It's not every day that you see so many foreign uniforms, even on the training grounds of the NRW State Office for Training, Further Education and Personnel Affairs of the Police (LAFP) in Brühl - even though Department 13, which is based there, is responsible for preparing for international police missions and regularly receives police officers from abroad.
More than 20 participants from 18 countries came to the Rhineland in September from all corners of the world to spend a week talking about the protection of children. An important topic in an extraordinary setting.
Participants even traveled from Nepal and Fiji. The global dimension shows how important international cooperation is in helping children worldwide to obtain their rights.
LAFP NRW employee brings together a wide range of stakeholders for child protection
The seminar was organized by the United Nations (UN) in cooperation with Director of Criminal Investigation Stefan Schwarz, employee of Department 13 Foreign Missions at LAFP NRW. He himself shaped police training at UN level for many years and has been working intensively on the topic of child protection for around ten years.
"There is a lot of passion in the seminar. I have already tried in New York to bring together the various stakeholders from the UN, the member states, Germany and NRW. We can see from this exciting seminar that this has obviously been successful," said Schwarz.
United Nations and LAFP NRW want to further expand their cooperation
It was the many years of good cooperation with LAFP NRW that prompted the UN training department to host the event at the Brühl location once again. "The infrastructure at the Brühl training center, the human resources and the expertise are good arguments," says Schwarz.
In future, the collaboration between the UN and LAFP NRW is to be expanded. In addition to organizing further training courses and workshops, two newly certified trainers from the LAFP NRW Department for International Assignments will support the UN in anchoring the important topic of child protection in other parts of the world.
Both were still present as participants in the current seminar. As were those colleagues from all over the world who have already gained many years of experience in missions themselves.
Experiences from missions abroad as a basis for exchange
The participants themselves were then challenged to share these experiences with the others. The group worked professionally and collaboratively on best-practice examples of how to treat children in conflict regions in a way that makes them feel safe and valued - and how police officers can help when children's rights are massively violated.
A good opportunity for Claudia Dominick Mselle. The Tanzanian police officer is currently working for the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to the different legal provisions, she was able to gain practical knowledge.
It was important for her to learn how to reconcile her own task with the different local laws. She was particularly impressed by the international mix of the group: "Child protection is not an issue for individual countries, it concerns everyone. Promoting children's rights is an international task that we all implement locally."
Mayor of Brühl thanks the group for their commitment
The Mayor of Brühl, Dieter Freytag, also welcomed the group and thanked them for their important work to protect children worldwide.
Not without pride, he referred to the history of the LAFP NRW, whose Brühl location has been training police officers in the castle city for decades.
An enthusiastic conclusion to the "Child Protection" seminar
At the end of the week, not only the participants were satisfied, but also Serena Tiberia. Tiberia is responsible for child protection at the United Nations in New York. She has no regrets about swapping Central Park for Brühl Castle Park for a week: "The colleagues from Germany did an excellent job of organizing the seminar. The LAFP really went the extra mile to make the seminar a complete success."
The goal was fully achieved. It was her third time hosting such a seminar in Brühl and each time she noticed that the international groups were in excellent hands here.
