W RLD'S CHILDREN SUPPORTER MAGAZINE 2017
INVISIBLE WOUNDS How music, drawing and drama are helping Syria’s children
IT BEGAN AT THE RIVER From humble beginnings, a family centre in Doomadgee is now at the centre of the community
8 REASONS WE’RE THANKFUL YOU’RE WITH US Childhood ends for many reasons – and you’re helping us tackle every single one.
Your support is saving little lives in Papua New Guinea In the province of East Sepik in Papua New Guinea, you’re helping us get the word out far and wide so mothers living in remote villages know how to access healthcare and give birth safely. We’re also providing them with baby kits full of blankets, mosquito nets and other items to keep their little ones safe. It means mothers like Vanessa can enjoy moments like this, with her one-week old daughter, Archileah. Thank you!
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Photo: Robert McKechnie/Save the Children
Welcome to the 2017 edition of The World’s Children! Alexis, the little girl with the big smile on the front of the magazine, attends one of our Play2Learn groups in Queensland – a program that helps children learn in a fun, supportive environment and helps get them ready for school. Without Play2Learn, kids in this remote part of Queensland would struggle to access early learning opportunities, and would be at risk of falling behind at school when they get there.
Children everywhere deserve a bright future, and you’re giving them that opportunity with every donation you give, every hour you volunteer and every petition you sign. Thank you for everything you do to support kids in Australia and overseas. Enjoy reading. You make these stories possible. Paul Ronalds Chief Executive Officer Save the Children Australia
It’s great preparation for the future – while children are having lots of fun, they’re learning something too. Through play, children learn important skills and get to spend quality time with their parents. They get to work together, play together, have fun together. One mother told us “You talk to other mums, it helps having that peer group that you can relate with – it saved both of us I think. Saved the child and saved the mother.”
Thank you to everyone who supports our work. Our corporate partners, trusts, foundations, the Australian government – including the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) – and people like you!
CONTENTS I T BEGAN AT THE RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 In Far North Queensland, a children and family centre is opening doors for the community
I NVISIBLE WOUNDS. . 10 Music, drawing and drama to help heal Syria’s children
OMMUNITY SPIRIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 C Getting ready for school in Solomon Islands
ROM THE HEART OF A F HUMAN CRISIS. . . . . . . . 12 Resilience and resolve in the face of extreme hunger and adversity
NLOCKING CHILDHOODS . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 U Why immigration detention is no place for a child REASONS WE’RE THANKFUL YOU’RE 8 WITH US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 How children worldwide are being robbed of their childhood
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EVER GIVE UP. . . . . . . 14 N What happens when disaster gets in the way of education?
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IT BEG N AT THE RIVER
In Far North Queensland, a children and family centre is opening doors for the community
“I’ve been with Save the Children for five years. When I started with Save the Children we didn’t have no building … we used to go by the river and have our staff meetings. Run our programs just in the community. We didn’t have a centre to run our programs. We didn’t have no office at all to sit and do our planning. “I started as a Family Support worker for Save the Children. We had play group running and family support. “It took us two years for all our programs to grow because we had to build the trust and respect with our people of our community to get to know what programs we run out of our centre.
“The Children and Family Centre in Doomadgee has been here for three years. We’ve grown from two staff, to having four on board within the first two years. Now we have 19 staff employed in our centre. “Doomadgee Children and Family Centre has opened the doors for our community, not only our community but for outside services as well … they come and use our centre and it’s a friendly home for everyone in the community for our children and families.” Isobel Toby, Centre Manager, Doomadgee Children and Family Centre
“Connection to culture is very important … passing on what we’ve learned from our ancestors to our younger ones. It’s important for our culture for them to be able to respect and build that trust within our community.” Isobel Toby, Centre Manager
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Photos: Robert McKechnie/Save the Children
“The kids who come to the centre tend to do better when they get to school, because they’re learning here and prepared for what’s coming when they get over to the big school.” Daphne, playgroup supervisor “Our kids want to become something in life. Education has a very important role in children’s and anybody’s lives. If we want a good job, we need to have that good education. If we want to be a leader, we need to have that education. It’s very important that we learn and get an education.” Adriel, Education Coordinator
“When I’m shooting in communities I often have trouble getting my camera back, the kids always want to have a go with it … I think it has something to do with the role that storytelling has in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Be it visual or spoken or written, they have such a natural way of telling stories.” Robert McKechnie, Multimedia Producer, Save the Children
Doomadgee is home to the Gangalidda, Waanyi and Garrawa people, and the dingo depicted on the back of the new Save the Children staff shirts is the totem of the Waanyi people.
