Introducing the Coalition for Good Schools
We are excited to announce the launch of the Coalition for Good Schools! The Coalition has come together as a group of leaders from the Global South who are mutually concerned with the global debate on preventing violence against children in schools. We elevate insights and evidence-based programs in order to provide critical tools, data, and best practices for sustainable, local solutions.
We believe that schools offer a unique entry point for this work, and yet at present, violence against children at schools receives too little attention from Ministries of Education, donors, or global policymakers. Furthermore, we believe that the voices of practitioners from the Global South are particularly missing from this debate.
We also recognize that while a large number of prevention programmes exist in the Global North, there are few programmes documented, evidenced or tailored to the Global South. As the global movement to prevent violence against children advances, we see this as a moment to highlight innovations and voices from the Global South. We believe this Southern lens, and this focus on Southern challenges, will yield new answers, which is why we aim to build a Southern-led global agenda to end violence against children in schools.
As acting secretariat for the Coalition, Raising Voices recruited and convened founding leaders for a new group of practitioners and experts from the Global South, who have developed or studied interventions to prevent violence against children in schools and who want to make a strategic contribution to this global discourse. This group commits to working to influence the global agenda on prevention of VAC in and through schools by amplifying global south experiences, learning and priorities.
Our Journey
We began our journey with a global convening in late 2019 to chart a course for the group. We emerged with a body of founding members, an initial funding strategy, and a name. We engaged communications experts Mighty Ally to help us think through our identity, impact model and strategic plan. We commissioned a comprehensive evidence review that examines the state of the evidence and reviews effective programmes to address violence against children in and through schools and are working to grow our movement through three Regional Hubs representing Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Each are hard at work building out infrastructure and formal membership for regional advocacy, synthesis and convening around the issue of VAC at school.
We are delighted to have you along for the journey with us. Please visit our website at www.coalitionforgoodschools.org, take a look at our key resources in our resource library, read our evidence review on Prevention of violence against children in and through schools in the global south, and get in touch with us at info@coalitionforgoodschools.org.
We look forward to building this movement together!