Resources

Organisers: Working Group on Children and Violence of Child Rights Connect - Global Partnership to End Violence against Children - Office of the Special Representative to the Secretary General on Violence against Children - Office of the High Commissioner for…

The 2022 Evidence Summit brought together more than 430 faith actors and faith-based organizations (FBOs), donors, and peacebuilding practitioners across 12 unique sessions to explore evidence on strategic engagement and partnership with faith actors and FBOs in the peacebuilding, development,…

102 UNICEF offices provided information about their extensive work with faith communities over recent years. Partnerships included sensitization activities, capacity development, and support for advocacy and social mobilization. The mapping report concludes: “With evidence of UNICEF’s extensive engagement with religious communities in plain view, UNICEF must now turn its attention to maximizing the benefits of its partnerships with these critical actors”

A tenth anniversary guide for reflection and discussion The Kyoto Declaration has served as an invaluable resource for those engaged in multi-religious cooperation and advocacy for children. It explicitly recommends prohibition of corporal punishment and has provided a guide for…

In 2005 Dybicz concluded his review with: “This is how far best practice research has reached: interventions based upon theory” (p. 768). The interventions which Dybicz wrote about were aimed at serving children and adolescents living and working in the…

At an event on June 25, 2014, USAID unveiled an action plan “Acting on the Call: Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths” to save the lives of 15 million children and nearly 600,000 women by 2020 – a milestone in President Obama’s goal to joint the world in ending extreme poverty, hunger and child death in the next two decades.

The action plan delineates how 24 priority countries will dramatically accelerate progress in maternal and child survival.

Over 70,000 Burmese refugees have resettled in the United States in the past decade. While Burmese adolescents quickly acculturate into American society, their perspectives on health are not well-known. The purpose of this study was to identify adolescent Burmese refugee…

As part of a USAID-funded global Strengthening High Impact Interventions for an AIDS-Free Generation Project, IMA’s role is to engage faith communities to increase community knowledge, and demand for and access to HIV services.

The following policy brief focuses on lessons learned around attitudes toward engaging faith more broadly.

From 2011 until June 2016, the Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES) program worked across eleven countries in Africa (Ethiopian, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe), in three general sectors (food security, maternal and…

This report on the observations of field staff working in a variety of countries where girls are commonly married before they are fully physically or emotionally grown. The report illustrates the causes and human costs of early marriage in 15 countries…

This article examines education policy for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, drawing on 44 stakeholder interviews conducted in March 2016. Findings indicate that the idea of children’s rights, enshrined in international conventions, combined with foreign aid, encouraged the creation of a…

Alliance for Peace Annual Conference: Peace Now More than Ever Session: Beyond a Leap Of Faith: Evaluative Reflections on the Practices of Monitoring and Evaluating Inter-Religious Peacebuilding October 13, 2017 Panelists Peter Woodrow, Executive Director of CDA Collaborative Learning Projects James Patton,…

Early Diagnosis and Treatment for Children and Adolescents Living with HIV: Urgent Call by Religious and Faith-Inspired Organizations for Greater Commitment and Action   As professionals engaged in the response to the continuing and grave challenges posed by the HIV…

For over five decades, USAID has partnered and collaborated with civil society actors, of which faith-based, faith-inspired and local community organizations play a vital role towards achieving developmental goals. The United States writ large is an extraordinarily generous country. Faith-based…

Channels of Hope for Child Protection (CoH CP) is a programme methodology that motivates and builds capacity in faith communities to address harmful traditional practices toward children, to support and advocate for children’s rights, to become better child protectors, and to ultimately strengthen the local child protection system.

CoH CP relies on Scripture-based guiding principles, interactive activities and scientific information. It builds on the desire of faith leaders and communities to be better parents within their own families. More than that, it aims to ensure that children can celebrate who they are and become who they were created to be with the love, respect and help of their parents and faith communities.

Channels of Hope for Maternal Newborn and Child Health (CoH MNCH) is a programme methodology that catalyses faith communities and individuals to act on their God-given responsibility to honour, uphold and restore the dignity and value of every human being, to help ensure that even the most vulnerable experience fullness of life. Once catalysed, congregations work with World Vision to meaningfully engage with sustainable, community-based MNCH interventions and advocacy.

