The Child Status Index (CSI) is a simple instrument used to assess child well-being through visits with children and their caregivers.
This booklet, presented here in beta version, contains both a picture and written form of the CSI. The drawings or pictures show children in both a very good status (far left) and in a very bad status (far right) for each of the 12 factors. The booklet also provides basic instructions for how to complete the CSI, including sample questions and observations to enable you to make your own judgments and rate the child in all 12 outcome areas based on local standards.
IREX and IYF (International Youth Foundation) are pleased to invite you to the inaugural event for the Society for International Development's (SID) Youth in Development Work Group. A panel discussion addressing pressing questions in youth programming will kick off SID's newest working group, co-chaired by IREX and IYF. The panel will include key stakeholders from across the youth programming community, including youth, practitioners and government representatives.
Who should attend : practitioners, researchers and others with experience and/or interest in youth development programming.
What to bring: please bring your lunch and thoughts on the following questions:
- Leadership: What individuals have the greatest impact on the outcomes of youth programs?
- Culture and Tradition: What cultural/traditional influences are key influences in shaping youth programs?
- Institutions: What institutions have the greatest impact on the outcomes of youth programs?
- Political and Economic Environment: What political and/or economic factors are key influences in shaping youth programs?
Please RSVP by June 4th and direct any questions to Sulaiman Bah at sbah@irex.org. Please pass this invitation along to any interested colleagues.
The USAID-funded Community Action Program (CAP) III builds upon the successes of CAP I and II in strengthening local government institutions and grassroots democracy in Iraq. ACDI/VOCA and its sub-partner, International City/County Management Association (ICMA), are implementing CAP III in four of Iraq’s northern provinces: Kirkuk, Salah ad Din, Diyala and Ninawa. The goal of CAP III is to increase the ability of local government to identify, articulate and better meet the needs of its constituency.
The program’s objectives are:
- Communities better articulate their needs and mobilize resources within and outside the community to solve common problems;
- Local executive and representative government in CAP communities better meet articulated needs of the community; and
- Civilian victims of conflict assisted by the Marla Ruzicka Innocent Victims of War Fund.
Meeting the needs of local youth is important to achieving these objectives, so CAP III incorporates several youth components:
- Apprenticeship Programs for Youth in Private/Public Sector
The Apprenticeship Program was designed and implemented under the previous CAP programs to improve youth workforce capacity in areas of high youth unemployment. The apprenticeship program currently provides short-term jobs in combination with on-the-ground training for over 460 youth between 18 and 24 years old who are graduates of technical institutes and universities.
Under CAP III, supervisors are being trained in how to mentor and coach apprentices, which improves employers’ human resource management. This addresses the needs of youth in the community, and also has the benefit of strengthening human resource capacity within the local government, which will be critical as local government becomes more decentralized. In addition, CAP III is introducing an apprenticeship program targeted at public health outreach. Through this program, young graduates, will assist health specialists in developing outreach and training materials targeting maternal and child health, water-borne diseases, and other community-identified critical public health issues.
- Youth Civic Action and Governance Summer Camps
ACDI/VOCA will conduct two Youth Civic Action and Governance Summer camps for a total of 120 youth in the summer of 2009. The camps will bring together male and female youth from all four provinces who represent diverse ethnicities to engage them in activities that will teach community governance strategies through active simulation and participation. Through the camps, youth will be exposed to both diversity and commonalities among themselves, and they will learn how to effectively use conflict-mitigation strategies, team-building, and advocacy strategies as responsible citizens.
- Development of Youth Community Action Groups (CAGs)
Under CAP II, the Quratoo Community Action Group in northern Diyala developed a strong focus on advocating for youth issues and developing youth leadership. It formed a Youth Action CAG, predominantly composed of men and women under 30 years of age who work in the public sector as teachers and government employees, to support and inform its work with and for young people. Currently, the Quratoo CAG focuses on promoting and advocating youth leadership to their sub-district council and higher levels of government.
