Programming for War-Affected Children and Youth

War Child Canada
Defence for Children International - Canada
Lessons and Best Practices
What we have learned
Development Principles
Operational Principles

The fabric of African communities is being shredded by war: young people, torn from their families by combatants, become both perpetrators and victims of violence. Boys are forcibly conscripted; girls are abducted and sexually violated.

If they survive, these young people return home bearing the scars and trauma of violence - and often with children born during their time spent in the bush. Then, rejected by their families and communities for being participants in the conflict, they have no way forward.

Through the Canada Fund for Africa (CFA), Canada invested $6 million in the War-Affected Youth Program to explore ways to bring youth into the process of community healing and peace-building in Africa's most conflict-affected countries.

The following is a summary of lessons learned in CFA-supported projects developed and managed by War Child Canada (WCC) and Defence for Children International-Canada (DCI). It is based on a CIDA study "Lessons Learned: War-Affected Children and Youth" (Margot Rothman, CIDA, 2007).

---

War Child Canada

• School Rehabilitation and Revitalization Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in partnership with the Federation of Methodist Churches of Congo (FMCC)
• Former Child Soldiers Rehabilitation Project in Sierra Leone, in partnership with the Centre for Coordination of Youth Activities (CCYA) in Makeni and the International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) in Freetown
• Youth Development Project in South Sudan, in partnership with War Child Holland
• Child Legal Defence Project in northern Uganda, in partnership with Legal Aid Project (LAP) a local non-governmental organization

---

Defence for Children International-Canada

• Youth Ambassadors for Peace and Citizenship (JEPC) project in Angola, in partnership with the Development Workshop
• Project to Support the Social and Economic Reintegration of Young Women and Girls Affected by Conflict and Victims of Violence in Burundi, in partnership with a consortium of local partners under the leadership of ACORD Burundi
• Mother-Daughter Project in northern Uganda, in partnership with World Vision Uganda and a committee of stakeholder organizations
• Inter-country Project, based in Kenya, in collaboration with ACORD, to enhance the research and advocacy capacity of DCI's three war-affected youth projects

---

Lessons and Best Practices

1. Building a healing community environment for the reintegration of young people is as important as attending to their individual psycho-social and reintegration needs.

• Involve a broad range of community stakeholders.
• Revive traditional, intergenerational relationships.
• Provide youth with communication skills.
• Promote safe spaces for dialogue.

Example: Child mothers in northern Uganda presented plays to 20,000 spectators in 16 internally displaced persons (IDP) camps on the effects of conflict on family relationships. The plays helped to sensitize adults to the painful rejection felt by young mothers as a result of conflict.

2. Re-establishing a sense of normalcy in the lives of children and young people is crucial to their healing and reintegration.

• Provide community space and opportunity for children's rest, recreation, and play.
• Promote young people as organizers, mentors, and role models for younger children.
• Ensure that the adults who work with children are trained in child rights, psycho-social counseling, and active listening.

Example: Youth groups in Sudan organized "play days" for children in communities affected by conflict. Creative activities (drawing, drama, song, games) helped children express their feelings and gave them a space to be children again. The youth group members gained a sense of purpose and the respect of their communities.

3. Reinforcing community services and government capacity to protect child rights is crucial and complementary to revitalizing community networks.

• Provide separate settings for men, women, and youth to discuss the sensitive topic of rights violations, and confidential venues for them to report such violations.
• Develop a strong referral network capable of identifying and referring child rights violation cases.
• Promote child rights training for government authorities as a positive professional development opportunity rather than as a negative judgment of performance.
• Talk about child rights in terms of a country's own legal statutes, regulations, directives, and job descriptions.

Example: In Burundi, 240 community leaders participated in awareness-raising workshops on child righats, 120 education officials were trained in psycho-social care for victims of violence, and legal representation was provided to 300 girls and women through a local Women's Lawyer's Association.

4. Providing vocational skills and the means of generating income is a crucial first step in the reintegration of youth.

• Analyze training needs before designing training. Education levels can vary widely.
• Plan on more time and resources to establish group income-generating activities.
• Consider the needs of young mothers, including their availability, security, and child care needs.

Example: A project in Sierra Leone helped 400 young people (half of whom were women) improve traditional income-generating activities (beekeeping for young men, groundnut cultivation and goat rearing for young women). As their collaboration and self-confidence grew, community leaders reacted to the youth with greater respect and inclusion.

5. Understanding and addressing local culture, customs, traditions, and rituals is essential for community healing.

• Promote research by youth into community traditions that promote reconciliation, and those that reinforce discrimination and social exclusion of vulnerable groups.
• Encourage discussion of results and sensitization to identified issues through personal testimonies, drama, and traditional conflict-resolution processes.

Example: As a means of conflict resolution, 12 youth groups in Angola revived the tradition of ondjango, the Umbundu word for a simple community meeting place where people discuss issues of common concern. Community elders reacted very positively to this initiative, and the youth gained a respected place in their communities.

