SVRI Forum 2024: Enabling Safe School Environments

The field of violence against children (VAC) prevention is growing. We now sit at a critical point where many choices are being made on how to best invest in this work, and we know there are strong strategic reasons for prioritising the prevention of VAC in and through schools as part of the larger violence prevention movement. We know violence is not just an act – it is an experience, one with far-reaching impacts throughout young peoples’ lives, and there is no better place than school to begin promoting non-violent norms. 

On 23rd October at 13:00 SAST, this event will convene a panel discussion focused on leveraging education and school-based interventions to prevent VAC and all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender-based violence (GBV) through the life-course. We will explore education settings as a platform for scaling effective violence prevention interventions and the multiple positive outcomes of the absence of violence on learning. The space further hopes to highlight the many synergies across the interconnected movements of VAC, VAWG, SRGBV and IPV prevention movements so we may work together towards our common goal of a more violence-free and gender equal world.

The Coalition for Good Schools and its members hope this participant-driven space will help participants better understand South-led interventions and the evidence behind them that points to schools as an ideal entry point for violence prevention work.

We know that success in this work requires us to focus on systemic change. This means addressing the entire education delivery system, starting with national level policies through to the delivery infrastructure that the education system provides: standardized curricula, national teacher training programs, regular oversight and monitoring of what is happening in schools, influence on school ethos and the operational culture of the school and its leadership, not to mention the ability to tap into broader community and parental involvement in children’s education, safety and well-being. 

If we truly understand violence as an experience, not simply an act, we must invest in improving children’s entire experience of being at school. By engaging the whole school to create a more non-violent and just operational culture, we can create meaningful opportunities for school-based protagonists to create and lead a process of change. We can address school operational policies and mechanisms for accountability to better promote children’s dignity. We can also embed practical ideas that promote positive gender norms, challenge harmful expressions of masculinity, and cement in learners’ minds the core concepts of justice, accountable leadership, and positive mental health. 

Through practical examples of such an approach, from places like Uganda where Raising Voices has implemented the Good School Toolkit in over 1,500 schools, to Aulas en Paz where the Classrooms of Peace approach has been creating non-violent school environments towards a peaceful society in Colombia, to Right to Play where play-based approaches are being scaled as a whole school approach in Pakistan, the Coalition for Good Schools and its allies hope this participant-driven event will be a powerful reminder that the time for the education sector – and the broader violence prevention movement – to invest in violence prevention in schools is NOW. 

Will you be at SVRI 2024 in Cape Town? We warmly welcome you to join us for this exciting discussion. 

Register for the event here and join us!

The SVRI Forum is “the world’s key research conference on violence against women, violence against children, and other forms of violence driven by gender inequality in low and middle-income countries…It is a vibrant, informative and safe space for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, donors, survivors and others to share and learn about new research, developments and innovations. It is the largest abstract driven conference dedicated to research on prevention of and response to violence again women in all their diversity and violence against children.” 

– The Sexual Violence Research Initiative