Getting to street children before the streets get to them

26 years ago, when British Rail Executive David Maidment arrived at a railway station in Mumbai, India, he saw a sight that profoundly changed him and his chosen path of work. A girl child, hawking, was committing violence against herself,  flogging herself,  when she was unable to collect the money she needed. When he returned to try to find her shortly after, she was nowhere to be found. 

The incident of spotting that little girl was a turning point, that led to David Maidment ultimately setting up his own organisation – using the framework and knowledge from those very rail networks he had been working with. Railway Children works to reach children as soon as they arrive on the streets and intervene before any harm, abuse or violence can take place. It works to identify and support children who are away from home and positively change their circumstances. During its 25 years, Railway Children has reached more than 275,000 children in India, the UK and East Africa. 

End Violence spoke to Mary Gatama, Programme Manager in Tanzania, and Pete Kent, Programme Development Director about Railway Children’s journey and impact. Read about this End Violence Partner and Together to #ENDviolence Champion organisation.

Read more.

No deaf child should scream in sign language

At just 17, Steve Crump lost his hearing. Little by little, he began hearing less and less – until eventually, he was surrounded by silence. Though his reality had changed, he continued pushing his career forward amongst the hearing world. But one day, he was confronting by something startling: D/deaf children were nearly three times more likely to be abused, exploited and violated – and no one was listening.

From that moment on, Crump decided to commit everything he had to protecting deaf children. He founded DeafKidz International to highlight the endemic rates of violence among D/deaf children, working with organisations in South Africa, Jamaica and beyond to combat such violence across the world. Today, DeafKidz is a partner and grantee of the End Violence Partnership, and a recipient of our 2020 Safe Online funding round. Learn more about the challenges D/deaf children face, and how Crump and DeafKidz International are working to end them.

Read more.

Preventing violence through music

Since the age of 5, Connie Fortunato found a special meaning in music and realized its power. Her dream was to help every child access that power, and help them use music to grow and to heal. Since then, life journey has revolved around music, and she has brought its healing, restorative effects to thousands of children around the world.

For 12 years, Fortunato ran a children's music leadership training institute where she learned and analyzed what helped children develop and grow. Later, inspired by a little boy wanting to sing from an orphanage in Romania, she established Music Camp International. Since 2002, it has created a supportive and protective environment for some of the world’s most vulnerable children. Today, Connie and her team have engaged over 25,000 children in these programmes, primarily in Ukraine and Romania, and have conducted 139 camps in 33 cities. 

Read more

Paving the way for safer schools in Sri Lanka

For years, Dr Tush Wickramanayaka has been a passionate advocate for children’s safety. As a child, she experienced violence within her own classrooms – but only realized the devastating impact of these cultural norms when those experiences were mirrored by her 11-year-old daughter.

After 26 years as a general physician, Dr Wickramanayaka decided to take on a new challenge. She brought the abuse of her daughter to the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, and eventually, the United Nations Human Rights Commission. At the same time, she launched a national campaign to turn the tide on corporal punishment in Sri Lanka: the Stop Child Cruelty Trust.

In the years since, the Trust has grown the movement against corporal punishment across Sri Lanka, engaging not just teachers, parents and government members, but children and young people themselves.

Read more.

The first school-based social worker in Sri Lanka

When Sanjeeva de Mel began studying social work, he tried something uncommon in Sri Lanka at that time: working in schools. By the age of 27, he had become the first school-based social worker in the country – and in the decades since, de Mel has left a lasting positive mark on communities, caregivers and children throughout Sri Lanka.

From supporting child sexual abuse cases as a social work student to founding SERVE, a Sri Lankan non-profit organization, de Mel has worked to embed social work and its practices programmes for children, with a particular focus on girls and the most vulnerable. While leading SERVE, de Mel also became the Country Representative of a United Kingdom-based non-profit called Hope for Children. As the fourth End Violence Champion, de Mel shared his experiences in the social work and non-profit field, and explored how to truly end violence against children – once and for all.

Read more

A survivor turned activist in Nepal

At the age of 5, Kamala Poudel lost her childhood. Sold to a trafficking ring by her stepfather, Poudel was forced from her home in Nepal to a brothel in India, joining the 50 other girls and women that are trafficked from Nepal to India every day.

Eventually, Poudel escaped from the brothel and slowly made her way back to Nepal. The journey home wasn’t easy: before she even hit her teenage years, Poudel had to work on the streets – nearly always in exploitative conditions – to get enough food to survive. Her difficult childhood, coupled with years of homelessness, sexual abuse and a 10-year prison sentence, left Poudel with severe mental health issues.

It wasn’t until meeting staff from KOSHISH, a Nepalese non-profit, that Poudel got the support she needed to recover and rebuild. About a year after accessing psychological and medical treatment through KOSHISH, Poudel began working for the organisation herself – and today, she is helping both children and adults through her role as a Program Officer.

Read more

Creator of the Stepping Stones training package

Since its publication in 1995, the Stepping Stones training package has touched children, families and communities in over 100 countries across the globe. The woman at the heart of Stepping Stones is Dr Alice Welbourn, who wrote the training package two years after her own HIV diagnosis. Throughout her career, Welbourn had designed and implemented participatory programmes in communities across East and sub-Saharan Africa – and to help make sense of her own diagnosis, Welbourn decided to do what she does best: create a training package to help others just like her.

In the years since, Welbourn and her team have gone on a journey nearly as expansive as the reach of Stepping Stones itself. The package has been translated into dozens of languages. It has more recently been adapted to fit the priorities of children, particularly among those aged 5-14 years of age. And in 2016 the original version was wholly revised and updated to align it with the huge scientific advances that have taken place since the original publication.

Read more