INSPIRING ways to End Violence Against Children

COVID-19 has impacted the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of populations all around the world. Myanmar – a country where one-fifth of its population were lifetime migrants before COVID-19 – is no exception.  

In this episode, Andy Nielson, the Director of Advocacy Campaigns, Communications and Media for Save the Children, talks through an innovative new programme called Mee Pya Tike, which means ‘Lighthouse’ in Burmese. Central to the intervention was creating a space to deliver anonymous mental health services to young people through technology, including text-based support. Listen in to learn more about this intervention, the powerful testimonies from adolescents it reached, and the goal of integrating this platform into wider, tangible child protection services.

In countries like Somalia, COVID-19 was a crisis on top of crisis, further impacting children and communities already mired by longstanding conflict and instability.  

In this episode, Abdi Waber, Manager of Child Protection and Child Rights Governance for Save the Children Somalia, speaks of the devastating impacts COVID-19 has had on children and families in Somalia. He shares how the pandemic has driven up child labour, increased sexual violence, aggravated physical and psychological violence in the home, and increased rates of child marriage as families struggled to cope, particularly with the difficult social economic shocks that accompanied lockdowns.  

Waber also speaks of how staff worked to adapt programmes to continue vital interventions that helped parents and caregivers abstain from using violence while parenting during an increasingly difficult time violence in their parenting techniques and approaches during COVID-19. To do so, the team harnessed the power of radio, television and social media to reach parents and caregivers in new ways.

In Nepal, nearly one third of girls aged 15 to 19 are married, and about 22 per cent are involved in child labour. After COVID-19 began to spread, rates of child marriage, gender-based violence and child labour in Nepal have increased, as did severe mental and psychosocial health issues among children.  

In this episode, Rabindra Gautam, Child Rights Governance and Child Protection Adviser at Save the Children Nepal-Bhutan, highlights the innovations and adaptations his office made to reach children during an increasingly difficult time. To address the elevating protection risks – and the compounding challenges of engaging with children directly – the country office leveraged digital platforms, including social media, to ensure children had a space for their voices to be heard, especially when it mattered most. Gautam also highlights the way technology was used to amplify children’s experiences, and bring their recommendations to policymakers, practitioners, and decision-makers across the country.

Schools should be a place where children are safe to learn, grow and thrive to their full potential. During COVID-19, however, more than 1.5 billion children were forced from the classroom – leaving children more vulnerable to violence, exploitation and abuse than ever before. In Guatemala, Save the Children had developed a diploma course to support teachers and parents to keep schools safe – and during COVID-19, staff snapped into action to adapt this course to fit a drastically new context. 

 In this episode, Lyda Guarin, Save the Children’s Child Protection Regional Adviser for Latin America, spoke with programming staff Idalma Choquin and Marjorie Bosque in Save the Children’s Guatemala Country Office. The three explored how they adapted the course for parents and teachers to narrated videos, disseminating those products through WhatsApp groups and other platforms. They also discussed the importance of providing additional one-on-one support when necessary, and integrating group phone calls to reach parents and teachers that needed them.

When COVID-19 spread to India, Prathit Singh 's world – like all of ours – was rocked. He was in the middle of his high school exams when he was told he couldn’t go back to the classroom, and saw first-hand how the lockdowns affected children and young people throughout his community. As a result, he became involved in the COVIDunder19 survey project, led by Terre des Hommes across the world.  

Today, Singh is the Youth Adviser for COVIDunder19 in India. In this podcast, he speaks about the creation and implementation of the global COVIDunder19 survey, which spoke to over 26,000 children in over 137 countries throughout the globe, along with the way the research provided children with an opportunity to explain their experiences to government leaders.

Across the world, as Governments reacted to the rapidly spreading COVID-19 by shutting down schools and preventing movement, the voices and needs of children quickly became invisible in considerations to the public health response.   

 In this episode, Jennifer Davidson talks about the COVID 4P Log smartphone app project, spanning 22 countries and 5 continents, which captures the experiences and insights logged by policymakers and practitioners as they have been working with children and families during COVID-19.

At age 4, Stella Aya Odongo lost her father to violence. At the time, Uganda was caught in conflict, and Odongo spent years wondering how violence could strike a family the way it had struck her own. Odongo never stopped asking those questions – and today, she tackles them head-on as the Coordinator and Regional Advisor of the African Partnership to End Violence Against Children at the African Child Policy Forum.  

In this episode, Odongo shares her journey – and how she went from being a migrant child to a passionate activist to, today, a leader in the child protection space. Odongo also talks about using data, storytelling, and evidence-based strategies to end violence, and how creating good policy can change the lives of children across the world.

Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world. With 17,500 islands, 242 million people, and 500 district governments, the country has a vast, complex government structure – and sometimes, children can fall through the cracks.  

In this episode, we learn more about these children from Santi Kusumaningrum, the Director of the Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing at Universitas Indonesia. For decades, Kusumaningrum has worked to address the needs of the undocumented children. This work is critical everywhere, but especially in Indonesia, where 14% of girls and boys are living without a birth certificate. Through her work, Kusumaningrum has discovered the way good data and evidence-based solutions can change this situation for Indonesia’s children – and on this podcast, you will learn more about how she is working to achieve just that.

Every half a second, a child makes their first click online. Though the internet holds boundless opportunities for children, it also poses real, life-altering risks – including sexual exploitation and abuse. In this episode, we speak to someone on the frontlines of that challenge: Regina Jensdottir, the Head of the Children’s Rights Division at the Council of Europe. 

As an End Violence grantee and beyond, the Council of Europe has played an essential role in combatting online child sexual abuse. Jensdottir draws on that experience to explore the context of online sexual abuse, along with the solutions we need to end the problem for good.

At the age of 6, Dr Daniela Ligiero’s childhood was cut short. Someone close to her family began sexually abusing her, and for years, Ligiero struggled to cope with what she’d experienced on her own. At the age of 15, however, she broke her silence to her friends and family. After decades of activism, dedication, and hard work, her voice is louder than ever before.     

Today, Ligiero is the CEO of Together for Girls, a global partnership working to end violence against children, especially sexual abuse. In this episode, Ligiero speaks about the powerful role survivors can play in the fight against violence, and how such individuals can build a movement that pushes governments, decision-makers, leaders, and institutions to act, invest and mobilise.