Save the Children Norway

Protecting Children from Violence by Strengthening the Child Protection System

Uganda is home to over 900,000 child refugees and asylum seekers. The majority of these children are from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, countries that have been plagued by violence for years on end. After watching armed groups ransack their homes, these children often had no choice but to leave everything behind and start over – attempting to rebuild in overcrowded refugee camps miles from their homes.

In northwest Uganda, Save the Children Norway is using support from the Fund to address children’s most pressing needs. To help children recover from their experiences, Save the Children reached over 8,300 children with psychosocial support, 4,000 of whom received individualized social services through the organisation’s case management services. Save the Children also created a platform for over 10,700 community members to come together and discuss their shared concerns, covering topics like improving referral pathways, building peace within communities, increasing children’s participation, and child-friendly space functionality. In addition, this number includes children engaged in community dialogue meetings, where they discussed feedback on alternative care arrangements and other child protection issues.

At these events, adults, community leaders and children themselves came up with shared solutions, raising awareness of essential child protection issues and coming up with ways to collectively remedy them. In addition, the organisation also engaged 1,300 caregivers in sessions on positive parenting skills.