Safeguarding Minimum Standard

Version 1.0, September 2026

Summary

The minimum TCL requires of anyone working with our participants, and what happens when someone raises a concern. It covers staff, volunteers and contractors on any TCL site in a delivery role.

Why it exists now. The House League is youth basketball, The Lab trains young players, and Ukurikira runs have under-18s present most nights. Recruitment has run through personal networks, where everyone was known to someone, and that informal vetting was doing real work. A public application form removes it. This standard replaces it with something written down.

It is written for how TCL actually operates in Kigali, not for a template imported from somewhere with different transport, different staffing and different economics. A rule nobody can follow is worse than no rule, because it teaches people the standard is decorative.

Rwanda's Law N°71/2018 relating to the protection of the child, and the national reporting framework coordinated by the National Child Development Agency, sit behind this. Where the two differ, the law governs.

1 · The control this standard rests on

No TCL session runs on volunteers alone. Every session has at least one paid staff member present, the Field Operations Coordinator at minimum, and paid programming carries paid staff throughout.

That is the primary safeguard, it is already how TCL operates, and everything below supports it rather than replacing it. A volunteer at TCL is never the person in charge, never the last adult in the room, and never operating without a paid staff member accountable for the session.

Two consequences follow, and they shape the whole standard:

• Volunteers are not background-checked, because a check exists to make unsupervised work safe and no volunteer works unsupervised. Checking every volunteer would add cost, delay and an administrative burden to buy a protection the staffing model already provides
• Under-18s can volunteer. Young athletes from Ukurikira, The House League and The REC wanting experience in basketball operations are a real and valuable part of the volunteer base, and the ladder this organisation is building runs straight through them. Excluding them would not make TCL safer. It would make it less organised, and push the same young people into helping informally, off any register, which is worse

2 · Step-by-step: clearing a person to work with participants

Volunteers, every age

1. Apply, through the website or in person at a run
2. VP of Programming reviews and assigns the role and the session
3. If under 18, guardian consent and guardian contact are recorded before the first session, along with an emergency contact
4. Waiver signed. On the website where the application came through the site, on paper at the venue where it did not
5. Briefed on the conduct rules in section 5 before the first shift
6. Placed on a crew list for a session with paid staff present. There is no other kind of session

Paid staff in check-required roles

1. Offer made
2. Candidate requests their Criminal Record Certificate through Irembo. TCL cannot request it on their behalf
3. Certificate presented and verified. The Administrative & Operations Assistant records that it was seen, its issue date, and who verified it
4. COO decides on anything disclosed, in writing, with the reasoning recorded
5. Start date follows clearance. Request at offer stage so the wait runs alongside notice periods rather than after them

3 · Who is background-checked

Paid staff in roles with regular contact with under-18s. That is the whole list.

• Checked: Field Operations Coordinator. Any paid coach in The House League or The Lab. Any future paid role whose scope includes repeated, named contact with young participants
• Not checked: Every volunteer role, at every age. Paid roles with no participant contact

The check is the Criminal Record Certificate, obtained through Irembo and issued by the National Public Prosecution Authority. It costs RWF 1,200 and is valid for six months.

The lead time is workable because this is a hiring control, and hiring takes longer anyway. TCL covers the fee as an employment cost.

What TCL records: that a certificate was seen, its issue date, and who verified it. Not the certificate itself and not its contents.

What disqualifies: a conviction for an offence against a child, a sexual offence, or an offence involving violence. Anything else is a judgement for the COO.

Re-verification: annually. A certificate issued within the previous twelve months is accepted at hire.

4 · Volunteers

All volunteers, at every age, work with at least one paid staff member present. No volunteer holds the safety call, the incident record, or final accountability for a session.

• Registers on the volunteer register. Adult volunteer, 18+: Yes. Young volunteer, under 18: Yes
• Guardian consent to register. Adult volunteer, 18+: No. Young volunteer, under 18: Required
• Background check. Adult volunteer, 18+: No. Young volunteer, under 18: No
• Works with paid staff present. Adult volunteer, 18+: Always. Young volunteer, under 18: Always
• May hold the check-in seat, scoreboard, whistle. Adult volunteer, 18+: Yes. Young volunteer, under 18: Yes
• May be the sole point of accountability. Adult volunteer, 18+: No. Young volunteer, under 18: No
• Emergency contact on file. Adult volunteer, 18+: Recommended. Young volunteer, under 18: Required

Reference checks are not required for volunteer roles. At the volume of a weekly run, with staff present throughout, a reference adds process without adding protection.

Young volunteers

A volunteer under 18 is a child TCL owes a duty of care to, as well as a member of the crew. Both directions matter, and the second is the part that usually gets forgotten.

There is no floor age. Guardian consent is the gate. A thirteen-year-old who wants to referee The House League fixtures in the six-to-nine bracket is exactly the person this programme should be encouraging, and a floor age would rule them out for no safeguarding gain.

Placement matches the age gap. A young volunteer is placed where their age works in their favour, which in practice means working with participants younger than themselves. The VP of Programming makes that match. This is an authority question rather than a safeguarding one, and it is why the thirteen-year-old referees the six-to-nine bracket and not the sixteen-to-eighteen.

Before they start: guardian consent recorded, naming the roles and the sessions. Guardian contact and an emergency contact. The guardian knows the session times and how the young person is getting home.

What they do not hold: Site Lead or any role carrying the safety call. The incident record. Sole responsibility for a group of younger participants. Money, or a decision to send a participant home. None of these are about capability. They are responsibilities that should not sit on a minor.

What TCL owes them. Every conduct rule protects them exactly as it protects a participant. An adult has the same obligations toward a sixteen-year-old volunteer as toward a sixteen-year-old player. A young volunteer can raise a concern by the same routes as anyone else, and their guardian can raise one on their behalf.

