Schools as Zones of Peace

Bjørn-Richard Monsen,Associate Area Director Middle East and Europe Save the Children Norway

“Some men came to our village. I tried to escape,but they took me to jail. Except it wasn’t a jail—it was my old school. It’s ironic—they took me

there to torture me, in the same place I used togo to school to learn… They had taken over the

school and made it into a torture center.”Student, 15, Syria

(Lessons in War 2015, GCPEA)

CONTEXT• 58 million children are out of school worldwide. • 28,5 million of these live in countries with armed conflict. • «Education Under Attack 2014» shows that from 2009 to

2013 there were attacks on schoolchildren, university students, teachers, academics and education establishments in at least 70 countries worldwide. In 30 of these countries, there was a significant pattern of attack.

• In at least 26 countries with armed conflicts, schools and education institutions have been used for military purposes in the past decade(Lessons in War 2015, GCPEA)

• SCUK compared all recent studies on what is the most important for children in conflict/crises. The answer?

Safe Schools Declaration• In Oslo, May 28-29th: 37 states endorsed the Safe Schools

Declaration.• It signals a political commitment to protect education from attack.• Now: 51, with Sudan and Somalia endorsing. • Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use

during Armed Conflict: 6 key guidelines. • Read the Guidelines here: http://safeschools.no/nyside.cfm

AFGHANISTANARGENTINAAUSTRIABRAZILBULGARIACENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLICCHADCHILECOSTA RICACOTE D’IVOIRECZECH REPUBLICECUADORFINLANDGEORGIAGREECEHONDURASICELAND

IRELAND

ITALYJAMAICAJORDANKAZAKHSTANKENYALEBANONLIBERIALIECHTENSTEINLUXEMBOURGMADAGASCARMALAYSIAMONTENEGROMOZAMBIQUENETHERLANDSNEW ZEALANDNIGERNIGERIANORWAY

PALESTINEPANAMAPOLANDPORTUGALQATARSIERRA LEONESOMALIASOUTH AFRICASOUTH SUDANSPAINSUDANSWEDENSWITZERLANDURUGUAYZAMBIA

The following States have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration (as of November 3, 2015):

What is SZOP? Brief overviewPilot approaches that can be used elsewhere: building a base of experience for protecting education in different contexts.Goals: ● Ensure that children in conflict and post-conflict environments have

access to safe learning environments● Increase capacity of communities, schools and children to mitigate the

impact of conflict on the school environment● Build local and national level constituencies to protect education

*Violence Free Schools Initiative in Latin America operates on a very similar programming platform!

Guatemala Honduras Mexico

School● Monitoring● Prevention● Code of conduct ● School plans ● Response

Community● Risk mapping of

protection issues (schools)

● Awareness raising ● Mobilization

National

● Advocacy● Building

constituencies● Policy Change● Work through

Cluster

Package of interventions and resources for protecting children and maintaining access to education in conflict and post conflict environments

DEFINING SZOP

EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

• Global Coalition to Protect Education From Attack (GCPEA)

• INEE: Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (knowledge hub)

• Education Cluster (coordination)

• CP Working Group

• Global Partnership for Education

OverviewSchools as Zones of Peace: Operationalizing the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use During Armed Conflict

Timeline: 1 July 2015- 30 June 2017Total Budget: approx € 950,000 ECHO funding: €500,000 NMFA funding: approx € 400,000 Locations: OPT (WB, Jerusalem) DRC (North Kivu)Partners: Geneva Call

PROJECT RATIONALE AND SYNOPSISRationale:● Children globally are exposed to high risks and lack of access to

education due to armed conflict● Need a practical way of implementing the guidelines, including a

role for non-military actors● Save the Children can contribute through existing and developing

best practice in education in conflict● The SZOP approach works at multiple levels to protect children and

education in conflict (child, school, community, government, etc.)Synopsis: Save the Children will support the process of implementing the Guidelines to Protect Schools in Armed Conflict using experience from four countries (DRC, OPT and two more) to feed into a global body of best practice, lessons learned and tools.

DRC

OPT

Other SCI

Countries

Global Best Practice in Protecting

Education in Conflict/

Implementing Guidelines

Project Logic

National

AdvocacyBuilding ConstituenciesCoordinationPolicy Change

Communities

Risk mappingAwareness raisingMobilization

Schools

MonitoringPreventionCode of conductSchool plans

Result 2 (NATIONAL LEVEL—OPT and DRC): Contextualization and implementation of the Guidelines in OPT and DRC

Result 1 (GLOBAL LEVEL): A scalable approach for contextualizing and implementing the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use During Armed Conflict developed and disseminated

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