Resources from Compact Members
SAFE Project
Adolescent girls and boys—who total 1.2 billion globally, with 90% in low- and middle-income countries—have been overlooked and underserved by the humanitarian system. Building on growing momentum to address the gaps in data and tailored responses for this population, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), with support from USAID/OFDA, has developed SAFE - Supporting Adolescents and their Families in Emergencies. SAFE is a protection and psychosocial support program model to strengthen the capacity of front-line actors so that adolescent girls and boys (ages 10-19) are safer, more supported, and equipped with positive coping strategies in acute emergencies.
The Adolescent Data Hub is a unique global portal to share and access data on adolescents living in low and middle-income countries. Featuring the Population Council’s rich and unique body of longitudinal and cross-sectional data on adolescents, as well as other open data sets on adolescents and young people, the Adolescent Data Hub serves as an important resource to facilitate data sharing, research transparency, and a more collaborative research environment to drive continued progress for adolescents.
This short paper grew out of discussions at a two-day research workshop focused on famines and adolescents. It explores some of what we do and do not know about the impacts of humanitarian situations on adolescents’ lives. Adolescents and their specific capacities and vulnerabilities have tended to be overlooked in the design and implementation of humanitarian responses, including in social protection and further components of such responses. This paper seeks to bring these questions to the attention of researchers, policy makers and practitioners in order to address identified priority gaps; build on existing knowledge; invest in better evidence generation; and include adolescents in research and response efforts in meaningful ways. Such improvements to humanitarian responses would assist in developing more inclusive efforts that consider all ages in the child’s life-course; aim for more sustainable well-being outcomes and help meet core commitments to children in these settings.
This Toolkit is intended to guide humanitarian programme managers and healthcare providers to ensure that sexual and reproductive health interventions put into place both during and after a crisis are responsive to the unique needs of adolescents.
It provides user-friendly tools for assessing the impact of a crisis on adolescents, implementing an adolescent-friendly Minimum Initial Service Package , and ensuring that adolescents can participate in the development and implementation of humanitarian programmes. Other tools are specifically designed for healthcare providers to help them be more effective in providing and tracking services for adolescents at the clinic and community levels.
The Toolkit was created by Save the Children and UNFPA, under the guidance of a Technical Advisory Group comprised of UNICEF, UNHCR, Women’s Refugee Commission, IRC, RAISE, Pathfinder International, JSI, CDC and Columbia University.
It is a companion to the Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings.
More than 30% of the 60,000 refugees stranded in Greece are between the ages of 15-25 years old. This report by NRC and Mercy Corps shows that stress, poor living conditions and uncertainties about the future, put these young women and men at risk of losing all sense of hope.
The Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in Emergencies toolkit aims to provide streamlined guidance to support organizations and agencies seeking to rapidly integrate MHM into existing programming across sectors and phases. This toolkit was informed by an extensive desk review, qualitative assessments with a range of humanitarian actors and organizations, and direct discussions with girls and women living in emergency contexts and directly affected by this issue. Toolkit audience: The toolkit was designed to support a range of humanitarian actors involved in the planning and delivery of emergency responses. The guidance is therefore aimed to support 1) program staff directly delivering services; 2) program supervisors and country-level staff responsible for designing, coordinating and monitoring field activities, and 3) technical staff, focused on providing technical support and developing standards.
The Adolescent Kit for Expression and Innovation is a package of guidance, tools and supplies to support country programmes to reach and engage adolescents ages 10-18 affected by conflict and other crises through education, child protection, youth development and/or peacebuilding initiatives. ADAP is designing the kit with colleagues, partners and adolescents around the world - especially through extended collaborations with UNICEF-Indonesia and UNICEF-South Sudan.
The purpose of the adolescent kit for expression and innovation is to promote positive outcomes for adolescents' psychosocial wellbeing, learning life skills, and positive active engagement in their communities through cross-sectoral adaptable, developmentally appropriate approaches. The kit especially support activities using arts, innovation and adolescent-led projects as methods to achieve those outcomes.
This guide aims to: 1. Raise awareness about the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and its importance; 2. Empower children and youth with knowledge and skills to meaningfully contribute to the implementation of the Sendai Framework; 3. Prepare children and youth for the GPDRR and future applications of the Sendai Framework; 4. Provide a networking space for children and youth active in DRR to meet and build potential partnerships beyond the conference.
Although young people are at risk for injury and death, they can engage in strategies to reduce this vulnerability. They can be engaged in disaster risk management, risk assessment, active problem-solving, promoting critical thinking, and increase their willingness to take on future challenges.
Humanitarian and development actors are recognizing the need to provide targeted psychosocial support to young people in protracted, complex emergency settings to tap into their ambition and potential, and mitigate negative individual and societal impacts. However, little credible evidence exists on which to base the design of such interventions aimed at ensuring adolescents’ safety, social ties, and emotional well-being. To fill this evidence gap, Mercy Corps undertook a rigorous impact evaluation of its Advancing Adolescents program in Jordan and found measurable impacts on young people’s ability to form friendships, perceptions of safety and security, and confidence in the future. Taken together, the findings from this impact evaluation point to the efficacy of holistic, science-based psychosocial support interventions in complex emergency settings.
