Trends and highlights in War Child programmes 2012

The power of working with others and combining strengths

War Child has been working in partnership with other organisations and institutions for many years. The aim is to complement and strengthen each other’s programmes to achieve better outcomes for children.

Highlights

Some successful complementary partnerships in 2012:

Free Press Unlimited works with War Child country teams to support programmes that give children a voice in their communities and in the media.
TNO works with War Child and our partner Afhad University to develop the curricula for the eLearning project in Sudan.

An overview of most relevant partners is provided in the paragraph on partnerships.

Refocus on conflict zones and emergency response

War Child works in conflict and post-conflict areas. In the past few years we had a larger focus on post- conflict areas. We further developed integrated community-based programming in the field of child protection, education and psychosocial support. In 2012 we saw the need for a refocus on areas of active conflict where single and rapid interventions are needed. Rapid response guidelines were developed at the beginning of the year.

Highlights

A number of rapid response interventions took place:

projects with Syrian refugees in Lebanon;
support to psychosocial and child protection activities in Misrata, Libya, through a partnership with DanChurchAid;
creation of Child Friendly Spaces In Juba, South Sudan for South Sudanese in transit from the north;
psychosocial support for children in Gaza;
a child protection project in the western part of South Kivu in DR Congo.

Country portfolio developments

This year, 2012, marked the final year of the War Child programme in Sierra Leone. We focussed on building the capacity of local organisations to ensure their ability to continue implementing quality programming for children in Sierra Leone. A boost was given to awareness-raising and advocacy activities to ensure that child rights are and remain on the agenda of relevant duty bearers. A final programme evaluation was done.

After an exploration and a needs assessment, War Child identified an urgent need to support children and young people in the refugee camps in Thailand and across the border in Myanmar. The specific challenges faced by the displaced Burmese, currently residing in Thailand, matches well with War Child’s programming expertise and operational capacity. War Child’s expertise also complements existing services provided by government and civil society organisations. War Child will complement existing programmes with our approach in order to reach the specific objectives for year 1 (2013):

To build essential skills, such as self-confidence and conflict resolution in 2,080 children and young people in preparation for their return to Myanmar.
To support the capacity development of 900 children and young people and to facilitate intra- community dialogue so that children and young people are able to make a positive contribution to community affairs.
To build the skills and competencies of at least two community-based organisations (CBOs) at head office level so that they might serve as a platform for youth both in the temporary shelters and upon return to in Myanmar.
To support 100 children and young people to play a constructive role in raising awareness on child protection, conflict sensitivity and other key issues, both within their peer groups and with other community members.
To build capacity in psychosocial support provision of 150 temporary shelter staff in order to improve service provision to children and young people.

Besides the current needs of young people from Myanmar living in refugee camps in Thailand, the changing political situation in Myanmar provides a window of opportunity to move our work into Myanmar to work with people returning to their country of origin.

Highlights

Closure of War Child offices in Sierra Leone in January 2013 is ready.
After independence of South Sudan in 2011, War Child established an independent country office in Juba in 2012.
Exploration and assessment visits were carried out in Thailand to assess possibilities for War Child programming in the refugee camps at the border of Thailand and Myanmar.

Lowlights

Due to lack of funds and capacity we did not succeed in assessing our added value for programming in Iraq; this has been postponed to 2013.

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