Child Focused Community Transformation (CFCT) is Food for the Hungry’s (FH) model for transformational development. At the heart of the CFCT model is the welfare of the most vulnerable population in most societies - children. The CFCT model grew out…

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis is a children's emergency. Over a five-month period, 655,500 people have fled widespread violence in Myanmar, 58 percent of which have been children. Since arriving in refugee camps in Bangladesh, many of these children have reported the…

This guide book is an update of Child Care in Islam, which was previously published by Al-Azhar in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the year 1405 Hijrah (1985 AD). The previous document constituted an important advocacy…

The Christian Sermon Guide provides christian leaders with messages about maternal, newborn, and child health that can be incorporated into sermons and thus disseminated into local communities.

An Exploration of InterAction's NGO Members' Interfaith Collaboration Religion has long been a conduit for charitable acts and work within the NGO sector. Because of similar values and principles, members of the faith community have a strong and inherent bond…

This 2014 Progress Report details the global movement to end preventable child deaths by accelerating progress on maternal, newborn and child survival. In support of the United Nations Secretary General’s ‘Every Woman Every Child’ strategy, “A Promise Renewed” brings together public, private and civil society actors committed to advocacy and action for women, newborns and children.

An Exploratory Study to Examine the Effectiveness of Community Based Ebola Virus Disease Prevention and Management Strategies in Bo District Sierra Leone World Vision Sierra Leone and Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration on World Vision's Ebola Response in Sierra Leone.…

This paper examines the interplay between the destructive and healing forces within human communities, as reflected in the life of children. This work stems from over 30 years of being involved as a participant/near-miss survivor/therapist, in a society exposed to…

Faith communities and faith-based organizations have a long history of caring for children and adolescents living with and affected by HIV. However, these efforts have not been well documented and hence their contributions have not been well understood nor resourced.…

A G20 Interfaith Forum Policy Brief (Draft) October 12, 2020 Hate Speech: A Global Phenomenon that demands collaboration and engagement of religious and non-religious leaders In a continuously globalising reality, hate speech has increasingly become a powerful factor in the…

Experiencias Adversas de la Niñez y Fortalezas Familiares durante la Niñez y su relación con Factores de Riesgo para la Salud La Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda y World Visión, a través de su Iniciativa Argentina se unieron para desarrollar el…

There is a growing awareness of the importance that faith and belief systems play in the lives of refugees, displaced persons and those affected by humanitarian crises in general. This was clearly articulated in the UNHCR High Commissioner’s Dialogue on…

The Early Childhood Development Program is a volunteer-implemented program that improves the holistic wellbeing of children and their families living in HIV/AIDS prevalent areas. Focus areas include child health, nutrition, and livelihoods strengthening activities for vulnerable families.

Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), in collaboration with CDA Collaborative Learning and Search for Common Ground (SFCG) recently convened a group of 30 leading experts to discuss how to better measure the effectiveness of inter-and intra-religious action for peacebuilding. The meeting…

2019 Kofi Annan Faith Briefings at the United Nations July 15, 2019, New York City The 2019 Kofi Annan Faith Briefing was held during the High Level Political Forum and guided by the theme, “empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and…

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a form of gender injustice which affects millions of girls and women in the world and is deep rooted in social gender norms and practices. GBV is a leading cause of death, illnesses and disabilities of…

Religion plays a significant role in the lives of most people, including nonbelievers. Religious belief systems and institutions pervade almost every segment of human society and influence attitudes and behaviors that shape how we view and relate with the world…

This report provides a thorough overview of the contributions of faith-based health systems and health facilities to the provision of HIV services in Kenya. The substantial contributions of faith-based health systems to healthcare services have been well-established; however the scope…

Report of an independent mid-term evaluation of the Faiths United for Health program, a pilot program of the Nigerian Inter-Faith Action Association (NIFAA) that uses an interfaith action approach to train Muslim and Christian religious leaders to educate and motivate Nigerians to undertake behavior change in the fight against malaria. This report details NIFAA’s promising early work to mobilize religious leaders to use their influence to increase usage rates of insecticide-treated bed nets, as well as increasing other action against malaria. Produced with funding support from GHR Foundation.

