Child Protection and Anticipatory Action
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News
We need to do better to protect children and guarantee their rights in emergencies.
Embedding Education and Child Protection in Anticipatory Action Lessons from the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society’s School Feeding Intervention in Binga
14 Mar, 2025
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Discover how embedding education and child protection within anticipatory action is transforming the lives of children in drought-affected regions of Zimbabwe. This innovative initiative by the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS), in collaboration with key humanitarian partners, integrates school feeding, protection measures, and early action protocols to support vulnerable children and their communities.
In Binga District, Matabeleland North Province, where recurrent El Niño-driven droughts have exacerbated food insecurity, disrupted education, and heightened child protection risks, the school feeding intervention offers a critical lifeline. This initiative provides fortified meals to over 5,378 children in 11 primary schools, ensuring continued school attendance and reducing risks of child labor, early marriage, and school dropout.
Our approach is rooted in community engagement, prioritizing locally driven solutions that align with the needs identified by children, parents, and educators. The intervention not only improves school retention and cognitive development but also strengthens child safeguarding, with structured feedback mechanisms allowing children to voice concerns in a safe and supportive environment.
By combining anticipatory action with education and child protection, this initiative demonstrates how timely interventions can safeguard children's well-being in crisis-prone settings. Community ownership plays a vital role, with over 175 parents and volunteers actively involved in daily meal preparation, fostering sustainability and resilience.
Join Us in Driving Change
Learn how anticipatory action can be leveraged to protect children and support education in crisis-affected areas. Explore key successes, lessons learned, and best practices that can be adapted to different contexts.
📥 Download the full case study to gain insights into our impact and discover practical strategies for integrating child protection and education in humanitarian response:
Embedding Education and Child Protection in Anticipatory Action: Lessons from the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society’s School Feeding Intervention in Binga
In Binga District, Matabeleland North Province, where recurrent El Niño-driven droughts have exacerbated food insecurity, disrupted education, and heightened child protection risks, the school feeding intervention offers a critical lifeline. This initiative provides fortified meals to over 5,378 children in 11 primary schools, ensuring continued school attendance and reducing risks of child labor, early marriage, and school dropout.
Our approach is rooted in community engagement, prioritizing locally driven solutions that align with the needs identified by children, parents, and educators. The intervention not only improves school retention and cognitive development but also strengthens child safeguarding, with structured feedback mechanisms allowing children to voice concerns in a safe and supportive environment.
By combining anticipatory action with education and child protection, this initiative demonstrates how timely interventions can safeguard children's well-being in crisis-prone settings. Community ownership plays a vital role, with over 175 parents and volunteers actively involved in daily meal preparation, fostering sustainability and resilience.
Join Us in Driving Change
Learn how anticipatory action can be leveraged to protect children and support education in crisis-affected areas. Explore key successes, lessons learned, and best practices that can be adapted to different contexts.
📥 Download the full case study to gain insights into our impact and discover practical strategies for integrating child protection and education in humanitarian response:
Embedding Education and Child Protection in Anticipatory Action: Lessons from the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society’s School Feeding Intervention in Binga
We Need to Do Better: Climate Related Disasters and Child Protection in Southeast Asia
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Document
This analysis report, “We Need To Do Better: Climate Related Disasters and Child Protection in Southeast Asia” is a partnership between the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility and the IFRC. It aims to enhance the protection of children in climate related disasters. In particular, the analysis seeks to understand child perspectives about climate change, climate related disasters, and the risks they face. It provides practical ways to enhance coordinated and localized child protection approaches in preparing for climate related disasters in Southeast Asia.
We Need To Do Better: Climate Related Disasters and Child Protection in Eastern and Southern Africa
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Document
This analysis report, “We Need To Do Better: Climate Related Disasters and Child Protection in Eastern and Southern Africa” is a partnership between the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility and the IFRC.
It aims to enhance the protection of children in climate related disasters. In particular, the analysis seeks to understand child perspectives about climate change, climate related disasters, and the risks they face. It provides practical ways to enhance coordinated and localized child protection approaches in preparing for climate related disasters in Eastern and Southern Africa.
