Africa
Burundi
Child participants: 44,206
Adult participants: 10242
War Child staff: 36
Local partner organisations: Two
Burundi has been tormented by conflict and instability for years – and remains one of the poorest countries in Africa. War Child works inside Burundi to rebuild social structures in partnership with local communities. These efforts serve to strengthen child protection mechanisms and increase access to education and livelihoods training.
In 2019 War Child - with the help of 150 child protection committees and local authorities - enabled some 8,000 children to return to school.
Thanks to these achievements, we were able to significantly strengthen our partnership with UNICEF. This freed up funds and paved the way for the introduction of a new programme component - socio-economic empowerment for adolescents. We also worked to increase access to formal education and health services - a move which saw more than 43,000 children receive back-dated birth registration certificates.
Chad
Child Participants: N/A
Can’t Wait to Learn Teachers and Facilitators: 50
Local partner organisations: Two
October marked an important milestone for our internationally acclaimed Can’t Wait to Learn programme - a month which saw the e-learning initiative launch in Chad. Chad is one of the world’s largest refugee host countries - with more than 600,000 refugee children in urgent need of schooling. This coupled with the protracted humanitarian crisis has pushed 1.2 million children (aged 6 to 11) out of school.
War Child will work to close this critical education gap with the support of our local implementing partner Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) as well as in ongoing collaboration with the Ministry of Education, UNHCR, UNESCO and the National Curriculum Development Centre of Chad. The last quarter of the year saw final preparations - with a focus on co-creation sessions with children - ramp up ahead of roll-out in 2020.
DR Congo
Child participants: 30,626
Adult participants: 3273
War Child staff: 48
Local partner organisations: 13
War Child works in DR Congo to support children affected by violence between armed groups and state forces - violence that stems from more than 20 years of internal conflict. Instability inside the country worsened further as a result of the 2017 Ebola outbreak. Our integrated programme combines education, psychosocial support and vocational training to empower children and youth from both refugee and host communities.
A new project to support victims of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and children formerly associated with armed groups received significant funding from partner UNICEF. These funds greatly increased our capacity to deal with SGBV cases in the Kahele region and - in the early stages of the project - helped us to provide quality psychosocial support to 66 children.
We were proud to reach 30,626 children across the year as a whole - exceeding our internal targets.
South Sudan
Child participants: 9,871
Adult participants: 1,800
War Child staff: 48
War Child’s programme in South Sudan is designed to help children cope with the immediate and long-term effects of the country’s enduring civil war. Our programme combines psychosocial support, child protection, non-formal education and livelihoods training to enhanced effect.
The year saw us spearhead our work to train frontline staff from both the government and NGO sector to provide psychosocial support to children - a ground-breaking move with the potential to transform national capacity. This included the establishment of high-level relationships within two Ministries - and a platform for continued collaboration with 16 NGOs.
Sudan
Child participants: 2,667
Can’t Wait to Learn Teachers and Facilitators: 122
Local partner organisations: Can’t Wait to Learn coalition
An estimated three million children are currently out of school in Sudan - around one third of the school age population. War Child continues to address these urgent needs through Can’t Wait to Learn - our global programme born out of the highly successful e-learning Sudan pilot. Despite delays in implementation due to the worsening political situation, our partnership with UNICEF Sudan helped us reach a total of 2,667 children over the course of 2019. Nearly 5,000 children in Kassala and the White Nile states have been registered for accelerated scale up of the programme in 2020.
Uganda
Child participants: 35,754
Adult participants: 668
War Child staff: 65
Local partner organisations: Nine
Uganda is the third-largest refugee hosting country in the world - currently home to an estimated 1.3 million arrivals from neighbouring states. Over 60 per cent of these refugees are children - and that’s why we continued to focus exclusively on their needs over the course of 2019.
We provide education and psychosocial support to children and young people from both refugee and host communities - with a focus on survivors of gender-based violence and children with disabilities.
The first half of 2019 saw us rapidly respond to the urgent situation facing thousands of refugees with the roll-out of five new interventions across Uganda. INCLUDE - our consortium project featuring Can’t Wait to Learn - saw some 22,340 children receive support across three locations. The roll out of the SPOT project - implemented by War Child Holland in collaboration with Humanity & Inclusion and TPO Uganda - saw an additional 6,000 DR Congolese children receive vital psychosocial support - thanks to a €1.1 million grant from the European Union.