Background

Advocacy to Promote Equal Access to Education for Girls and Boys (APEAE) was a program where community leaders, government representatives and Civil Society experts discuss issues that are affecting Children’s education. The program was implemented by Amalna South Sudan with support from Democracy international (DI) SUCCESS Project funded by USAID. APEAE brings together different people with diverse experiences and knowledge on Child protection and sexual gender-based violence (SGBV).

We believe that every Child has the right to quality education, equal Opportunities and be free from any form of Violence. Therefore, all stakeholders should join hands towards preventing Child abuse and respect and promote children rights. We run different campaigns through radio talk shows, social media, community dialogues, public lectures, trainings, and theatre performances to create awareness on child right’s protection and promotion. We provided messages relating to child protection through different modes, where we create different platforms for community engagement and we work with 3 secondary schools in Juba, these schools are Juba girls, Juba commercial and Chinese secondary school.

What was the problem we were trying to address?

We address education barriers resulting from early and forced marriages, school violence and bullying, domestic violence, menstrual hygiene among others, these are the common problems preventing children especially girl’s from going to school.

How we address the problem

We campaign through radio talk shows, social media and community dialogue to advocate for attitude and behavior change, which is critical in advancing child education.  All campaign messages on media, dialogue forums were uniquely designed to break the barriers associated with Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV), therefore creating the value of sending children to school. Other approaches to create awareness in schools include design of metallic posters with unique messages that were fixed in 3 secondary schools in Juba; printing of messages on T-shirts and banners to create awareness on child protection and Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in schools.

Why is it important to address?

There has been records of low awareness raising activities on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in most of the schools, which has led to inadequate knowledge among children and communities on the dangers associated with SGBV and its impact on school enrolments, retention and completion. The aim of this campaign was to create and strengthen advocacy initiatives that increased community knowledge and perceptions on dangers of Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) issues and how the community can address such issues to allow girls and boys equally go to school.

Radio talk shows

Radio remains a vital tool for creating awareness on issues affecting communities, especially in hard-to-reach population like in South Sudan. APEAE had conducted 5 radio talks’ shows on specific topics relating to child protection and SGBV in schools.

Social Media Campaign

The project uses social media to reach out to the national, regional and global audiences through the online platforms.

Context Analysis

South Sudan as a youngest country has 70% of the population   under the age of 30 years old. That means the South Sudan future depends in large part on its ability to educate its young population. Education creates choices and opportunities for people, it reduces the twin burdens of poverty and diseases, and give a stronger voice in society. For a country like South Sudan education creates a dynamic workforce and well-informed citizens that can contribute to the future and opens doors for economic and social prosperity.

In most South Sudan Schools, there has been record of low awareness raising activities on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) because of this, most children and communities do not have adequate knowledge on the dangers associated with SGBV and its impact on school enrolments, retention and completion.

Radio programmes are vital to model conversations between parents, communities and school systems on how to address SGBV in Schools and the benefits of sending children to school. As radio programmes is a powerful advocacy tool, it can create community forums that generate debates on the value of education.

Over the course of the project, we produced 200 T-shirts, conducted 5 radio talk shows on City FM 88.4 FM in Juba, and conducted social media campaign with specific posters and messages that empowered social media users to engage online. This has allowed the audiences to have an overall understanding of the value of education and learned how to overcome obstacles or limitations they face with sending their own children to school.