A New Approach to Meet the Needs of Children Affected by Conflict

July 3, 2023

War-Child-Lebanon_220218
“We have a dream that every child lives in peace. Yet, some 230 million children are waking up in active war zones”, says War Child Holland CEO Ramin Shahzamani. “What 2022 taught us is that we can’t have impact everywhere. What we can do is add value in one key area…” Read more about our Annual Report.

Our Evidence-Based Approach

There’s a tradition in the humanitarian sector - a crisis happens and we move in as quickly as possible to provide aid and support people. We continue to support people with projects and programmes and, while everything indicates we’re making a positive difference, we have little hard evidence to prove this impact. This gap in knowledge is what the War Child Care System was founded upon.

The Care System is centred around a suite of evidence-based interventions that are continuously trialled and tested by our team of in-house researchers. Each and every one of these interventions has undergone some form of scientific research to assess its positive impact on children.

If findings are inconclusive or inadequate in any way, we can use this evidence to adapt and improve the intervention. Pretty cool, right?

In 2022, integrating this approach within our regular programming went front and centre. Find out more in our new Annual Report.

War-Child-Nederland_TeamUp_Noodopvang_1_230621

War Child Alliance_Uganda_Class_200228

Reaching more children in need

Ok, so this approach may improve the quality of the support we provide, but how does it ensure we reach more of the 230 million children waking up in active war zones? “These interventions are purposely built in a scalable manner”, says War Child Holland CEO Ramin Shahzamani. “Low-cost and easily adaptable to the specific context, they can be picked up by humanitarian agencies and partners around the globe.”

“By sharing our interventions in this way, we also encourage the sharing of expertise instead of operating in silos”, he explains. “This is a new way of working in the sector - and we’re excited about where it’s headed.”

230206_WCH_Annual_Report_2022_EN9

Innovation inside and out

In the spirit of innovation, 2022 also saw us accelerate our internal change journey. Plans to become a global networked organisation as of January 2024 continued to take shape with conversations between our UK, US, Swedish and German counterparts signalling an altogether new chapter for War Child.

Learn more about this and so much more in the report.