Mozambique’s Interfaith Program against Malaria (PIRCOM) developed the volunteer, Christian and Muslim sermon guide. They provide basic facts about malaria prevention and health seeking behavior, providing scriptural texts in support of the actions that a family should be taking. These…

The Faith Alliance for Health commits from 2016-2020 to strengthen national and local faith networks of faith leaders and organizations to build their influence to bear and use their assets to eliminate preventable deaths of women, children, and adolescents. This…

One of the most powerful influencers of individual behaviours, social norms and collective action at community and societal level is religion.
To maximize opportunities for more positive and impactful influence towards improving child and family wellbeing, UNICEF (Communication for Development Section and Civil Society Partnerships Unit in NYHQ), the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities and Religions for Peace in 2018 embarked on a new global Initiative on Faith and Positive Change for Children.

The Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI) is working with UNICEF’s Communication for Development Section in Programme Division and the Civil Society Partnerships Unit in the Division of Communication on an initiative, titled the “Faith and Positive…

Multi-level, Multi-theme and Multi-platform Inter-faith engagement Overview The partnership between Al-Azhar University and UNICEF Egypt initially started through advocacy in the 1980s. With an enabling government environment, the involvement of the Ministry has shown success in joint advocacy and policy…

Inter-faith initiative on engagement of young people in support of ending violence against children Overview UNICEF and COEPA’s (the inter-religious council of Panama) partnership has brought together diverse denominations in Panama to advocate for ending violence against children. The core…

This document reflects the efforts of two partners: CIFA and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) to set out both what the 10 promises mean specifically, and how faith communities are acting and could act to further the global effort. It builds on the June 2012 promises with an important addition: it extends the ideas and actions that were initially framed for children to mothers also. The promises themselves are technically rigorous (best practice as certified by UNICEF and USAID) but they are also understandable and, we hope, inspirational. The document was conceived in the spirit of the many faith institutions that subscribed to the Ten Promises, and grew from a sense that tangible evidence could support a much broader effort and new energy and vigor in carrying goals into reality.

UN Environment held its fourth Environment Assembly during 11-15 March 2019, with the themes of sustainable consumption and production, and innovative approaches to solving environmental issues. The Faith for Earth Initiative held its thematic dialogue in the Faith and SDG…

Leaders of faith communities will be able to use these theological reflections combined with technical information and actions to disseminate key messages during prayer and worship sessions. (young child. feeding, disease prevention, hygiene and sanitation).

Leaders of faith communities will be able to use these theological reflections combined with technical information and actions to disseminate key messages during prayer and worship sessions. (young child feeding, disease prevention, hygiene and sanitation).

The Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities conducted a survey with faith leaders across the world to gauge their levels of awareness and understand the challenges that they face, in order to develop the right tools and knowledge resources to better…

Alliance for Peacebuilding, CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, and Search for Common Ground, with support from the GHR Foundation, This guide intends to improve the practice of inter-religious action for peace, by encouraging the regular application of monitoring and evaluation tools. Religious communities have…

Kenya AIDS Strategic Framework (KASF) 2014/15 – 2018/19 embraces a multi-sectoral approach to HIV programming and emphasizes the importance of participation and accountability in every sector in the HIV response. This calls upon communities to respond to HIV within their…

Recognising the gaps in healthcare for children is the first step to resolving them. It becomes particularly important in communities or geographic regions facing inequity of services, where the poorest or most marginalised children are missing out on health opportunities that policies aim to provide. Fostering responsibility and knowledge for improvements to maternal and child health within affected communities is part of the Child Health Now advocacy approach.

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) play a crucial role in increasing access to maternal and newborn health (MNH) services worldwide. In developing countries, faith-based health care facilities provide a significant percent- age of health care services. With networks that reach even the…

Religions for Peace and UNICEF, with input from religious leaders and
child protection specialists, have developed this guide as a tool to support
religious communities’ work to promote child rights and to prevent and
respond to rights violations, in particular violence against children.

This publication aims to highlight the actual and potential roles of faith actors in contributing towards an effective and holistic response to child displacement in Europe and Central Asia. These roles range from providing shelter and other material support to…

Report following the ‘From Faith to Action’ online conference, 10 - 11 December 2020 The “From Faith to Action” initiative focuses on children escaping conflict, persecution, natural disaster or poverty, and brings together UNICEF and stakeholders from faith-based communities who…

This article is based on the findings of a 40-day summative evaluation (Brown, 2016) that was carried out at the end of the SCORE ECD project, employing a triangulating data collection method that included 20 focus group discussions of 30-90…

Click here to view this resource: http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/frontlines/maternal-child-health

