Child Rights and Practitioner Wrongs: Lessons from Interagency Research in Sierra Leone and Kenya

Child rights are fundamental for ending violence and injustice against children and promoting children’s wellbeing. However, the top-down manner of introducing child rights is frequently problematic. Ethnographic research in Sierra Leone and Kenya indicates that top-down, impositional approaches to teaching child rights can lead local people to view child rights…

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How collaboration, early engagement and collective ownership increase research impact: Strengthening community-based child protection mechanisms in Sierra Leone

Chapter 5 of the publication “The Social Realities of Knowledge for Development: Sharing Lessons of Improving Development Processes with Evidence” published by the International Development Institute, 2017. Using Interagency Learning Initiative (ILI) action research in Sierra Leone, this chapter from a DfiD provides a case study on how a highly…

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Worse than the war’: An ethnographic study of the impact of the Ebola crisis on life, sex, teenage pregnancy, and a community-driven Intervention in rural Sierra Leone

The Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone disrupted the Interagency Learning Initiative’s action research on strengthening community-based child protection mechanisms. In response, ethnographic research was conducted to investigate the wider effects of the Ebola crisis as well as the specific effects on the community led intervention and problems related to teenage…

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Mbinu za kuimarisha mifumo ya ulinzi wa mtoto kuanzia chini kwenda juu mbinu na: Kuangazia watoto, familia na jamii

KiSwahili version of “Bottom-up approaches to strengthening child protection systems: Placing children, families, and communities at the center.” This article examines an alternative approach of community-driven, bottom-up work that enables non formal–formal collaboration and alignment, greater use of formal services, internally driven social change, and high levels of community ownership….

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