Brandie Maxwell
bmaxwell@acdivoca.org
October 2008 - March 2010
How do economic shocks, in particular the current economic downturn, affect the wellbeing of children? What can be done to mitigate harm? This paper explores these questions, presents a framework for analysing the impact of shocks on children in different contexts and suggests initial policy implications.
Given experience from previous crises, all countries need to consider the impacts on children. Increases in child mortality and morbidity, child labour, child exploitation, violence against children and women and other forms of abuse, alongside declines in school attendance and the quality of education, nurture, care and emotional wellbeing, can all be traced to times of economic crisis.
National governments, broadly speaking, have four clusters of policy choices available to them through which to tackle rising levels of poverty and vulnerability: fiscal stimulus, social protection and investment, labour and aid policies. In order to address the specific nature of child vulnerabilities, it is critical that the various policy instruments that governments and donors select from among these broad categories are approached through a gender- and child-sensitive lens.
From March 2-31, USAID invites organizations to submit applications to World Learning for projects to improve the safety, well being, and development of highly vulnerable children. World Learning will award subgrants for this activity on behalf of USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund.
It is anticipated that three to five grants will be awarded under this RFA and that each sub-grant will be for up to $2,500,000 for a three year (August 2009 – July 2012 approximately) project. Applicants may submit one application for either the “Strengthening Systems of Child Protection” Strategy or the “Improving Family-Level Assets and Income Generation Opportunities Through Economic Strengthening Activities” Strategy.
Further details can be found in the document below. Organizations interested in responding to this RFA may retrieve it here starting March 2, 2009.
The STRIVE Mozambique project aims to improve child well-being in Nampula Province, which has the highest level of food insecurity in the country. An alarming 63% of children in the province are chronically undernourished. The factors contributing to food insecurity in Nampula include lack of and limited access to food, poor food utilization and vulnerability in the form of economic, health and market shocks. Save the Children is addressing the issues of access to food and vulnerability by targeting individuals in households – particularly women with children under the age of 5, who face the highest risks of food insecurity – with interventions that increase household income and social capital.
By mobilizing, training and mentoring village savings and loan (VSL) groups, STRIVE Mozambique provides a mechanism for asset building, income generation and risk mitigation. VSL participation enables women to purchase more or better foods, invest in better income earning strategies and/or enter into and expand participation in agriculture value chains that increase their earning potential. The VSL groups, along with the community support networks formed under rotating labor schemes (called the Ajuda Mútua) that Save the Children is promoting in Nampula, will create a stronger social capital base for households, increasing their resilience to shocks.
Working in concert with an on-going food security project in the province, STRIVE Mozambique expects to improve nutritional outcomes for children under 5 by expanding both the amount and quality of food they eat. Specifically, by increasing household access to cash through savings and income earning opportunities, it is expected that dietary diversity and months of adequate food provisioning will increase, particularly through the prolonged “hungry season.” STRIVE Mozambique is one of five initiatives under the AED STRIVE Program exploring effective means of reducing the vulnerability of children and youth through economic strengthening.
Thierry van Bastelaer
tvanbastelaer@savethechildren.org
October 2008-August 2012
YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.
The goals of the project are:
- To support microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing savings and credit products to strengthen the capacity of youth-run enterprises in Egypt and Morocco
- To assess and improve safety conditions in the workplace
- To support improved education and training opportunities for youth to ensure improved long-term prospects and to contribute to a higher quality workforce.
MFIs will be the primary points of contact with youth clients, delivering financial and non-financial services to young entrepreneurs and enterprises employing youth. MFI staff will be trained in these interventions, and will in turn deliver them to working youth and business owners as appropriate.
Workforce readiness training will be delivered by specialist youth-serving organisations; MFIs could
potentially provide linkage support to trained youth, by connecting them to high-growth clients. Within five years, YouthInvest will directly touch the lives of over 50,000 young people - connecting them with innovative financial products and services that will build their economic prosperity, improve their working lives, enhance their workplace safety, and lead to a better quality of life for their families and themselves.