This note on the 2019 G20 Interfaith Forum highlights what happened, with some analysis of key points. This ambitious effort aimed to bring together a “network of networks”, linking religious actors working on global issues within the broad framework of…

The G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20), which has convened annually since 2014, brings important dimensions to the G20 process. It shares some features with other engagement groups but has distinctive aspects that relate, above all, to the widely diverse landscape of…

University of Potsdam Germany 15-17 June 2017 website: g20interfaith.org see brief here More than a hundred experts and leaders from fields ranging from economy, law, politics, religion, development to humanitarian aid, coming from 30 different countries, gathered for the fourth…

Guião de Promoção e Protecção dos Direitos da Criança para os Líderes Religiosos Para a promoção da Saúde, Educação e Protecção da Criança Guide to religious leaders for the promotion of health, education and child protection in Portuguese The involvement…

Helping Children Cope with Traumatic Events was developed in response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This booklet provides practical guidance for caregivers—including parents, family members, teachers, clergy, and volunteers—on how to help support children…

The Early Childhood Development Program is a volunteer-implemented program that improves the holistic wellbeing of children and their families living in HIV/AIDS prevalent areas. Focus areas include child health, nutrition, and livelihoods strengthening activities for vulnerable families.

Tags: Data Collection by Local Community, Holistic Wellbeing, Comparing Data Across Regions

Introducing the Network for Dialogue: EMPOWERING INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE FOR THE SOCIAL INCLUSION OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES The Network for Dialogue was initiated in 2018 by the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) in order to bring faith and civil society…

The goal of the Tangiraneza “Start Well” Innovation Child Survival Project (ICSP) was to reduce morbidity, mortality, and improve nutritional status of children under five and pregnant women in Nyamagabe District, Southern Province, Rwanda. The project’s objective was to improve…

This review outlines the findings of a literature analysis conducted by the World Faiths Development Dialogue  on behalf of Religions for Peace, focused on the intersections between religion, gender, and climate change in three rainforest regions: The Amazon, Congo Basin,…

2020 G20 Interfaith Forum May 27, 2020 The COVID-19 crisis highlights the urgent need for G20 leaders to support and protect tropical rainforests. Destruction of these forests poses an existential threat to the future global climate: deforestation results in emission…

In the absence of any effective medicine or vaccine, COVID-19 remains a global threat. Social and political sciences inform us about patterns of behaviour among individuals, communities, societies and states in times of crisis and conflict. In such situations, policymakers…

The primary aim of this Resource Guide is to mobilize Faith-inspired resources to end Child Poverty. The Guide has been developed by Arigatou International's Interfaith Initiative to End Child Poverty, (End Child Poverty) - a multi-faith, child centered, global initiative…

This report evaluates contemporary interreligious dialogue activities in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. In order to do so, it introduces a theoretical framework for analyzing interreligious dialogue activities in the Middle East and presents a cross-national analysis of contemporary dialogue…

Learning Exchange with Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik from Alliance for Peacebuilding June 17, 2020 Presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TH7pVwINFk&feature=youtu.be Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Senior Director of Learning & Evaluation at Alliance for Peacebuilding, presented on the Eirene Peacebuilding Database, AfP's #CreativityInCrisis video series, and the Effective Inter-religious…

Learning Exchange with MEAL WG member, Subodh Kumar from Food for the Hungry February 19 Presentation Subodh Kumar presents on lessons from Food for the Hungry's experience in building organizational EL&A culture Where Food for the Hungry came from Introduction…

A companion to From Faith to Action, Journeys of Faith features: 12 strategies for supporting the needs of orphans & vulnerable children Inspiring examples of how churches in the United States are getting involved Stories of partnership between U.S. churches & African orphan…

Learning to Play Together, the initiative featured in this booklet, sought to introduce ethics and intercultural learning into physical education using Arigatou International’s Learning to Live Together programme as a foundation. It was launched in Greece in 2011 by Dr.…

This report charts the progress that has been made , and what still needs to be done as of 2014 to achieve Millennium Development Goal 4: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

In the summer of 2007, focus groups and in-depth interviews were conducted with Liberian refugee women living in the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the means through which Liberian families were…

The impact of the Interfaith Peace Platform on the peace process in the Central African Republic Geneva Liaison Office of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Together with Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, president of the Central African Islamic Council, and Archbishop…