Displaced adolescent girls face unique and daunting risks. With limited assets, agency, and mobility, girls cannot access life-saving resources, information, and social networks. Their vulnerability is compounded by a default, one-size-fits-all humanitarian approach.
I’m Here is an operational approach for humanitarian actors to reach the most vulnerable adolescent girls, and to be accountable to their safety, health, and well-being from the start of a response to crisis. From the start of an emergency, I’m Here enables humanitarians to engaging girls in their own solutions, ensuring effective programs and protected rights.
I’m Here provides humanitarians with the steps and field tools to:
Proactively identify girls
Assess their needs
Build effective programs
I’m Here is adaptable to varying on-the-ground situations. It has been field tested by several organizations in more than 25 communities across six crisis-affected countries.
The Women’s Refugee Commission is available to provide technical assistance with I’m Here implementation.
This assessment aims to identify concrete actions the IRC can take to better respond to the needs of Syrian and Jordanian adolescent girls. The assessment objectives are: to explore how the day-to-day safety of adolescent girls in urban areas might be enhanced; to identify key physical, social and emotional needs and hopes for the future of adolescent girls; and to explore the obstacles and enablers that adolescent girls face in accessing services from organizations like the IRC.
Delivering humanitarian response that meets the needs of women, girls, boys and men remains a priority for all UN Agencies and their partners. This document provides a checklist of essential actions for ensuring equitable participation and fair distribution of aid at each stage of the Humanitarian Program Cycle (HPC).
With the support of the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the International Rescue Committee piloted a new approach to increase access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care for adolescents in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. The report “She knows best: Engaging girls in adolescent programming” highlights the strategy developed to address foundational facility and community-level barriers that prevent adolescents from accessing and receiving quality SRH services.
This report is about putting into action what the international community has been promising for years: to bring the interests of women and girls—those disproportionally impacted by conflict—from the margins of service provision to the mainstream of humanitarian programming. This report synthesizes information from interactions with thousands of women and girls in the region since the Syrian crisis began.
It amplifies their voices and sheds light on their plight and circumstances. It provides recommendations on ways to make a difference in their lives immediately. Syrian women and girls deserve more than rhetoric; they deserve action.
The Adolescent Girls in Crisis research is drawn directly from the voices and experiences of girls in three of the world’s most troubled and volatile locations: South Sudan, the Lake Chad Basin and the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Adolescent girls living through these long-term crises face particular challenges in different locations. However, their lives and experiences also give us significant insights into the risks encountered and the courage shown by girls and young women dealing with similar situations all over the world.
The report presents findings and recommendations that will help to support girls facing the toughest, long-term crises, wherever they are.
With the development of the Global Compact on Refugees, the international community has an important opportunity to safeguard young refugees and partner more effectively with them to improve their lives. In this paper, Mercy Corps draws from our extensive experience working with young people in crisis around the world. We set out a number of key practices to protect young refugees and prove their potential.
This case study describes how Child and Adolescent Friendly Spaces set up by Plan International after the 2015 Nepal earthquake provided physical and emotional safety, information and integrated child protection and education services to children, adolescent girls and boys and their caregivers.
The Adolescent Girls in Crisis research is drawn directly from the voices and experiences of girls in three of the world’s most troubled and volatile locations: South Sudan, the Lake Chad Basin and the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Adolescent girls living through these long-term crises face particular challenges in different locations. However, their lives and experiences also give us significant insights into the risks encountered and the courage shown by girls and young women dealing with similar situations all over the world.
The report presents findings and recommendations that will help to support girls facing the toughest, long-term crises, wherever they are.
ENGAGING YOUTH IN DISASTER, CONFLICT, AND PEACEBUILDING EFFORTS
Over the past 15 years, the frequency, scale, and funding needs for responses to complex emergencies1 and natural disasters have significantly increased. According to the United Nations, armed conflicts were a major cause of disruption across the humanitarian landscape over the past decade. In 2016, there were 402 ongoing conflicts compared to 278 in 2006. Knowledge, innovation, human capital, financial assistance, and new approaches are needed to save more lives, alleviate suffering, and reduce the impacts of ongoing and future conflicts and disasters.
“I Want to Continue to Study” Barriers to Secondary Education for Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan
As the Syria conflict continues into its tenth year, Syrian refugee children in Jordan are confronting obstacles to education that grow more acute as they progress into secondary education. Every child has the right to a quality primary and secondary education. But only a quarter of secondary-school-age Syrian refugee children in Jordan are enrolled in school.
As documented by Human Rights Watch in this report, the main causes of increasingly lower enrollment of Syrian refugees in Jordan are poverty, lack of affordable and safe transportation, the poor quality of education in schools for Syrian children, the low value of continuing education for Syrians given their limited professional opportunities in Jordan, administrative barriers to enrollment, and lack of accommodations for children with disabilities.