Children at Risk

Our Approach

There are tens of millions of children worldwide living on the streets, 150 million children living with disabilities (the majority without access to education or services), 2 million children enslaved in the global commercial sex trade and over 170 million children involved in exploitative or hazardous jobs.

Children are at a greater risk of suffering from severe effects of crisis situations than adults. Due to their evolving physical, psychological and emotional development, they have fewer capacities for self-protection and survival. Until interventions are put in place to respond to children in crisis, millions of children will be deprived of an opportunity to reach their full potential, which eventually will set countries decades back in their development.

In response, World Learning devotes significant resources to developing quality programs that serve children at risk. Abuse, neglect and malnutrition are common occurrences and often leave behind a legacy of long-lasting consequences on children’s overall development.  As a result, health and wellbeing, academic achievement and social and cognitive development all suffer.

World Learning works with communities and families to define and confront the diverse needs of children at risk. By developing comprehensive and holistic interventions these partnerships help create opportunities many children would otherwise not have.  Our programs bring safety and strength to children’s environments, helping to ensure fulfilling and healthy lives.

Improving the quality of life for children at risk is a difficult and challenging task. Children at risk face numerous obstacles to reintegration and full participation in mainstream society.

World Learning focuses on designing and implementing sustainable program models that support resilience in children and provide them the opportunity to lead productive and fulfilling lives.

Our projects center around five main areas of intervention: prevention of child abuse and exploitation; rehabilitation of children facing crisis situations; re-integration of marginalized and separated children with families and communities; sustainability of change through educational and vocational opportunities; advocacy at the local, national and regional level to address the issues and causes of child exploitation or abuse.

Each project aims to cultivate networks of care within communities to anticipate and respond to threats affecting the wellbeing of children and their families.

Featured Projects

Angola: Onjoi (Dream): Combating Exploitative Child Labor Through Education
This project works alongside local communities with the aim of emancipating at least 7,000 children and adolescents from the worst forms of child labor in Luanda and rural Benguela, through providing education and vocational training opportunities. The project targets child laborers including victims of civil and ethnic conflict - former child soldiers and sex trade slaves displaced from their homes and communities.

Read the Angola: Onjoi (Dream): Combating Exploitative Child Labor Through Education Project Summary.

Ethiopia: Positive Change: Children, Communities and Care (PC3) Program

The goal of the project is to improve the well-being of 500,000 orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and families affected by HIV/AIDS. World Learning is responsible for implementing the School Support Component of PCR. The project purpose is to create a practical, replicable and sustainable model of school-based support for OVC through strengthened community participation. This project strives to strengthen the community bonds, involving numerous local NGOs and developing a network of schools, health centers, community leaders and organizations that will work together to provide helpless children with the aid they so zone desperately need. This project primarily benefits: child-headed households, street children, child laborers, AIDS affected OVC, OVC who have lost parents due to non-AIDS related illness, accidents, conflict or violence. Secondary beneficiaries will include members of the community who receive mentoring, training, tools and resources to assist in the provision of services and support to OVC and AIDS-affected households.

Ethiopia: Communities and Schools for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS (CASCAID)

World Learning’s USAID Funded CASCAID project aims to increase access to primary education and essential educational services to at least 5,000 Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in 100 primary schools in Amhara, SNNP, and Oromia regions. World Learning is providing training for teachers to best help their young, at-risk students; training materials for schools; and psychosocial support for communities, in the form of anti-stigma and anti-discrimination, child rights, and community based-care sensitization programs. The project supports the retention of OVC’s in schools by providing teachers, student groups, with health services, food and nutrition, life skills trainings, HIV prevention trainings, legal support, community school boards, and income generation through PTAs. World Learning works closely with the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia to ensure coordination and to advocate for inclusion of project activities into government institutions. World Learning is also helping schools design and implements school-specific approaches for OVC. In addition, the program ensures that communities are aware of the special constraints girls face and the level of care and support they require when attending school. A critical activity is the summer remedial program, which helps children at risk to remain in school and on grade.

View a video about CASCAID (also available on World Learning's YouTube channel.)

Closed Projects

Benin: Community Action for Girls Education

World Learning, in partnership with local groups, helped to bring trafficked girls and girls in danger of being forced into early marriages to safety. World Learning also advocated in support of increased girls’ schooling, and cultivated family and community dialogue to increase girls' chances of being given the same opportunities to study as their brothers.

Peru: Supporting Community Action to Reduce Child Labor in Artisanal Gold-mining Communities in Puno, Peru

In Peru, World Learning works in gold mining communities to provide teacher training in locally relevant instruction methods that incorporate child labor issues into curriculum development. After-school activities further help to keep children from engaging in dangerous mining activities.