On peer contact. The private-messaging rule governs adults contacting under-18s. It does not make ordinary contact between two young people a safeguarding breach. A seventeen-year-old volunteer and a sixteen-year-old player texting each other are peers, and treating that as reportable would be both wrong and unenforceable.

5 · Getting home

This has its own section because it is the rule most likely to be tested, and because the imported version of it does not work here.

Most TCL staff and volunteers do not have cars. Movement in Kigali is on foot, by moto, or by bus. Sessions finish in the evening. Young people will ask for help getting home, and refusing every time does not protect them. It prices them out of attending.

The principle is not that rides are forbidden. It is that no journey is invisible. The risk is not transport. The risk is an arrangement made privately between one adult and one child that nobody else knows about.

• The guardian arranges it by default. For any evening session the guardian is told the finish time in advance, and how their child is expected to get home
• Nobody is left at a venue. If someone has no way home, that is a safety incident and the Site Lead owns it until it is resolved. Ending your shift does not end this
• TCL pays the fare. The Site Lead contacts the Administrative & Operations Assistant, who holds the MoMo phone and sends the moto fare. This is the existing payment route and it does not change. Fund the fare instead of banning the ride
• Separate motos. An adult and an under-18 travelling by moto travel on their own machines. This is how motos work anyway, and it is why the ordinary case here carries little risk
• An accompanied journey is announced before it happens. If an adult walks or travels with a young person, the Site Lead knows before they leave and the guardian is informed. Not afterwards
• A private car with one adult and one child alone. Needs the guardian's agreement in advance, and the Site Lead told. Rare, because few staff drive, but this is the case the rule exists for
• Never a private arrangement. No adult agrees a lift, a walk or a fare directly with a young person without the guardian or the Site Lead knowing. This is the line that matters

The test, for anyone unsure: could you say what you are about to do, out loud, to the Site Lead and the young person's guardian? If yes, do it. If not, that is the answer.

6 · Conduct rules

These apply to everyone on a TCL site in a delivery role. Short enough to brief in two minutes at a run, which is where they will be briefed.

• No adult alone with a child. No adult is alone with an under-18 where nobody knows where they are. If a conversation has to be private, it happens in sight of another adult
• No adult private messaging. No adult contacts an under-18 on a personal channel. Contact goes through a guardian, or a group with another adult in it. This matters because WhatsApp is how TCL communicates
• Transport is arranged, not offered. See section 5. Journeys are known in advance, never agreed privately
• No photography off-brief. Only the Media Producer or someone working to a content brief photographs participants. Never on a personal phone for personal use
• No physical contact beyond the game. Coaching contact is demonstrative and public. Nothing else
• Report, do not investigate. If something concerns you, report it the same day. Do not question the young person, do not confront the adult, do not gather evidence

7 · Raising a concern

On the day, at a site. Tell the Site Lead, who documents it and calls the COO immediately. This is the existing venue-incident route and it does not change.

Not on the day, or about a person rather than an incident. Go direct to the COO, in writing if possible, verbally if not, and the COO writes it down.

If the concern is about the COO, go to the CEO. If it is about the CEO, go to Legal Counsel. No route requires reporting a person to that same person.

Externally. Under Law N°71/2018 there is an obligation to report child protection concerns to the competent authority. A concern that a child has been harmed goes to the Rwanda National Police or the nearest administrative authority, and TCL does not sit on it while running an internal review. Legal Counsel is informed at the same time.

Anyone raising a concern in good faith is protected, including when they turn out to be wrong. Nobody at TCL is penalised for reporting.

Timing. The ten-minute rule covers unresolved safety blockers. A safeguarding concern does not wait ten minutes. It is reported the same day, and immediately if a child is at risk now.

8 · What the intake system enforces

The standard is only real if the application flow holds it.

• Opening configuration. Each opening carries a role type, whether under-18s may hold it, and whether the role is check-required
• Application form. Age is a branch, not a knockout. An under-18 applying to a volunteer role is routed to collect guardian consent and contact. Age remains a knockout only on paid roles requiring 18+
• Review queue. An under-18 volunteer cannot be placed without guardian consent recorded. Paid staff in a check-required role cannot be placed without a check recorded
• Volunteer record. Guardian consent, guardian contact, emergency contact, and staff check status where applicable

Until the website flow is live, guardian consent and the waiver are captured on paper at the venue and filed by the Administrative & Operations Assistant.

Roles involved

• COO. Owns this standard and its annual review. Decides whether a staff check passes and every judgement call under section 3. Suspends a person pending review. Receives every concern
• CEO. Approves this standard. Informed immediately on reputational exposure, and is the route for a concern about the COO
• VP of Programming. Volunteer placement, role and session. Matches young volunteers to age-appropriate placements
• Technical Director. Basketball-technical suitability of a coach
• Field Operations Coordinator. Site Lead at most sessions. Holds the safety call, documents concerns, owns the getting-home problem until it is resolved
• Administrative & Operations Assistant. Verifies and records staff certificates. Holds the MoMo phone and sends transport fares. Files paper waivers and guardian consents
• Legal Counsel. Reviews this standard before approval and on any change to sections 3, 5, 7 or the disqualifying offences

Tools used

• Irembo. Criminal Record Certificate applications, issued by the National Public Prosecution Authority
• MTN MoMo. Transport fares under section 5, sent by the Administrative & Operations Assistant
• WhatsApp. Session coordination. Governed by the private-messaging rule in section 6
• thecommunityleague.com. Volunteer and job applications, guardian consent capture, and the volunteer register
• Google Drive. Paper waivers and guardian consents, scanned and filed
• Confluence. This standard, and the SOPs that inherit from it

Review

Reviewed annually, and immediately after any safeguarding incident. The COO owns the review.