Action & Impact: Using Data to End violence Against Children in Africa
This webinar is the second in the Implementation Science Collaborative’s Evidence to Policy series exploring efforts to protect children from violence in low-resource settings globally. The objective of the event is to share key achievements and lessons learned in efforts to implement governments’ national strategies to end violence against children – strategies which have been informed by critical data from Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS). Facilitated by the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), an inter-governmental organization composed of nine Member States, whose Ministries of Health earlier this year adopted a resolution acknowledging violence against children as an urgent priority in the region, this webinar takes a regional focus.
The event featured presentations from implementing partners in Kenya and Namibia, including from:
- Lifeline Childline Namibia, which worked with the Ministry of Health to strengthen Namibia’s parenting and caregiver programming;
- Project Hope Namibia, which piloted approaches to making schools safer in support of the Ministries of Education and Gender; and
- LVCT Health Kenya, which coordinated national-level and county-level cross-sectoral dissemination and action planning sessions around the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection’s National Prevention and Response Plan to End violence against children.
Following these short technical presentations there were remarks from government voices in the region, as well as USAID, which has invested in government efforts to address violence against children through PEPFAR and as a part of its Advancing Protection and Care of Children in Adversity Strategy.
Featured Speakers include:
- Robert Haihambo, Project Hope Namibia
- Nicolette Bessinger, Lifeline Childline
- Peninah Jerono, World Vision Kenya
- Anne Ngunjiri, LVCT Health
Government discussants include:
- Julius Natangwe Nghifikwa, HIV/AIDS Management Unit, Namibia Ministry of Education
- Beatrice Muyambango, Zambia Directorate of Child Development, Ministry of Community Development and Social Services
- Vivienne Mang’oli, Kenya Department of Child Services, Ministry of Labor and Social Protection
- Alice Umurerwa, Chief Social Worker, Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services
