supporting, protecting and promoting their social justice, human rights and their access to basic resources and services for vulnerable refugee women and children. Its specific focus on children and their primary caregivers distinguishes RCP from other organisations assisting, protecting and advocating on behalf of refugees and migrants.

RCP is independent of government and international institutions, and therefore offers an unbiased and impartial voice in advocating for its beneficiaries’ human rights, dignity and access to resources and services.

Since its inception in 2002, RCP has delivered its mission with measurable success, assisting over 3,500 children of 10 different nationalities. Through networking with other local, regional and international organisations dealing with refugees, RCP aims to provide direct and indirect services that facilitate the integration of refugee women and children into the host community. As well as providing various types of direct support to refugee women and children through its Women’s Intervention Program and Community Integration Project, RCP is currently implementing a variety of advocacy Programs through its Child Refugee and Migrant Policy (CRMP) initiative – including knowledge-promotion, awareness-raising and child-participation projects.

RCP collaborates within and outside the refugee and migrant sector, recognising the importance of the services delivered by other institutions to alleviate the plight of refugee women and children. The organisation’s current challenge is to mainstream refugee women’s and children’s issues into South Africa’s national human-rights agenda. Using funding earmarked for this purpose, RCP is integrating this priority into its current activities through the CRMP initiative around which all its existing activities are being reorganised.

Currently, RCP implements strategic projects to innovatively address gaps created during the process of integrating refugee women and children into local societies. Based on the principle of a human rights culture, RCP projects place specific emphasis on access to basic resources and services, employing an integrated service-delivery approach to alleviate the multiple problems faced by refugee women and children. In addition, RCP endeavours to ensure that the rights of refugee women and children of every category are realised in accordance with the relevant domestic, regional and international standards.

Since 2006, the scope of RCP intervention has been expanding from an exclusive focus on refugee children and refugee unaccompanied minors to include Programs that also target refugee women as children’s primary caregivers.

In addition to this change in RCP’s scope of work, its areas of intervention have expanded to include projects in three additional provinces (Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape).

Our Vision
Guided by domestic legislation and international protocols, and based on human rights principles and an integrated service-delivery approach, RCP endeavours:
- to be a world pioneer in service, education and advocacy interventions that care for refugee women and children and enhance their integration; and
- to see all refugee women and children are fully integrated in their host countries and are able to live same life style just as local communities.

Our Mission Statement:
- Working to integrate refugee women and children into local communities by removing some of the barriers to their local integration in order to facilitate them to access to basic services in their host countries;
- To achieve sustainable impacts on the lives of refugee and migrant children through dialogue, advocacy and training targeting their structural conditions, social position and access to children’s rights; and
- To develop avenues through which refugee children and youth may speak to one another, their communities, and those in power.

Strategic Objectives:
To achieve the above vision and mission, RCP aims to fulfil the following strategic objectives:
- To develop and implement innovative, cost-effective and integrated intervention programs that meet the needs of refugee women and children and facilitate their easy integration into local societies;
- To provide essential services critical to the successful integration of refugee women and children into local societies.
- To advocate for friendly domestic and international policies and legislation to meet the ever-changing needs of refugee women and children.
- To contribute to the effort to put refugee and migrant children on the public agenda in South Africa, and, to that end, exert pressure where the political will is absent and provide support where it exists.
- To create awareness on a range of issues those directly or indirectly affect refugees in general and refugee women and children in particular.
- To promote the optimum care and development of refugee and migrant women and children who find themselves in circumstances that place their physical, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual development at risk.

Our Values:

1. Focus on Rights: RCP believes that its strategic objectives can be achieved only through fulfilment of the social, economic, political, civil and cultural rights of all people.

2. Short-Term Intervention; Long-Term Change: RCP’s direct services are vital to remedy the specific problems faced by refugee women and children. But we recognise that there is a need for more sustainable support than the direct interventions RCP provides. From 2009 onward, RCP will be advancing the principle of long-term change through the CRMP project funded by Atlantic Philanthropies.

CRMP’s advocacy work stream will influence change in public policy at local, national and international levels in order to enhance and broaden the impact of RCP’s interventions, aiming for more sustainable impacts. Through strategically directed empowerment interventions, RCP will enable refugee women and children to benefit from policy changes, thus facilitating their access to basic necessities over the longer term.

3. Democracy, Governance and the Rule of Law: As well as creating opportunities for additional efforts to protect and advance refugee women’s and children’s economic, social, political and cultural rights, the advocacy Program offers avenues through which to promote the development of democracy, good governance and the rule of law in countries where RCP operates. It is our belief that improvement in these areas is crucial to the realisation of human rights for all people, and especially those of vulnerable groups.

Key Strategic Programs

RCP has three strategic Programs. In order to implement these Programs, RCP is guided by international legal instruments, of which the most important are:

- The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- The 1951 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Status of Refugees;
- The 1967 UN Protocol on the Status of Refugees;
- The 1969 OAU Convention on Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa;
- The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; and
- The 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

At country level, RCP focuses on relevant legislation and policies, such as the South African Refugees Act (No. 130 of 1998) and Refugee Regulations (Forms and Procedure) 2000, along with other immigration legislation and human rights frameworks.

Operates in: Johannesburg, Gauteng
Established in: 2002

Non-Profit Organisation Number: 029-872
Public Benefit Organisation Number:
Section 21 Company Number:
Trust Number:

Contact person: Abale
Phone: 011 333 9266
Fax: 011 333 9266
Email:

Website: www.rcpsa.org.za

Physical address: 111 Kerk Street, Meubelsentrum Building, 5th Floor, Johannesburg
Postal address: P.O. Box 15744, Doornfontein, 2028