It aims to enhance the protection of children in climate related disasters. In particular, the analysis seeks to understand child perspectives about climate change, climate related disasters, and the risks they face. It provides practical ways to enhance coordinated and localized child protection approaches in preparing for climate related disasters in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Case Study: Portugal Red Cross Protection and Assistance to Unaccompanied and Separated Children
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The Portugal Red Cross Housing System to shelter unaccompanied children was aimed specifically at children seeking asylum within the scope of the European Relocation Programme. The Housing System ran from June 2020 to March 2022, in Lisbon. It had the capacity to take in 25 children at any one time. Each child stayed for a length of time as appropriate to their individual situation.
The Housing System was designed to integrate children into the local society, to empower them, and to provide them with skills to have autonomy in the future. To achieve this inclusive integration, a holistic approach was applied that included supporting children to access health care, education, local services, legal documentation, Restoring Family Links. The interests, capacities, and needs of each child were taken into account in the design of each child's personal plan while at the Housing System.
The Housing System was designed to integrate children into the local society, to empower them, and to provide them with skills to have autonomy in the future. To achieve this inclusive integration, a holistic approach was applied that included supporting children to access health care, education, local services, legal documentation, Restoring Family Links. The interests, capacities, and needs of each child were taken into account in the design of each child's personal plan while at the Housing System.
IFRC and Sesame Workshop: Child Play-based Assessment Tool
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News
The pilot IFRC and Sesame Workshop play-based assessment tool of children’s wellbeing is designed to engage young children, ages 4-8 years, and families as part of assessments in emergency or non-emergency settings.
Children often represent a significant, or even a majority, of the people affected by disasters and other crises. However, the needs of young children are rarely assessed directly with children, and especially those from marginalized backgrounds. And although every child has the right to participate in decisions that affect them, young children rarely have opportunities to have their voices heard in a meaningful way.
Without appropriate child participation, humanitarian programming is inherently ineffective because it does not draw on the perspectives or needs and capacities of children and their families.
Children often represent a significant, or even a majority, of the people affected by disasters and other crises. However, the needs of young children are rarely assessed directly with children, and especially those from marginalized backgrounds. And although every child has the right to participate in decisions that affect them, young children rarely have opportunities to have their voices heard in a meaningful way.
Without appropriate child participation, humanitarian programming is inherently ineffective because it does not draw on the perspectives or needs and capacities of children and their families.
Case Study: Turkish Red Crescent Cash for Protection and Supporting Separated Children
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On February 6th, 2023 magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes struck Türkiye, with 83 aftershocks, impacting 11 cities. Türk Kızılay / Turkish Red Crescent launched a Cash for Protection programme in November 2023 in 6 of the most earthquake affected provinces. The aim was to alleviate economic difficulties, mitigate possible protection risks, and prevent adverse negative coping strategies like child marriage and child labour. Among the groups accessing the Cash for Protection programme are separated children and their caregivers who require cash for protection to overcome the financial barriers for their legal processes or to empower their family support systems.
Cayman Islands: Preventing Sexual Violence against Children
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The Cayman Islands Red Cross (CIRC) has delivered child-protection and sexuality-education programming for over two decades. The Protection Starts Here initiative was launched to bring together stakeholders working in child safeguarding, raise public awareness of child sexual abuse and to strengthen community capacity to prevent and respond to it. PSH shifted the organization’s focus from risk education to proactive protection, aiming to create a culture where adults take responsibility for the safeguarding of children.
Child Protection Rapid Assessment Toolkit
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The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG) is the global level forum for coordination on child protection in humanitarian settings. The group brings together NGOs, UN agencies, academics and others under the shared objective of ensuring more predictable, accountable and effective child protection responses in emergencies. In the humanitarian system, we constitute ‘an area of responsibility’ within the Global Protection Cluster.
Global Forum For Children and Youth
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Event
Virtual
The Global Forum will focus the world’s attention on the rights and urgent needs of children and young people, identify and celebrate proven and new solutions to address them, and inspire commitments, drive action and mobilize transformational resources to scale up and advance child rights and meet the Sustainable Development Goals.