Centering voices from the Global South to prevent violence against children in schools

• In Event: The Coalition for Good Schools: Voices from the Global South

Proposal

More than a billion children are expected at schools every day. A large majority of those children go to schools in the Global South, and significant proportion of them experience violence at their school. The violence undermines their development and their life outcomes. School is an efficient entry point for preventing VAC. Most schools are publicly funded and therefore amenable to policy oversight. Furthermore, schools gather larger numbers of children in the presence of adults who have a duty of care towards them and are invested in fostering children’s development. A combination of these two as well as other structural reason creates strategic imperative for investing in prevention of VAC in and through schools.

This presentation will explore why collective action is needed for ensuring Global South voices are centered in the debate around preventing violence against children at school. The presenter will share perspectives about what a ‘good school’ really means to actors working on the frontlines of violence prevention in the Global South, and how schools can be powerful sites to defy patriarchal, colonial systems and instead promote gender-equitable leadership and participation with cascading potential for society at large. They will share experiences in working to address social and gender norms that underpin violence, discrimination and exclusion in schools, and how collective action can mobilize vast numbers of practitioners to align behind a common goal of creating violence free schools and societies.

Author

• Dipak Naker, Coalition for Good Schools