Jennifer Denomy, Project Manager
jdenomy@meda.org
September 2008 to 2013
YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.
The goals of the project are:
- To support microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing savings and credit products to strengthen the capacity of youth-run enterprises in Egypt and Morocco
- To assess and improve safety conditions in the workplace
- To support improved education and training opportunities for youth to ensure improved long-term prospects and to contribute to a higher quality workforce.
MFIs will be the primary points of contact with youth clients, delivering financial and non-financial services to young entrepreneurs and enterprises employing youth. MFI staff will be trained in these interventions, and will in turn deliver them to working youth and business owners as appropriate.
Workforce readiness training will be delivered by specialist youth-serving organisations; MFIs could
potentially provide linkage support to trained youth, by connecting them to high-growth clients. Within five years, YouthInvest will directly touch the lives of over 50,000 young people - connecting them with innovative financial products and services that will build their economic prosperity, improve their working lives, enhance their workplace safety, and lead to a better quality of life for their families and themselves.
Jennifer Denomy, Project Manager
jdenomy@meda.org
September 2008 to 2013
loveLife is the national HIV prevention program for youth in South Africa. Over the next two years, it is focusing on the Make Your Move Campaign, the goal of which is to change the mindsets of youth to understand that change is possible through small actions on a daily basis that can help them to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and to make positive steps towards a socially and economically productive life.
To support the campaign, the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship (SAIE) is developing entrepreneurship and life skills tools that simulate choices that youth are faced with every day. These tools make it possible for youth to understand and discuss dilemmas and trade-offs in a safe environment, helping them to make positive choices in the real world. Part of making those positive choices relies in being able to make sound financial decisions. SAIE’s entrepreneurship curriculum addresses basic financial literacy while training youth to think about business and their life from an entrepreneurial perspective and preparing them with skills to help them to successfully achieve their personal, career, or business goals.
To implement the program, unemployed youth aged 18-25, called groundbreakers (gBs), are trained to guide a team of volunteer youth ages 12-17 through the different tools so that they utilize the entrepreneurship and decision-making skills on a day-to-day basis, and in turn can be positive leaders amongst their peers. Currently 95% of 15-year-old South African youth are HIV-negative, and loveLife hopes that by training older youths to be positive role models for their younger peers, they can help to keep them away from risky behaviors and to make healthy life choices. gBs in the program are additionally equipped with skills that can help them to gain employment or to start their own business.
Robin Coxson
robin@entrepreneurship.co.za
In October 2007, USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund, in close collaboration with the Microenterprise Development office, initiated the STRIVE (Supporting Transformation by Reducing Insecurity and Vulnerability with Economic Strengthening) Program. A five-year, $16 million effort, STRIVE uses market-led economic strengthening initiatives to benefit vulnerable children. In doing so, the program aims to fill current knowledge gaps on effective approaches to reducing the vulnerability of children and youth.
Managed by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in concert with technical advisors from Action for Enterprise, ACDI/VOCA, CARE, MEDA, Save the Children, the IRIS Center and USAID, STRIVE is implementing up to five field projects in Africa and Asia between 2008 and 2012. Each project is pursuing a unique economic strengthening approach, ranging from savings-led finance to workforce development to value chain interventions. STRIVE is tracking and documenting the impacts of these diverse interventions on child-level indicators related to both economic (financial), and non-economic (e.g. health, nutrition, education) vulnerability factors. As a result, STRIVE aims to identify and demonstrate interventions that can sustainably increase incomes and document how such increases improve (or fail to improve) the lives of children.
- Afghanistan: Secure Futures (ASF), AED and MEDA
- Liberia: Agriculture for Children's Empowerment (ACE), ACDI/VOCA
- Mozambique: STRIVE Mozambique, Save the Children US
- Philippines: STRIVE Philippines, Action for Enterprise (AFE)
- STRIVE Monitoring and Evaluation, The IRIS Center
Margie Brand
STRIVE Program Director
AED
Center for Enterprise and Capacity Development
1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
USA
margie@eco-ventures.org
October 2007 to September 2012