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COMMUNITY SP RIT
Getting ready for school in Solomon Islands The first day of school. It’s exciting, daunting – and completely anxietyinducing for parents. But you know your little ones have been learning since day one and you’ve put in lots of work to help them develop. Although you can’t quite bring yourself to believe they’ve reached school age, you know they’re ready. Children are learning all the time. The sights, sounds, and relationships they form in their early years all have a huge impact on their development. Parents are, in many ways, their first teachers. But in remote areas of Solomon Islands, the story is a little different. In remote villages, where some communities live a subsistence lifestyle and travel several kilometres by canoe or boat just to get water or stock up on supplies, many children do not have access to early childhood education – and parents aren’t always able to provide the support their children need to prepare for the first day of primary school. This is a big deal because a child’s early education has a big impact on their future. Without it, they’re on the back foot from the start and it’s hard to catch up. Put simply, a lack of education can trap a child in poverty, so it’s crucial that children in remote areas of Solomon Islands are given the opportunity to learn.
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That’s where you come in to give a helping hand to parents. Alongside local communities, Save the Children is building, equipping and staffing early learning centres to give children the best start possible. “When children come to the centre, they learn about colouring, drawing, poems and rhymes,” says Angelina, a Save the Children facilitator at one of the early learning centres. “Through games and other activities, they learn to recognise shapes and colours.” The lessons children are learning at these centres lay the foundation for their success at school, and they’re also learning lots of life skills – everything from the importance of washing their hands to how to play and socialise with other children. Angelina has noticed big changes in the children. “They’re better at sharing things. When they first attended the centre … they didn’t really like to share, but through the course of activities they have begun to share things with each other. Even snacks they bring from home!” This work is about everyone pulling together to give kids the chance of a good education. You, Save the Children and the local community – which does all it can to support the centres, contributing land and raw materials to build them, and
In remote areas of Solomon Islands, where children may otherwise miss out on early education, learning centres lay the foundations for success at school. Photo: Robert McKechnie/Save the Children
organising barbecues and other fundraisers to keep investing in their children’s futures. Thank you for playing your part in this life-changing work in Solomon Islands!
UNL CKING CHILDHOODS
a foreign country. He had no family, no friends and no one who could speak his language.
Why immigration detention is no place for a child In some ways, Shan* is one of the ‘luckier’ ones. He’s no longer locked up in immigration detention. He’s now in the care of an NGO shelter in Southeast Asia. He learns English, has computer lessons and loves to sing American pop songs. But it’s been a long road to get here, and he still doesn’t know what his future holds. When Shan was nine, his parents and siblings were killed during an attack on his community. Soon after, Shan escaped to a neighbouring country where he lived ‘below the radar’ for five years. During this time, he mostly stayed inside, never played with other kids and didn’t attend school. Then, at the tender age of 14, when most other teenagers are beginning their quest for a grown-up identity, Shan was on a boat to Southeast
Asia seeking asylum. A woman he calls ‘aunty’ accompanied him on the journey, but she disappeared soon after arrival. “I cried and cried when I realised I had lost my aunty,” says Shan, recalling how the authorities detained him in an ‘office’ for 10 days with little food, no outdoor access and inadequate hygiene facilities. The conditions were so dire that Shan asked to go to an immigration detention camp, where he stayed for about six months. Living in a cramped communal room with dozens of other people – mostly adults – conditions were unsanitary and extremely challenging. “It was very dirty, very not good,” Shan says, “I would shake from illness.” Shan was 14, alone, and held with unrelated men in a detention camp in
Immigration detention is extremely damaging for children. Developmental delays, mental illness, self-harm and exposure to violence are sadly predictable outcomes. Shan’s story is not uncommon. At the end of 2016, nearly 2,300 children seeking asylum and refugee children were detained in immigration detention in Southeast Asia. Innocent children continue to be locked up for indefinite periods of time, without any judicial oversight. Shan’s days are brighter now he’s in the shelter, but what lies ahead is still uncertain. “Where I go I don’t know,” he says of his continued limbo, “I don’t have a future…”. Children who have crossed a border in search of safety are not criminals and immigration detention is not the answer. Change is needed.
*name changed and location omitted to protect identity.
Save the Children continues to fight for change. We are calling on the Australian Government to address the plight of children like Shan by: • increasing Australia’s refugee intake, • providing more visas for children at risk, • providing funding to the frontline NGOs in the region, • and engaging with other regional governments to establish better systems for protecting refugees.
