Tunis: The final workshop to draw up and adopt the five-year strategy of the Tunisian Association of SOS Children's Villages began on Tuesday in Hammamet and will run until 19 April, in the presence of the organisation's executives and representatives of the regional office of the International Federation of SOS Children's Villages. It is the eighteenth in a series of workshops organised by the regional office of the International Federation of SOS Children's Villages for West, Central and African countries. The latter brings together 21 associations, including the Tunisian Association of SOS Children's Villages, according to a press release from the association. Assistant Regional Director of the International Federation of SOS Children's Villages, Sévérine Tragus, stressed that the results of this workshop, which has a strategic and forward-looking dimension, will open up important opportunities for the Tunisian Association of SOS Children's Villages to develop and consolidate its achievements. These inc lude, in particular financial autonomy with regard to external funding, increasing the number of beneficiaries and improving the quality of services provided to children without support. For his part, President of the Association, Mohamed Megdich, stressed the need to work towards strengthening the social security of children without support through the various programmes. He called for improving the quality and level of services, establishing transparency and good governance as strategic guidelines, and preserving the Association's independence and ability to support the State's efforts for children, through interventions in line with the mechanisms put in place in the field of child protection. These interventions include integrated housing, family support and neglect prevention programme and foster families, in addition to support for integrated centres and child protection associations, he added. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse