Tackling VAWG in times of conflict: responding to youth voices from South Sudan

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Our project aims to deliver evidenced-based programme recommendations to facilitate the achievement of sustainable resilience among displaced young women and girls in South Sudan (10 to age 24, which is the upper limit of the UN definition of 'youth'). The project will be driven and implemented by an extremely experienced team including academics, NGO staff and development management professionals.We will concentrate specifically on the experiences of violence against young women and girls. The research will focus on understanding the intersections between young age and a range of vulnerabilities influencing young women and girls' resilience to violence and general wellbeing. The research process will enable the particular contextual vulnerabilities to emerge during the initial phases, but we predict a focus on a range of factors including cross-cutting issues of gender discrimination, intermittent access to education and training, livelihoods, racism, cultural conflicts and a general lack of youth decision making power. We know that girls and young women are highly vulnerable at times of conflict and post displacement caused by conflict however understanding these vulerabilities through a girl centred approach is lacking in how protective programming is designed and implemtented. This research then intends to develop innovative new methodologies in taking such an approach adhering to ethics and safeguarding practice. We will take an innovative mixed-methods approach, combining art heritage techniques with quantitative and qualitative surveys and interview tools. This will offer a depth of insight into the ways in which varied categories of girls and young women understand and respond to their precarious positions post-displacement, and will help us to synchronise our participants' voices to provide meaningful messages for the future.Our project will have four strands, which are not strictly chronological.Strand 1: Scoping study of South Sudanese displacement and humanitarian interventions in South Sudan and Uganda. This will map relevant programming in the VAWG field, specifically focused on South Sudanese young people. As a part of this work, the strand will implement a detailed Systematic Review focused on drawing out the global evidence on what works to tackle violence against young women and girls.Strand 2: Evaluative learning processes to be implemented. Based on the scoping study we will select a range of completed programmes and conduct post-project evaluations to determine what has worked well, and what the key challenges have been in terms of building sustainable resilience to gender based violence and preventing this violence. Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used for this strand.Strand 3: Thematic learning, drawing specifically on arts-based research methods. Our thematic learning will take an innovative mix of approaches from within the arts and humanities designed to capture experiences of vulnerabilities. As a team we have already designed and used such approaches which have proven to work well in sensitive contexts, including South Sudan and other countries.Strand 4: Design and pilot of new interventions. Based on the findings of strands 1, 2 and 3 we will work with young people in a selected context to design and implement a new intervention to target violence against displaced young women and girls. This will be driven by our Co-I Plan International, a hugely experienced international NGO. The intervention, which is likely to continue past project end, will be monitored closely to maximise further lesson learning.