Otherwise directly reached

The majority of children, young people, and adults involved in War Child’s activities in 2012 were ‘otherwise directly reached’. A large increase in beneficiaries is seen in this category. It represents those that are directly reached by the activity, but not participating in the activity itself. For example people reached through theatre performance, lobby activities, awareness-raising events, and media programmes.

The nature of activities in this category can lead to large shifts in numbers of beneficiaries from one year to the next. The increase from 2.6 million in 2011 to 4.5 million in 2012 is primarily explained by activities in three countries: Afghanistan, Burundi and Sierra Leone. For example, we reached over 2.5 million people in Sierra Leone through media and awareness-raising activities at the local and national levels. These media activities were scaled-up considerably to boost attention for child rights in the final year of the War Child programme in Sierra Leone. The high number of people reached through these advocacy and awareness raising activities can therefore not lead to general conclusions about the reach of War Child programmes because the increase is caused by large media activities in only three countries.

The effect of listening to a radio programme about child abuse is of course very different from actively participating in an intensive skills training. Nevertheless activities that ‘otherwise directly reach’ children, young people, and adults are essential to, for example, motivate decision makers to change harmful policies or raise awareness in communities as a starting point for changing harmful practices like abuse. As part of an integrated programme, they complement more intensive activities.

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