Case Study: Protecting Education from Attack

In June 2016, the Dallaire Initiative was contacted by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) to discuss the development of a training toolkit to accompany the Safe Schools Declaration. The Dallaire Initiative was then contracted to develop a training toolkit that could be tested and used to educate the military on the Safe Schools Declaration implementation and adherence. As a direct result of the secondment of Mr. Gbow in AMISOM, we were able to have his input into the toolkit and the testing of the toolkit with the AMISOM troops. The final toolkit was officially presented in Buenos Aires in March 2017 and was received on a global scale with overwhelming success.

As part of AMISOM’s work to conduct operations in accordance with the Safe Schools Declaration, on July 11th, 2017, AMISOM handed over, to the Federal Government of Somalia, the Somali National University campus in Mogadishu which had been occupied by the Burundian contingent of AMISOM for the past 10 years. This important step in restoring Somalia’s educational infrastructure was aided by Mr. Gbow’s work on the ground.

Quick5-min

Quick 5: Children Affected by Armed Conflict in the News

Quick 5: Children Affected by Armed Conflict in the News

Dustin Johnson

By: Dustin Johnson

Read some of the top stories we are following around the world this week.

UN chief calls Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis ‘catastrophic’ as Security Council condemns violence

In a rare rebuke, the United Nations Security Council has “expressed deep concern” about the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where over 370,000 Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee across the border to Bangladesh to escape increasing levels of violence.

Source:
CNN, September 13th

Child soldier recruits double in one year in Middle East and North Africa

The number of children recruited to fight in conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa has more than doubled in a year, UN analysis has found. The huge increase in child soldiers in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and other countries follows years of ongoing violence, displacement and a lack of basic services, which has reduced the coping mechanisms of families, according to Unicef.

Source:
The Guardian, September 11th

Mass graves, missing bodies, and mysticism: Inside Congo’s spiralling Kasai conflict

Piles of disturbed earth covered with nettles and weeds hide the mass graves of Nganza, a neighbourhood in Kananga, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai Central region. Children stroll across them barefoot as if they aren’t even there. A ball rolls over from a nearby football match.

Source:
IRIN News, September 12th

Iraq holding 1,400 foreign ‘ISIL wives, children’

Iraqi authorities are holding about 1,400 foreign wives and children of suspected ISILfighters in a camp after government forces expelled the group from one of its last remaining strongholds in Iraq, security and aid officials said.

Source:
Al Jazeera, September 11th

Young Canadian ISIS recruit says he saw violence on scale he could never have imagined

In early 2014, a young Toronto-area man who went by the jihadi nom de guerre “Abu Huzaifa al-Kanadi” (Abu Huzaifa the Canadian) cleaned out his bank account and left to join the ranks of ISIS.

Source:
CBC News, September 11th

Quick5-min

Quick 5: Children Affected by Armed Conflict in the News

Quick 5: Children Affected by Armed Conflict in the News

Dustin Johnson

By: Dustin Johnson

Read some of the top stories we are following around the world this week.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram conflict: Huge rise in child ‘human bombs’

There has been a significant increase in the number of children used as human bombs by Boko Haram militants in north-east Nigeria, the United Nations says.

Source:
BBC News, August 22nd

An education in terror

Mutassim is nervous. The 16-year-old has never flown in a plane before. He is looking around at the other passengers waiting at the departure gate in Athens airport.

Source:
BBC News, August

Confidential U.N. report accuses Saudi Coalition of killing hundreds of Yemeni kids

Top U.N. advisor to recommend coalition should be put on the black list of countries that kill and maim children in war.

Source:
Foreign Policy, August 16th

Hungary PM Viktor Orban aims to militarize the school system

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is moving to introduce compulsory military training in schools. It is a grim reminder of the country’s totalitarian past that has raised fears of ‘idealogical indoctrination.’

Source:
Deutsche Welle, August 14th

Researchers find significantly higher rate of mental disorders among first responders

Results from Canada’s first national survey looking at operational stress injuries among first responders such as police, paramedics, firefighters and 911 operators suggest they are much more likely to develop a mental disorder than the general population.

Source:
CBC News, August 30th