What We Do
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Child Protection
VOP FAM have been working in the field of Child Protection (CP) since 2012. VOP FAM have partnerred with seviral International NGOs such as (UNICEF, Concern World Wide, IRC and War Child) inorder to provide an intervinsion of CP services such as:-
- Community-Based CP centers to provide CP services for children, adolescents, youth including their families through recreational, organized and purposeful activities.
- Organized and structured psychosocial support programs.
- Child protection case management services for children and their families.
- Identifying and referral of children at risk to appropriate service provider.
- Supporting and developing the skills of community groups to disseminate CP aspects in the community.
- Community awareness of the most prominent problems related to children.
- Enrollment of children at risk in school or non-formal education formal as part of social reintegration.
Child Protection Projects
Where CP is one of the main components of VOP FAM intervention, the following are some of the implemented projects:-
- Community-Based Child Protection Services for IDP and returnee Children and Adolescents in Duhok and Ninewa Governorates, funded by UNICEF (March, 2020 – March, 2021).
- Child protection intervention for Iraqi IDPs girls and boys aged between 0-17, living in 4 IDP camps and 3 Non-Camps, funded by Concern worldwide (February, 2020 – December, 2020).
- Community-Based Child Protection Services for Children, Adolescents and Community in Duhok and Ninawa Governorates, funded by UNICEF (March, 2019 – February, 2019).
- Child protection case management intervention for Iraqi IDPs girls and boys aged between 0-17, living in (Kabarto1, Kabarto2 and Qadia), funded by Concern worldwide (January, 2019 – December, 2019).
- Community based child protection for current Sinjar and Mosul IDP girls and boys aged between 5-17, living in camps and non-camp settings in Duhok and Ninawa governorate, funded by UNICEF (January, 2018 – December, 2018).
- Child protection case management intervention for current Iraqi IDPs girls and boys aged between 0-17, living in (Kabarto1, Kabarto2 and Qadia), funded by Concern worldwide (February, 2018 – December, 2018).
- Child protection service provision for Ninawa internally displaced girls and boys between the ages of 5-17, living in camp and non-camp settings in Duhok and Ninawa governorates. UNICEF emergency (April, 2017 – July, 2017).
- Provision of child protection services to conflict affected boys and girls through mobile teams in Zummar and Bardarash districts, UNICEF emergency fund (September, 2016 – February, 2017).
Adolescents and Youth Development
As the most dynamic and energetic group in the society, youth are now more marginalized, left behind with the feeling of being useless and with no community care. Therefore, since 2015, VOP-FAM has placed a special focus on this group to make them feel the joy of life and their self-esteem. We really invest in them. 147 youth and adolescent volunteers in IDPs camps are now involved in networks after a lot of training and capacity building on leadership, social cohesion, volunteerism, peaceful coexistence. A very good number of youth and adolescents are involved in recreational activities, art activities, sport activities, awareness raising and cleaning campaigns, capacity building and training.
To put it simply, civic, social and economic engagement is the main goal. Another important aim is engaging youth in social media platforms. We have now involved 18577 youth and adolescents in social media. This includes active participation through views, comments, likes and so on. Health and hygiene promotion and back to school campaigns are also other good concerns of us with special attention on adolescent girls’ health and hygiene through the adolescent girls’ toolkit training. Participatory Action Research (PAR) is another trend of our work. 50 youth and adolescents are involved in PAR. They are trained on various data collection tools (e.g. interviews, focus group discussions) and have collected data from their peers. This is to give the youth and adolescents voice and choice and let their voice heard. Vocational training courses for youth and adolescents constitute a part of our youth programme. We work with IDPs in camps and also with the host community. We have been implementing a very big programme for youth and adolescents funded and supported by UNICEF. We have targeted nearly 40000 youth and adolescents ages between 10 to 24 years.
The following are the programmes we have implemented and been implementing to date:
- Life skills training for youth and livelihood opportunities for IDPs and host community in Amadiya district
- Adolescent and youth leadership and community participation for social cohesion
- Promoting adolescent empowerment, civic engagement and Gender Based Violence prevention in Duhok Governorate.
- Development of Youth and Adolescents (10-24) in five IDPs camps
Peaceful Building
VOP- FAM has been working on peaceful coexistence since 2007 It started with a small research study to analyze the situation in Shekhan. Shekhan is a city to the North of Ninawa. It is of a diverse community where Yazidis, Muslims, and Christians live. Based on the finding of the research conducted VOP-FAM established a wisdom house in Shekhan where the members voted for a Mola to be the head and one Priest to be the deputy and one Yazidi Peer to be the other deputy. The Wisdom House played an important role in conflict resolution and peace building. The programme was then extended to women and her role in conflict resolution. We ran a number of successive projects involving women of different backgrounds in sewing trainings in parallel with other peace building sessions. Youth were also included in peacebuilding. Committees of youth and community leaders were formed and sport activities were carried out for youth. Within other projects, peacebuilding and conflict resolution constitutes a good part.
VOP-FAM works on peace education and promotion through art, sport, recreational activities, and livelihood trainings. VOP-FAM considers this area as an area that needs attention and hard work. It saves lives and brings peace into existence. Most of our peacebuilding programme is funded by IFA/Zivik in Germany.
VOP FAM implemented the following projects on peace building
- Establishment of a Wisdom House in Shekhan.
- Raising Awareness on Peaceful coexistence.
- Enhancing Peaceful Coexistence through working women
- Art Campaign to Disseminate Peaceful Coexistence in Shekhan
- Supporting Peaceful Coexistence and Social Cohesion in Kabarto 2 and Dawudiya IDPs camps and Shekhan District.
- Establishment of A Women Peacebuilding and Early Warning System