Issue overview
In Angola’s fragmented environment, children and women continue to be the most vulnerable groups with their rights to survival, protection, development and participation consistently overlooked. Absence of meaningful participation by a critical mass of Angolan children and women has deprived them of the opportunity to contribute to social development initiatives. With the end of the hostilities and the shift from emergency to development programming, there is a wider window of opportunity to boost the capacity of the communities and to disseminate and promote children’s rights. During the last decade, UNICEF’s experience has demonstrated that if people within communities can understand, communicate, and even demand their human rights, a more accountable environment of governance, economic opportunity and wider social stability becomes possible for all. Starting at a grassroots level, this approach to communication has the opportunity to reach progressively higher, ultimately influencing those previously untouched "decision-makers". Meaningful community participation in social development programmes empowers the community while providing mechanisms for sustainability that support such development. Limited capacity, characterized by scarcity of knowledge and skills among community members greatly undermines social development and meaningful involvement for everyone. Support for developing these capacities and accompanying structures needs to exist to create an environment that facilitates more effective participation of children, young people and women in the realization of their rights. UNICEF supports an environment that guarantees the participation of children and women in social development programmes through: • raising awareness and mobilizing communities These three points are the main building blocks towards the establishment of a human rights culture in Angolan society, and are the cornerstone of the strategy for the Communication social mobilisation program.
|
.jpg)
