How we work
War Child works alongside local partner organisations in a way that involves children and their communities directly. We use what we learn from them to support the most marginalised - street children, children in conflict with the law and children formerly associated with fighting forces. Practical initiatives alongside local, national and international advocacy ensure the long-term protection of these children.
Our Approach
Our approach involves a combination of practical action and local advocacy activities.
Practical action involves provision of training and the strengthening of peer-to-peer protection networks; livelihoods support; family tracing and mediation.
In terms of local advocacy, War Child and its partners engage with community leaders and local authorities to develop positive attitudes towards marginalised children.
War Child amplifies the effects of our practical action and local advocacy activities through capacity building work carried out with local partner organisations. Working with local partners enables us to benefit from local skills and a deeper understanding of complex local political, economic and social dynamics.
War Child assumes an inherent resilience among the children we seek to protect and believes that the primary agents of protection are children themselves. We follow a child-led approach which enables our response to be informed by the children themselves in way that reinforces the effectiveness of their own protection strategies. Vital to ensuring this is establishing genuine participation in information gathering, reflection and decision making. In this way, participation becomes a means of protection by enabling children to negotiate directly with people whose decisions affect their security.
Many of the children with whom War Child works have been acutely marginalised from their families and communities. To achieve the meaningful, sustainable reintegration of these children takes time. It is therefore part of our approach to make a long-term commitment to groups of children and their communities. Reintegration cannot take place without close engagement with, and capacity building of, local partner organisations, leaders and authorities. This has the added value of ensuring sustainability and enabling communities to begin to address their own problems, subsequently benefiting a greater number of children in the long term.
The children we exist to serve
War Child is committed to ensuring mutual learning, complementary goals and a shared interest in children in conflict with the law, street children, and ex-child soldiers across its country programmes. As such, themes relating to facilitating children's access to justice, and promoting protective environments and the reintegration of marginalised children cross-cut our country programmes.
These themes are amplified by the capacity building work conducted with local partners and civil society organisations who implement projects with support from War Child. This creates opportunities for organisational and partnership exchange, sharing of best practice and ensures coherence across our projects. As a result, War Child is optimally placed to develop and consolidate our expertise, launch pioneering initiatives, and support partners in the development of pilot projects. Strategically focused programming also enables us to acquire the legitimacy needed to advocate on behalf of acutely marginalised children in conflict contexts worldwide.
