The National Council for Children (NCC) has been conferred with the ISO 9001: 2000 quality management certificate under the National Quality Systems Certificate Scheme.

It is the first local organisation to be certified by the Seychelles Bureau of Standard (SBS), the country's national certification body.

SBS was mandated in June last year to carry out certification activities under the National Quality System Certification Scheme by adopting the International ISO 9000 series as Seychelles Standards (SS).

Over the past months, SBS has assisted NCC with management training to raise staff awareness, interpret the standard, perform internal auditing and implement the quality system.

The chairperson of NCC, Geva Rene, received the main registration certificate from the ministers of Social Affairs and Manpower and Education and Youth, Dolor Ernesta and Danny Faure.

Another award, the "scope" certificate was presented to the director of NCC, Ms Ruby  Pardiwalla by the managing director of SBS, Mr Irene Joseph. This award highlights the areas in which NCC has received certification, which are mainly for the promotion and intervention of child protection through the delivery of training, advocacy and therapeutic services.

Present to share this important occasion with NCC were the chairman of SBS, Joel Morgan, principal secretaries MacSuzy Mondon, Marie-Ange Hoareau, Joseph Nourrice, and other guests.

In her speech to mark the occasion Mrs Rene said she was glad to note that a small organisation like NCC had been in the forefront in finding ways to upgrade its performance and had taken the lead to translate government's visions to improve accountability and efficiency in public service.

" We are honoured to have qualified for the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system certificate," said.

Mrs Rene congratulated NCC's staff for taking the initiative of embarking on the quality management package and working hard to reach the required standard. 

Pointing out that it was not "easy to take a critical look at ourselves and bring about change," Mrs Rene, commended the team for rising up to the challenge which she said would bring them personal satisfaction and achievement.

As a token of her appreciation she presented the staff members and all their partners who had supported the organisation throughout its undertakings with a cake.

In his short speech Mr Morgan said SBS now had fully qualified auditors with the required competence and experience, comparable to any international certification body to issue the SS ISO 9000 standards.

The government, he pointed out, fully supported SBS as the country's national certification body as this was in line with its strategy to improve the standard and efficiency of services rendered in the country.

Minister Ernesta encouraged the organisation to continue in its drive to maintain a high level of standards, pointing out that he was certain its enthusiastic staff would meet the challenge to achieve greater heights.

The ceremony ended with a toast by Minister Faure.

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