Safeguarding
Protecting children comes before everything else.
Genette Foundation is a child- and youth-centred institution. Safeguarding is not one programme among many; it is the precondition for every programme. As an institution at its Establishment Phase, the Foundation is building its safeguarding system deliberately, and will not scale child-facing services faster than its safeguarding capacity can support them.
The principle
Safeguarding is the institutional precondition for everything else.
Every Foundation function either directly involves children and young people, or shapes the environment around children, families, learners, youth and vulnerable communities. Every Foundation site is, or will be, a place where children are protected, educated, supported or trained.
Safeguarding is therefore not treated as a policy document filed for donor compliance. It is being built as a daily operating discipline across recruitment, staff conduct, child intake, case management, family contact, education, youth programming, transport, digital systems, visitors, contractors, complaints and Board oversight. The Foundation's credibility depends on protecting people before expanding programmes.
This produces one governing rule that shapes the entire build sequence: the Foundation will not scale child-facing services faster than its safeguarding capacity can support.
The standard
Anchored in Tanzanian law and informed by international safeguarding standards.
The Suite is anchored in Tanzanian law, including the Law of the Child Act 2009 and the Personal Data Protection Act 2022. Its international framework draws on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, IASC PSEA principles, Keeping Children Safe international standards and the Core Humanitarian Standard.
In strengthening Version 1.1, the Foundation also drew on safeguarding guidance from Bond and Thirtyone:eight as good-practice references. They complement, rather than replace, the Foundation’s Tanzanian legal obligations and international safeguarding framework, and their use does not imply endorsement or certification.
STATED HONESTLY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT PHASE
What the standard means, and what it does not yet claim.
The Safeguarding Policy Suite is adopted and in force. Version 1.1 was approved on 19 June 2026. The executed clean copy was signed and became effective on 2 September 2026. The Foundation does not claim certification it has not been assessed for or granted, and operational safeguarding capacity is still being built before child-facing services scale.
Children's case records are sensitive data. The Foundation's case-management discipline is CPIMS+-informed, with role-based, documented and secure access limited to authorised personnel, under the Personal Data Protection Act 2022.
Architecture
The safeguarding architecture.
The Suite below is in force. Oversight will pass to the Board's Safeguarding and Child Protection Committee once that committee is formally constituted.
In force, or currently assigned
- Board oversight during the Establishment Phase
- Designated Safeguarding Lead function, assigned to the Project Director
- Deputy Safeguarding Lead function, assigned to the Strategic Director
- Safeguarding Policy Suite and Code of Conduct for staff, volunteers, consultants, contractors and visitors
- PSEAH Framework
- Safer Recruitment and Screening Procedure
- Safeguarding Reporting and Case Handling Procedure
- CPIMS+-informed case-management and information-governance discipline
Being established before scale
- Safeguarding and Child Protection Committee
- Safeguarding focal points across child- and youth-facing functions
- Child-friendly and community reporting channels
- Whistleblowing and anti-retaliation mechanism
- Full training cycle: induction, annual refresher and role-specific
- External safeguarding advice and assurance
Care model
A family-strengthening model, not a legacy orphanage.
The Child Safe Zone is designed as a mixed-care and family-strengthening model, in line with the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, not a legacy orphanage model.
The model is built around gatekeeping at intake, family preservation, kinship support, day support, transitional residential care only where necessary, managed reintegration, aftercare and psychosocial support. Decisions begin from a single question: whether residential care is the appropriate response, or whether family-strengthening, kinship support or a community-based response serves the child better.
Every child formally enrolled in the Foundation's child-protection case-management pathway is intended to have a documented case record, care plan, review schedule and transition pathway, held within the CPIMS+-informed case-management discipline under documented information-governance and access controls.
Photo and child protection
How children are represented.
PHOTO AND CHILD PROTECTION POLICY · BEING BUILT
Dignity first, consent always, no identifying risk.
The Foundation is building a Photo and Child Protection Policy governing how children are represented in any Foundation communication, publication or fundraising material. The principles being built into it are:
Informed and documented consent from a parent or guardian, together with the child's own age-appropriate assent, before any image of a child is captured or used; representation that protects a child's dignity and never sexualises, demeans or reduces a child to a fundraising object; no publication of information that could identify or locate an individual child in a way that creates risk; the right to withdraw consent at any time; and stricter controls again for any child within the child protection pathway.
Until the policy is Board-approved, the Foundation applies these principles as working discipline and limits the public use of identifiable images of children.
Raise a safeguarding concern.
Anyone with a safeguarding concern relating to the Foundation, its staff, volunteers, or anyone acting under its authority can write directly to the Foundation's leadership. Formal child-friendly complaints channels, a whistleblowing and anti-retaliation mechanism, and PSEAH reporting protocols are being established. The full Safeguarding Policy Suite is shared with serious partners during diligence under appropriate confidentiality controls.