Communication, Protection and Participation (CPP)

CPP is comprised of four projects:

• Communication for development: focuses on developing strategies for programme communication and social mobilisation to support various sectors. The project aims to spearhead the development of a human-rights-based approach to programme communication, with a focus on building capacities and empowering people as agents of change. It will develop advocacy strategies, through alliances and partnership networks, to create opportunities that will allow children and youth to claim their participation rights.
• Child protection: focuses on protecting children against violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination. It puts emphasis on strengthening the capacities of families, communities and other duty bearers to provide protection for children. The project also supports the development of policies, institutions and the provision of access to basic services and psychosocial care for disadvantaged children.
• HIV/AIDS: focuses on ensuring a helpful environment for community-based, multi-sectoral action to prevent and control the spread of the pandemic. The project concentrates on creating youth-friendly services within a conducive policy environment, for instance by drafting a National Strategic Framework for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and related action plans. CPP has also made STI kits and drugs available in sentinel sites (locations where the number of HIV/AIDS infected men, women and children are monitored); conducted training on managing STIs; and provided counselling and supporting authorities in launching a campaign to raise awareness of STIs.
• Youth development and participation: works in tandem with the other projects. Members of the project team help local youth groups organise with their peers, and have set up recreational and cultural activities designed to engage Somali children and teenagers. CPP has established youth groups and provided recreational opportunities and leadership and organisational development (LOD) skills training. The project has also established networking and consultative structures that are designed to enable youth to take key roles and responsibilities in the community as agents of change.

CPP has developed various partnerships and engaged various stakeholder groups to accomplish some of its specific project activities. For example, through collaboration with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), CPP has worked to reintegrate former child soldiers into society. This initiative involved vocational training, the building of conflict resolution skills, and trauma counselling. CPP has also established and maintained HIV/AIDS networks (local administrative projects) and held quarterly HIV/AIDS coordination meetings for key stakeholders in the Northwest, Northeast and Central and Southern administrative areas of UNICEF operations in Somalia. In addition, CPP has worked in collaboration with community members in an effort to increase understanding of the religious and social barriers to eradicating female genital mutilation (FGM); by involving various community stakeholders, organisers have sought to gain consensus among local authorities, elders, religious leaders, health workers, women, youth and educators on total eradication.

Research is another key component of CPP; specific activities have included:

• A comprehensive child protection study that sought to foster increased understanding of and subsequent response to child protection issues.
• Collection of data on the impact of small arms and related violence on children.
• A knowledge-attitudes-practice (KAP) study conducted jointly by UNICEF and Handicap International that resulted in the development of a mine risk education strategy.

Children, Rights, Health, HIV/AIDS, Youth.

A baseline KAP and sero-prevalence study in the Northwest in 1999 found that the overall prevalence of HIV/AIDS amongst antenatal patients was 0.9 percent. In addition, Somalia has a high prevalence of STIs and low awareness of HIV/AIDS transmission. Combined with high levels of stigma and discrimination, organisers worry, these factors could quickly evolve into a serious problem unless there is rapid and adequate support for carefully designed HIV/AIDS prevention and control across Somalia.

According to organisers, recent studies suggest that violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination against children continue on a wide scale. Low education levels, poor access to safe water and sanitation, and inadequate health and nutrition services demonstrate a prevailing lack of human rights accountability within Somalia, for which children remain the foremost victims.