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8 REAS NS WE’RE THANKFUL YOU’RE WITH US How children worldwide are being robbed of their childhood
Childhood should be a time of discovery and excitement. A time to learn, play and explore our imagination. It should be a time when we don’t look too far ahead, where we live in the moment and wake up every day to a new adventure. But for nearly one in four children around the world, childhood ends far too soon. Our End of Childhood Report identifies the eight key reasons children are not being given the opportunity to be children. Thanks to you, Save the Children is fighting to tackle them all.
1. PREVENTABLE DEATHS
3. CONFLICT
Every day, more than 16,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable or treatable causes. With your support, we’re keeping children like this newborn baby in Stung Treng province, Cambodia, safe and healthy. We’re providing life-saving equipment, improving maternal and child healthcare services and expanding programs to help stop the spread of infectious disease.
Conflict has forced nearly one child in 80 from their homes. We have teams on the ground in some of the world’s most dangerous regions, providing safe and supportive spaces where children can play, learn and begin their recovery from the trauma of war.
2. CHILD LABOUR 168 million children worldwide are involved in child labour – half of them are trapped doing work that is hazardous. From the most remote villages to the nearest city streets, you’re helping us find better alternatives for families who feel forced to send their children to work, and to fight against the scourge of child exploitation.
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4. CHILD MARRIAGE Globally, one girl under 15 gets married every seven seconds, depriving them of their freedom, education and childhood. Your support helps us empower young girls – like Sunita* in Rajasthan, India – and educate families to change the culture of forcing girls to marry against their will.
7. EARLY PREGNANCY Every year, around 17 million girls give birth, forcing them to assume adult responsibilities and putting their health, education and economic prospects at risk. Young mothers are less likely to be in school and more likely to struggle economically. This puts them and their children at risk of exploitation, ill health and perpetuating cycles of poverty.
5. EXCLUSION FROM EDUCATION 263 million children are out of school – that’s more than one in six children worldwide. Education can provide the key to unlocking the chain of disadvantage and build the foundation for a better life. We’re working with governments, communities and families to help give children everywhere – like these kids in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon – the opportunity to play and learn.
6. EXTREME VIOLENCE
8. MALNUTRITION 156 million children under five have stunted growth due to malnutrition – about a quarter of all children in that age group. With your help, we’re supporting health clinics and mobile units who are treating children in the most vulnerable areas, giving them every possible chance at a healthy start to life.
Exposure to violence may disrupt a child’s normal development and affect well-being in both the short and long term. Child homicide and child abuse exist in every country, rich and poor – cutting young lives short or scarring them indefinitely.
With you there to back us, we’ll continue to hold governments and world leaders to account. In 2015, countries adopted the Sustainable Government Goals, which promise a future in which all children have a full childhood – free from malnutrition and violence, with access to quality healthcare and education. We intend to make sure these promises are kept. You can access the Stolen Childhoods: End of Childhood Report at savethechildren.org.au/ stolen-childhoods
Photos from left: David Wardell/Save the Children, Jamie Baker/Save the Children, Nour Wahid/Save the Children, Majella Hurney/Save the Children
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INVISIBLE W UNDS
Music, drawing and drama to help heal Syria’s children “Sometimes, when a child is very stressed, they lose the ability to speak,” says Amira, a psychosocial counsellor in southern Syria. “They’re unable to express themselves, the only way to communicate is to scream. Sometimes just continuous screaming.” Syria. It’s been more than six years now. On our screens, we continue to see the physical impacts of the war. But what about the impacts we can’t immediately see? What about the invisible wounds that leave children paralysed with fear, traumatised and unable to move or breathe properly because of the fear something terrible is about to happen? Save the Children has been working with local partners in Syria to find out how children’s mental health has been affected by the ongoing war, and earlier this year we shared the findings in our report, Invisible Wounds: The impact of six years of war on the mental health of Syria’s children. The investigation revealed heartbreaking accounts of children terrified by shelling and airstrikes, anxious about the future, and distraught at not being able to go to school. It found that many children are in a state of toxic stress, which can impact a person for life. What’s happening to children in Syria is devastating – we are facing
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the loss of an entire generation to this trauma. But we also know we can help children cope with their situation if they have the right support. Right now, you’re helping Save the Children’s partners in Syria run programs that offer mental health support to children who have lived with the daily threat of bombs and violence. Our programs use arts and social activities to help provide psychosocial support for children. Drawing, drama and music help children process and communicate feelings and to express themselves. “I got to know one five-year-old girl through her drawings,” says Rasha, an art teacher in southern Syria. “She drew her family and the mother was so small. Usually children draw their parents big and themselves and their siblings smaller. When I asked her where her mother was, she said ‘I have one but she doesn’t love me’. She didn’t trust anyone or talk to anyone. Eventually we realised that she had lost her mother.”
