Strengthening Support for Child Protection in Education in Senegal – UNICEF

The project aims to improve the well-being of children in eight regions of Senegal (Matam Sédhiou Kaolack Kaffrine Kolda Kédougou Tambacounda and Ziguinchor) and to offer them adequate protection during their schooling so that they can live and study within structures that ensure their safety and give them every opportunity possible to be successful. The project focuses on building the capacity of child protection and education actors creating a safe school environment and raising students’ and communities’ awareness of children’s rights. With a view to ensure appropriate support of child protection systems in school environments the project simultaneously works on systems services and programs early intervention services and prevention. Project activities include: (1) training security forces magistrates social workers and school authorities on legal instruments relating to child protection; (2) developing a national action plan to counter child abuse in school environments raising school stakeholders’ awareness of preventive control measures for epidemics (e.g. Ebola hemorrhagic fever); (3) involving a number of stakeholders in awareness campaigns to discontinue early and forced marriage practices; and (4) raising economic operators’ awareness of alternative solutions to child labour in mining areas. The project is expected to directly affect 750 000 children (382 500 girls and 367 500 boys) ranging in age from 3 to 18 years and registered in 1 700 public school facilities as well as to indirectly affect 10 000 youth who are out of school or who have no schooling (6 500 girls and 3 500 boys) from 14 to 18 years of age. This project is one of the three components of the “Strengthening Support for Child Protection in Education in Senegal” project valued overall at $20M and jointly implemented by Plan Canada UNICEF and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Senegal (through the Ministry of Education). It is part of Senegal’s National Child Protec

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) increased involvement of government and local institutions in prevention and child protection considering international standards and gender-specific differences; (2) improved access by boys and girls in deprived areas to a safe equitable and violence-free school environment which helps to protect them and promotes their effective participation in school; and (3) increased protection provided by local actors in formal and informal protection systems against and prevention of labour-based abuse and exploitation for boys and girls in the targeted areas.