Among Malawi’s vulnerable children, there are some who are proving
that they can make their own lives and the lives of other children
around them safer. Those children are being taught social and financial
entrepreneurship—and are demonstrating how they can be agents of social
change within their communities.
From 2010 to 2012, Catholic Relief Services collaborated with diocesan
partners and Netherlands-based Aflatoun, Child Savings International, in
an effort to strengthen the child protection functions of Malawi’s Children’s
Corners initiative, a community-based education and support program
for vulnerable children 6 to 18 years old. The program uses a curriculum
that builds children’s self-confidence, teaches them their rights and
responsibilities as well as practical skills in saving, spending, planning and
budgeting. Aflatoun also encourages social and financial enterprise—the
practice of identifying not just the problems within their communities, but
creative, practical and achievable solutions to those problems.
Supported by UNICEF’s Brighter Futures project, CRS’ partners implemented
the Aflatoun program in 20 Children’s Corners. The outcome: children
equipped with the knowledge they need to advocate for their rights and the
rights of their peers, the confidence to act on their behalf and on the behalf of
other vulnerable children in their communities, and the skills to plan better
futures for themselves.
This learning paper outlines the preliminary findings and experiences of
how the Aflatoun program helps strengthen the child protection function of
Children’s Corners in Malawi. To date, many of Aflatoun’s programs have
been implemented in a formal education context in collaboration with the
Ministry of Education. This is one of the few cases where the model is being
applied in an informal/out-of-school context. These lessons are intended to
support the learning needs of CRS, partners and peer organizations that have
expressed interest in incorporating the Aflatoun model in their existing out
of school programs.