IBAMA: Caring island communities
Caring communities that respond to the complex needs of vulnerable children and young people
Rarely is it a single challenge that puts the rights, lives and futures of children and young people at risk. Often, it is complex mixture of concerns: poverty; violence and exploitation; mental health disorders and substance abuse; lack of access to education and conflict with the law.
Just as the challenges are multiple, so are the solutions.
Caring communities
With the IBAMA flagship initiative, UNICEF Maldives tackles the multiple challenges that vulnerable children and young people face in their daily lives – especially in island communities.
IBAMA is a comprehensive, coordinated and community-based approach. This approach is summed up in the name – a combination of two words in Dhivehi: iba, ‘you’ and ma, ‘me’. Together.
The purpose of the flagship is to work with communities to establish island-level multisectoral platforms for service providers to come together to address complex challenges that require multidimensional solutions.
IBAMA platforms allow service providers to identify vulnerable families and link them with the services they need. It is also a way to make sure that the service sectors are coordinating their efforts.
For example, an IBAMA platform would allow communities to come together to identify a child in danger of being exploited into crime and develop a tailored, coordinate outreach plan that includes education, child protection, criminal justice, health and social protection services.