Children thrive in strong communities, equipped and strengthened to address child protection challenges. Faith leaders, their spouses and faith communities play a critical role in shaping community social norms and catalysing shifts in attitudes and behaviours that can protect children more effectively.

World Vision has had ample experience working alongside faith communities and leaders to tackle complex social issues with an attitude and social behavior change project model called Channels of Hope. In recent years, Channels of Hope has been adapted to tackle child protection issues within communities such as child marriage, neglect, corporal punishment, and child labour.

To test effective ways of engaging faith communities, a research study was conducted over 5 years (2016-2021) in partnership with Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh) gathering data from communities in Guatemala (a Christian majority context), Senegal (a Muslim majority context), and Uganda (mixture of Christian and Muslim contexts).

The goal of the research was to understand how Channels of Hope for Child Protection equips faith leaders and faith communities to take action to reduce violence in their local communities at higher levels of society.