The Citizen Voices Addressing Violence Against Children (CVAVAC) project is a 3-year initiative funded by the European Union in Lesotho, managed by World Vision Ireland in partnership with World Vision International Lesotho.

The project aims to empower communities, advocate for legislative reform, and bring about child-appropriate improvements in the justice sector to safeguard the rights and welfare of children in Lesotho. The project employs a multi-faceted approach to address violence against children, focusing on empowering youth and communities, engaging in national advocacy campaigns, and implementing child-appropriate improvements in the justice sector.

Through the Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) model, communities generate evidence, participate in community sensitization, and monitor progress through Action Plans.

CVAVAC aims to target a national audience and successfully engage justice sector authorities through the implementation of World Vision's social accountability model, Citizen Voice and Action (CVA). The project also aims to build necessary structures to engage CSOs in fighting violence against children and making child-appropriate improvements to the justice sector. CVAVAC does so through three different streamlines:

1. Empowering youth and communities to meaningfully participate and lead community sensitisation and engage local authorities on child rights and protection. Through the roll out of the CVA model, children, youth, and their communities will generate information and evidence on government commitments versus the reality of delivery and use community Action Plans to address and monitor gaps and progress. Through participation in children’s clubs or groups supported by World Vision, children and youth will learn about their rights and how to be active participants in their lives and societies, increase community awareness on child protection issues and becoming agents of change.

2. Facilitating a national advocacy coalition campaign on violence against children and promoting improvements in child justice that will engage CSOs to pursue enactment of child-rights related legislation. Towards this, CVAVAC will revive the inactive National Advocacy Steering Committee (NASC) and strengthen NASC’s advocacy capacities.

3. Child appropriate improvements will also be targeted for the Justice sector, through specific targeted training and support to justice authorities and staff. Four pilot court rooms and waiting rooms designed to provide a child-friendly environment will be set up with the support of CVAVAC staff.

Milestones of the Citizen Voices Addressing Violence Against Children project

The CVAVAC project has made significant progress, including empowering youth and communities to participate in community sensitization, engaging local authorities on child rights, and advocating for improvements in the justice sector, such as the introduction of child-friendly courts and the training of child protection teams on accountability models.