Ace Africa counsellors provide a lifeline of support to children and their families in remote and rural areas of Arusha, Tanzania, where Ace implements its Community Development Programme. Children and their families have a harsh environment in which to develop, with 71% of households living below the poverty line and 41% living in absolute poverty. Knowledge about child rights is woefully lacking and 30% of children are involved in some form of manual or casual labour.

Ace Africa counsellors are all highly skilled and experienced. Each counsellor has the approved Government of Tanzania HIV and AIDS counselling certificate and/or is a qualified child welfare and social worker. The Child Welfare Counsellor is an instrumental member of the Ace team, i) helping provide training and support to teachers so that they can counsel children in schools as well as ii) providing direct counselling sessions at Ace Resource centres tackling important issues including poverty, gender-based violence, sexual violence, rape, and child labour. The community workers at the resource centre call Ace Counsellors whenever such a case appears and help connect the Ace Officers with community leadership before transferring the case to superior judicial bodies and the health facility.

Supported by the ALMT, the Ace Africa Child Welfare Counsellor conducts the following activities in school resource centres and the wider community setting:

• Training teacher and students in Sexual and Reproductive Health Education (SRH).
• Training teachers and students in Trauma Based Counselling.
• Training teachers and students in Life Skills.
• Providing support to teachers and students in the development and implementation of participatory forum drama on issues surrounding child abuse.
• Training community child welfare mentors to provide psychosocial support to children and families in the community.
• Liaising with nations, regional and district social services to establish and maintain Child Protection Teams (CPT), safe houses and drop-in centres in Arusha, Moshi and Kome districts.
• In partnership with Social Services, the Ministry of Education, and the judiciary, facilitating the identification, reporting and resolving of cases of child abuse, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and sexual violence.
• Identifying safe places and people in the community for victims of abuse.
• Providing one to one and group counselling to traumatised children.