“If there’s an airplane dropping bombs what are you going to tell the children? How are you going to make them feel safe? How are you going to reassure them that the bomb won’t hit the roof? The kids are screaming … you are screaming, and your wife is screaming. These are not normal circumstances at all.” Sharif, a psychosocial worker in southern Syria
Ibrahim* takes part in a drawing activity in a Child Friendly Space in Al Hol Camp, Syria.
By helping children share his or her memories or feelings, either verbally or through artistic expression, with a trusted adult, they feel less isolated, more connected to their peers, and safer among the trusted adults in their lives. Photo: Save the Children
This type of psychosocial support is important because it allows children to be children. The children we spoke to as we put together this report frequently dreamed of going back in time to before the war started. When they tried to pinpoint a good memory, most of them had to go back to before 2011 for family celebrations such as birthdays, weddings, and Ramadan or Eid holidays; trips with family or friends to the mountains, the seaside or other countries; their homes, friends and schools before they were displaced; or receiving and giving presents. Only a few children said they had good memories from during the war – mainly moments when they were reunited with family members who had been imprisoned or displaced. Some children said they could not think of anything happy in their lives at all. With your support, Save the Children will continue to be there for Syria’s children, but ultimately, they need the main cause of their toxic stress – the violence that continues to rain down on Syria’s villages and cities with impunity – to end.
You can read the full report at savethechildren.org.au/invisible-wounds and donate to our ongoing appeal at savethechildren.org.au/syria.
*name changed to protect identity.
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FROM THE HE RT OF A HUMAN CRISIS Resilience and resolve in the face of extreme hunger and adversity Thanks to supporters like you, Save the Children staff are working around the world to help children caught in a hunger crisis. One of these people is John Loreom, our Community Mobilisation Officer in Kapoeta County, South Sudan. “Here in South Sudan, life is precarious. If the conflict doesn’t reach your village, hunger and thirst will. “Although Kapoeta, my home town in South Sudan, is safe at the moment, that may not always be the case. As a safety measure, my wife and children have fled over the border to Kenya. They are in a refugee camp until the conflict settles. At least there my children can get an
education. Here in Kapoeta, many schools have shut because children are too hungry to attend. “Girls are dropping out to spend three days a week in the bush foraging for wild fruits and collecting leaves to eat. Boys spend five hours a day digging deep into the dried river bed to reach water for their thirsty cattle. “More than one million children in South Sudan are now at risk of starvation. It hasn’t rained properly since May last year. “So, it’s crucial we get enough emergency food and medicine into the areas where children are already hungry, and could easily starve if we don’t intervene. “Save the Children is running 16 health clinics across Kapoeta, where mothers bring their children for a check-up. If they’re severely malnourished, they’re given two months’ supply of emergency food to increase their weight.
John Loreom keeps his spirits up in Kapoeta County, South Sudan.
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“One of the hardest parts of my job is seeing mothers turned away, even when their babies are malnourished. Supplies have run so low that we can only treat the most severe cases of starvation and have to prioritise children most at risk. “Drought is natural but famine is always man-made. Luckily, we know Photo: Louis Leeson/Save the Children
what needs to be done. The difficult thing is to sound the alarm loud enough that we can urge donors to help us buy the right supplies in time. “Aid agencies are often criticised for showing photos of African children with flies in their eyes. But nobody talks about why the flies swarm around children, who haven’t been washed in months because a shower for them would mean a cow dying of thirst. Nobody sees the shame in their mothers’ eyes. Or the anger when NGOs say they haven’t got the funds to properly help them. “So, I tell these mothers to just keep going. Dig for hours to find water underground. Walk for days to find nuts in the bush. Skip meal after meal to keep your children alive. “Help is coming. And until then you just have to survive. That’s what I tell myself every day when I miss my family painfully and get up, get ready for work, and just keep going.”
You can support our ongoing Child Hunger Crisis Appeal at savethechildren.org.au/ childhunger. Funds raised will be used to help children and families in South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, Kenya and Ethiopia.