6. Young people can play a meaningful role in peace-building when their needs are considered and the purpose of their participation is articulated and broadly shared.

• View youth as crucial and important stakeholders with needs that are different from those of adults.
• Analyze and address barriers to youth participation, particularly for girls; help adults explore their resistance.
• Focus youth participation on tangible short-term results that will be viewed as beneficial to all.
• Provide skills training to young people.
• Identify adult mentors who can facilitate dialogue between youth and their communities.
• Rely on youth-to-youth training, sensitization, and research wherever possible.

Example: In Angola, 112 young people from different ethnic, religious, and political affiliations came together as Young Ambassadors to promote peace-building in their communities. Representing many isolated organizations that had never collaborated before, they focused on clearly articulated goals of promoting reconciliation and a voice for youth in social reconstruction. Community leaders and local authorities saw the value in youth peace-building efforts and recognized that young people were contributing to reconciliation in their communities in ways that had not been previously possible.

7. Promoting gender equality and child rights in situations of conflict and post-conflict requires considerable cultural knowledge and sensitivity.

• Consider child rights and gender equality as mutually reinforcing objectives and promote them at all levels: family, community, and government.
• Develop strategies up front to address inequalities in access to resources and benefits.
• Begin with needs-based, rather than rights-based, discourse. Focus on actual experiences, social relationships, and personal testimonies.
• Emphasize rights and responsibilities for both claim makers and duty bearers.
• Target young women and child mothers who are often forgotten because they are seen as neither children nor adults.

Example: In northern Uganda, parents and community leaders were initially uncomfortable with project discourse around child rights, which appeared to diminish their authority, and with child-rights training that they felt was too abstract. The project successfully refocused the discourse around the concept of "child rights and responsibilities", and shifted the focus of training and sensitization sessions to concrete, everyday interactions between adults and children.

---

What we have learned

The following programming principles emerged from the experiences of the eight CFA sub-projects. We hope that these principles will help guide future CIDA investments for war-affected children and youth in Africa.

---

Development Principles

Young people are necessary stakeholders in peace-building.

While young people are the primary victims of violence in Africa, they also represent the hope for the future. They must play a role and have a voice in conflict resolution and peace-building.

A healing community environment is crucial for the reintegration and healing of war-affected youth.

Supporting young people, their families, and their community are essential interdependent processes in promoting healing and reintegration.

Reintegration is more effective when young people find a clear role in community reconstruction and peace-building.

To break the negative stereotyping and exclusion of war-affected youth, both adults and youth in a community need to build a positive role for youth that is perceived as beneficial by all.

Cultural beliefs and traditions need to be understood and addressed.

Young people can help to revitalize traditions and beliefs that promote community reconciliation and stability, while addressing those that promote division, discrimination, inequality, and social exclusion.

Analysis is crucial to design appropriate peace-building responses.

Successful intervention strategies must consider that young people are not a homogeneous group. They are affected by conflict and participate in peace-building solutions in different ways depending on their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, location, and status.

Promoting child rights and gender equality are mutually reinforcing processes in programming for war-affected youth.

During conflict, girls and young women are abused and exploited. After conflict, they are rejected, isolated, and impoverished. The impact of this human rights violation is only now emerging.

---

Operational Principles

When investing in peace-building programs it is essential to commit the necessary time and resources to effect sustainable change in the well-being of young people.

In communities wracked by conflict, social change takes time to understand the context, build trust, improve skills and knowledge, and strengthen local ownership for ideas and outcomes. The risk of ending project investments too quickly is that young people will lose trust and hope.

Partnerships are essential to meet the diverse needs and interests of war-affected young people.

War-affected youth require many different types of support (counselling, parenting, family mediation, legal aid, vocational training, business development, training in leadership, project management, and advocacy). Strong partnerships among organizations that can provide such support are essential. These require good leadership, clear roles, effective coordination, and a shared vision and philosophy.

An iterative and flexible approach to project management is most appropriate in conflict and post-conflict countries.

Security concerns, lack of infrastructure, difficulty in communication, and the high cost of living can complicate project management. Adopting an iterative management approach is best, one which combines effective communication, rigorous monitoring, and flexibility in program planning, replanning, and budgeting.

Project-management structures can be effective mechanisms to involve youth in peace-building while strengthening community ownership and improving project relevance.

Inclusive decision-making processes support individual and community healing, reconciliation, and project relevance. Giving young people a meaningful role in decision-making structures is an effective way of promoting their reintegration. While participatory processes take more time to establish and manage, they appear to pay off down the line in terms of local ownership, relevance, and impact.

---

PDF Format

Note: to read the PDF version you need Adobe Acrobat Reader on your system. If the Adobe download site is not accessible to you, you can download Acrobat Reader from an accessible page. If you choose not to use Acrobat Reader you can have the PDF file converted to HTML or ASCII text by using one of the conversion services offered by Adobe.

Programming for War-Affected Children and Youth (1.14 MB, 4 pages)