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 statements on child issues in the last few years. The program works through a two-pronged approach through the Ministry of Religion, and also through associated Imams and the students at the university. This program is now expanding to Coptic Orthodox church leaders.
- The University acts as a conduit through which to reach out to varying levels of religious leaders as change agents. While this initially began with focus on support to child protection and care it is now expanding to a broader integrated approach to include other thematic areas.
- The engagement comprises a continuum of approaches from delivery of edutainment media to role modelling among peers in order to better communicate information on protecting child wellbeing. A guide on Peace, Love, and Tolerance to protect children from violence has been developed from Muslim and Christian perspectives and translated into English and Arabic.
Read about the Faith and Positive Change for Children Initiative
Overview
- UNICEF South Sudan C4D is focused on sustaining community engagement during an L2 emergency with widespread food insecurity, conflict and displacement. In the community, religious leaders are key influencers and their engagement must be sustained to create change.
- UNICEF works with religious leaders to provide key lifesaving messages and increase their knowledge on subjects related to child rights so that the religious leaders can integrate these messages into their routine sermons and community announcements and facilitate in-depth dialogue with followers of the faith to shape their attitudes and practices.
- Due to instability in the country, governance structures
are weakened and community leaders, including religious leaders, must be engaged on a community by community basis to support community engagement. UNICEF has created an Integrated Community Mobilization Network, now with over 4,500 volunteers, and regularly engages with religious leaders through orientations to sustain the growth of their knowledge and their engagement in improving child wellbeing.
Read about the Faith and Positive Change for Children Initiative
Go to the South Sudan WorkRock page
On November 20, 2019, the international community will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the United Nations General Assembly. The CRC has been ratified by 196 States, making it the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history. Over the past 30 years, the CRC has transformed the way the world thinks about children. It has helped change for the better how children are treated in national constitutions, national and local laws, as well as in national plans and programs. It has spurred progress in the prevention of diseases, thus saving the lives of children in many countries, and has produced important commitments to universal education and to eliminating the worst forms of child labor, ending corporal punishment and much more.
Study and executive summary on the Arigatou Website
Read the CRC Policy Brief here.
This guide provides information on how World Vision offices can integrate child marriage prevention and response into programming, including guidance on working with married children. In addition, the guide intends to support the development of country-specific technical approaches and new programs to address child marriage.
World Vision is launching a new, partnership-wide campaign to end violence against children. The campaign is the result of discernment, prayer, and need for decisive action to address an issue that affects over one billion children every year, children in every country and every community. Many National Offices (NOs) have indicated plans to include child marriage in their local and national campaigns, increasing the focus in programming and advocacy to address this as part of the overall push to end violence against children. It is hoped that this document will help guide NOs in their journey to eliminating child marriage and ending violence against 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 Change for Children: Global Initiative on Social and Behaviour Change.”
The project aims to generate knowledge on the specific roles, caveats, effective strategies, and demonstrated impacts of faith-based organizations in social and behavior change communications. The initiative will support faith engagement across sectors including health, development, protection, and empowerment of children throughout the life cycle, with a strong focus on the most marginalized.
View more about the initiative here
One of the most powerful influencers of individual behaviours, social norms and collective action at community and societal level is religion. Religion has a profound impact on personal and collective values and social norms and as such can be a powerful catalyst for positive action to improve the lives of women and children. In situations of conflict, unrest and humanitarian crisis, religious leaders and faith actors are also singularly best positioned to foster inter-faith dialogue, diffuse tensions and discriminatory attitudes and provide spiritual and psychological support in the face of adversity. Conversely, faith-based leaders/actors can be a source of detrimental influence which perpetuates harmful traditional practices, gender inequity and restricted access or resistance to life-saving and health promoting behaviours, products and services.
UNICEF has a long history of active engagement with local faith actors as civil society partners for the wellbeing of children. A 2014 global mapping of the organization’s engagement with religious communities, however, showed that while 150 of UNICEF’s country offices across the world were engaging in one way or other with Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), the partnerships, for the most part, were comprised of ad-hoc, activity level and short-lived initiatives versus more overarching cross-sectoral efforts tied to country programme priorities. Also, while sensitization, social mobilization and advocacy activities have accounted for two thirds of country-level FBO-related engagement, these have largely been characterized by message-based approaches, instrumentalist in nature and lacking evidence to address the complexity of social and behaviour change issues.
To address these challenges and 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.
View more about the initiative here
This report presents findings of the Survey on Traditional Practices in Malawi that was carried out by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the Centre for Social Research (CSR) at the University of Malawi, and the Center for Child Well-being and Development at the University of Zurich (CCWD), with technical and financial support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The survey was motivated by the fact that some traditional practices, widely deemed as harmful, continue to be practiced despite concerted efforts by different stakeholders to abate them. Law enforcement
remains a concern.
It is against this backdrop that this study sought to contribute to the systematic documentation of the prevalence and persistence of two traditional practices: namely, early marriage and initiation ceremonies.
In particular, this study sought to provide regionally and nationally representative prevalence levels of these two traditional practices. This would then help establish if there are regional variations in the incidence of these traditional practices as well as the principal decision makers. The ultimate objective is to establish the drivers of support for these traditional practices that make them resilient even in the face of concerted efforts to abolish them.
Contributions of Faith Communities to Ending Violence Against Children
Presented by Jean Duff, JLI President
This literature review is one part of three of the JLI Ending Violence Against Children (EVAC) Hub scoping study. It presents an overview of published and grey literature in regard to the unique contributions of faith actors to eliminating violence against children as well as how faith actors have been involved in perpetuation thereof.
This scoping study offers an initial contribution to exploring existing evidence in two specific areas:
- Firstly, the unique contributions of faith communities both in relation to ending, as well as contributing to, violence against children, to understand their involvement in this sphere.
- Secondly, the role of faith actors in influencing wider child protection systems to prevent and respond to EVAC to understand the potential for their engagement
Suggested citation: Rutledge, K. and Eyber, C. (2019) ‘Scoping Study on Faith actors’ involvement in the prevention, elimination and perpetuation of violence against children.’ Washington DC: Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities Ending Violence Against Children Hub.
View the other JLI EVAC Scoping Reports
This report presents findings from the consultation component – one part of three of the JLI Ending Violence Against Children (EVAC) Hub scoping study. The study examines existing evidence, analyses trends, identifies key gaps and highlights examples of faith actors working to end violence against children. This data is crucial to help policymakers, religious leaders and practitioners inform policies and advocate for programmes and prevention efforts with faith communities to end violence against children. It will help set a future research agenda for the EVAC Hub and support evidence-based work with faith communities to end violence against children.
This scoping study offers an initial contribution to exploring existing evidence in two specific areas:
- Firstly, the unique contributions of faith communities both in relation to ending, as well as contributing to, violence against children, to understand their involvement in this sphere.
- Secondly, the role of faith actors in influencing wider child protection systems to prevent and respond to EVAC to understand the potential for their engagement
Three cross-cutting issues were identified by Hub leaders and were built into the study: child participation, gender and interfaith engagement. This report is based on evidence that all religions contain protective aspects, which offer important contributions to the EVAC task. Religious actors such as leaders, scholars, educators and faith-based organisations can play critical roles in behaviour change, service delivery, referrals and advocacy, by offering a unique entry point.
Suggested Citation: Palm, S. (2019) ‘Scoping Study on Faith actors’ involvement in the prevention, elimination and perpetuation of violence against children.’ Expert Consultation Report. Washington DC: Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities Ending Violence Against Children Hub.
View the other JLI EVAC Scoping Reports