TACKLING THE CHILD HUNGER CRISIS South Sudan With your support, our teams are treating malnourished children across South Sudan. We’re training local health staff, reuniting children who have been separated from their families and providing safe spaces to support, educate and protect children from harm. Somalia Where food is scarce and the earth is parched, your support is essential to our health centres; providing medical treatment and supplies and training health workers in remote areas. Your help enables us to provide psychological support and safe spaces where children can play, learn and rekindle their hopes and dreams. Yemen You’re helping our mobile health units deliver treatment for malnutrition and cholera to children and families across the country. We have teams rebuilding water storage tanks to help prevent the spread of disease and we continue to support health facilities with essential equipment and training. Nigeria Supporters like you enable our teams on the ground to deliver lifesaving food and treatment for severely malnourished children. We continue to provide essential supplies and vital psychosocial and psychological support for the hundreds of thousands of children and families who have been forced to flee their homes. Save the Children is providing water to communities like this one in Eastern Somaliland.
Photo: Thomas Jepson-Lay/Save the Children
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NE ER GIVE UP
What happens when disaster gets in the way of education? “I couldn’t hear anything but the strong winds, and roofs being blown away from the neighbourhood, I thought we were going to die.” When Typhoon Haiyan tore through his village three years earlier, Sean, who was just 12 at the time, was at home with his grandparents. They took shelter in the nearby school, from where they could see their home being ripped apart by the storm. “My husband kept looking out to see what was happening to our house and crops,” Sean’s grandmother, Virginia, tells us, “I just said to him, don’t worry about that – as long as we are safe.” The family survived the storm, but there was destruction all around them.
to transform a child’s future, but without it, they are at higher risk of poverty and exploitation. The response of supporters like you after Typhoon Haiyan, and your ongoing support for kids like Sean, meant Save the Children was able to support the family in a number of ways. We provided sheeting so they could repair their roof, and helped Virginia set up a small shop to ease the burden on Sean. It sells soft drinks, biscuits, coffee, soap, shampoo – a little bit of everything. With this new source of income, and with the support of Save the Children, Sean was able to enrol in an Alternative Learning System to help him catch up with the schooling
“After the typhoon, I immediately checked our corn field,” Sean says. “Everything we planted had gone. We all depended on it. We got our food from that corn field.” With their livelihood destroyed, Sean left school to help support the family. This is one of the longterm impacts of disaster that is often forgotten. Children miss out on education because families are left with little other choice. After Typhoon Haiyan, child labour – at the expense of education – increased in and around the hardest hit areas. Education has the power
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Sean with his grandmother, Virginia, and cousin, Jacky. Sean left school after Typhoon Haiyan destroyed the family’s livelihood.
Photo: Dave Wardell/Save the Children
he had missed, as well as take part in a vocational baking course. On completion of his training, he and other members of his youth association, which Save the Children helped to organise, applied for government assistance to set up a small business: Snack House. Education is opening up opportunities for Sean, just as it should for all kids, everywhere. He now has a skill he can use to get a safe, better paid job, and Typhoon Haiyan no longer has to dictate his future. The day we met Sean, he was wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘Never Give Up’ emblazoned across it. Appropriate, don’t you think? Never. Give. Up.
“I want everyone to be as happy as I am right now.” In Zeleka’s village, things have changed for the better. Save the Children works with the Ethiopian government to run a radio listening program in North Gondar, Ethiopia. It has given communities that have little access to electricity – let alone newspapers, TV or the internet – a chance to listen to educational radio programs that provide vital health advice, and a space to discuss what they’ve learnt. Volunteers like Zeleka, who are trained and supported by Save the Children, facilitate listening groups that bring people together to listen to the radio, talk about what they’ve heard and send in questions and comments. The groups build people’s confidence and knowledge of topics such as pregnancy, disease and vaccinations. Now everyone is playing a part in keeping their community safe and healthy. For the past year and a half, Zeleka has been volunteering his time running a radio listening group for fathers and this is the difference it’s made, in his own words: “We were used to deaths. A child would get a disease and would not go to a health clinic or get a vaccination, and they might eventually die. And when pregnant women got diseases, they would be treated with traditional methods. Pregnant women were left to die without seeking any help from professionals. “This is now a thing of the past. I am very happy, I want everyone to be as happy as I am right now.” Thank you for helping to save children’s lives in Zeleka’s village – and in thousands of villages around the world.
Photo: Robert McKechnie/Save the Children
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“My name is Abel and I want to be a scientist.” I am 11 years old and I live in Ethiopia. I listen to Save the Children’s radio program because knowledge is useful … I like maths and geography. I want to be a scientist.” Thank you for giving children like Abel the chance to create a brighter future.
1800 76 00 11 savethechildren.org.au