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.