The Syria crisis alone is the worst humanitarian crisis since the second world war. The following eBook, shows a basic  explanation of the refugee crisis, how life as a refugee destroys children's future and steps anyone can take to make a difference. To…

Summary: Global One conducted an analysis on the WASH needs of Syrian women in Lebanon and Syria. Utilizing three local partners; SAWA, URDA and Syria Relief Network, Global One gained data from 836 women in refugee and internally displaced persons…

The National Muslim Council of Tanzania (BAKWATA), in collaboration with IMA World Health within the Mothers and Infants, Safe Healthy Alive (MAISHA) Program developed this Khutbah Guide. The Guide comprises of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Khutbah messages for…

The objective of the Khutbah Guide is to increase knowledge on MNCH and to assign them on providing Khutbah on MNCH issues for Friday worship. The guide encourages Religious Leaders to also use this knowledge for premarital and duple counselling,…

Association, Dissociation, Kindness, Justice and Compassion Responses to 50 faith-based arguments against peaceful co-existence and an introductory examination of Islamic textual evidence for peaceful interfaith relations See Da'wah Insititute Website

Around 12 million girls aged 15–19 years and at least 777,000 girls under 15 years give birth each year in low and middle-income countries. Prioritizing adolescent sexual and reproductive health services and information can address these and other urgent 1…

The case study reviews the religious landscape in Kenya and provides an overview of the various types of violence, pointing to the complex overlapping of ethnicity and religion. The difference between types of conflict and their causes are explored, with…

UNICEF and other child rights organizations* have a long history of partnering with religious communities of all faiths on a wide range of issues that affect children. Religious communities are uniquely positioned to promote equitable outcomes for the most vulnerable…

Key messages from Islam and Christianity on protecting children from violence and harmful practices This book explores the approaches to preventing all forms of violence against children from the perspectives of Islam and Christianity. It is intended as a guide…

Religiously-motivated stigma regarding HIV may lead to denial and discrimination, preventing children and adolescents from receiving the critical care they need. Without treatment, HIV progresses rapidly and is often fatal in infants and children – almost 75% of untreated, HIV-infected…

There is a strong complementarity between the guiding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the core values of religious teachings. The global study, Faith and Children’s Rights: A Multi-religious Study on the Convention on…

In Africa, more than four in every 10 women of reproductive age want to avoid pregnancy. However, 47% of African women who do not want to become pregnant either use no contraceptive method or use traditional methods, which typically have…

Promotion of a culture of peace and interreligious and intercultural dialogue, understanding and cooperation for peace 26 September 2016 Report of the Secretary-General The present report provides an overview of the activities that have been carried out by the main…

The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) hit Sierra Leone in May 2014. By September 2014 the country was experiencing a surge in cases as the disease spread across the whole country. A reported 37 per cent of patients could associate their…

The Public Health, Religion and Spirituality Bulletin is a publication of the Public Health, Religion, and Spirituality Network. The Bulletin aims to be a place to highlight research, teaching, and practice, past and present; share ideas, resources, and opportunities; house…

The current crisis in CAR began in December 2012, when the northern-based Muslim Séléka forces overthrew the government, forcing then-president François Bozizé to flee the country. This led to the formation of Christian self-defense militia groups, the Anti-Balaka. Since then…

Council on Foreign Relations Webinar, May 14, 2020 Mary Evelyn Tucker, senior lecturer, senior research scholar, and codirector of the Forum of Religion and Ecology at Yale University, discusses religion and climate change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbzc3XxzZZ4&feature=youtu.be You can access the webinar and transcript here.

The World Faiths Development Dialogue, with financial support from the GHR Foundation, selected Kenya for a case study to identify and better understand the roles religion plays in building peace, with particular attention to inter-religious relations and collaboration. Kenya offers…

Religion is a positive force for peacebuilding and preventing violent extremisms (PVE). Indeed, religious institutions and actors play an important role in building peace yet underutilized instruments in the prevention and resolution of violent extremisms. The objective of this research…

In Senegal, many people are uncertain what their religious traditions teach about birth spacing and family planning. the Cadre des Religieux pour la Santé et le Développement (CRSD) is an interfaith association of Senegalese faith leaders, to promote maternal and child health…

Niger is a secular country with a Muslim majority. The communities live in harmonious peace and cultivate the spirit of living together regardless of ethnic or religious differences. Freedom of worship is a reality in the country. However, in recent decades,…