What are we learning about girls’
integration? Lessons from Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Uganda & Angola
Mike Wessells
CCF & Columbia University
July 22, 2008
Girls’ Diverse Roles & Situations
Girls’Situation—Implications for
Integration
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Discrimination and patriarchy before, during, and after the conflict
Marginalization in formal DDR processes
Gender-based violence, structural violence
Necessary supports—cultural and situational tailoring of livelihoods,
health, educational, and psychosocial support
Underestimation of girls’ agency and resilience
Little attention to girls’ gendered situation and their own perspectives
before, during, and after association with armed forces and groups
Mothering and children
Need to probe girls’ subjective, culturally constructed understandings
of what is ‘integration’ and how to support it
Contextual adaptation—lessons from Angola and avoiding a ‘one size
fits all’ approach
Question: are we learning systematically when and how to intermix
formal and nonformal supports?
Systems Approaches to Integration
Family
-Parents accept girls and
support them
-Family mediation
-Actively discourage
association with armed
groups
- Modeling of
nonviolence
- Positive parenting
-Encouragement of
education & girls’
participation
Community
-Establishment and support
community mechanisms of
child protection, with a strong
emphasis on gender,
nonrecruitment, & integration
-Community sensitization &
workshops on girls’ rights,
empathy, reconciliation,
reduction of stigma & jealousy
-Access to education, health
care, livelihoods &
psychosocial supports
- Community relations—
drama, mobilization of girl
youths for civic service
Societal
- Activities to promote
gender justice
-Girl friendly laws &
policies
-Media programming
-Government supports
-Links with regional,
national and international
mechanisms, 1612
Participatory Action Research:
Building Agency and Resilience
with Girl Mothers
• Sierra Leone: CCF, Christian Brothers, Council
of Churches in Sierra Leone, National Network for
Psychosocial Care
• Liberia: Save the Children/UK, THINK
• Uganda: Caritas, Concerned Parents Association,
Transcultural Psychiatry Organization, World
Vision
• Coordinators: Susan McKay, Angela Veale,
Miranda Worthen, Mike Wessells
How the PAR works
• Girl mothers (half formerly abducted, half not)
learn about or ‘research’ their situation and needs
• Girls define which problems they want to address
• Girls create social actions in their communities
with support from the agencies and adult Advisory
Committees
• Girls document and learn
from their activities
Sample Social Actions
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Petty business
Farming
Animal husbandry
Literacy activities
Community service
Community drama and other activities to
support empathy and decrease stigma
Preliminary Outcomes
• Increased access to psychosocial support
• Increased income—access to better foods,
clothing, health care, education
• Increased functional literacy
• Less transactional sex work
• Children’s participation in formal education
• Improved status in the community
“Before the project, I was low and people paid no
attention to me. Now they do because I have goats
and groundnuts and do my business.”
Key Lessons
• Capacity building to avoid
excessive staff guidance
• Value of support groups
• Importance of community advisory groups
• Value of learning across projects
• Careful attention to ‘Do No Harm’ Issues
• Girls’ and staffs’ capacity building in regard to
documentation
• PAR is a means of bringing visibility to the
invisible
Question
• Are we doing enough to listen to girls
themselves and support their agency in the
integration process?
Challenges
• PAR project
- how to support additional girls who want to join
- managing jealousy and community relations
- enabling sustainable actions
- going to scale
• Wider Girl’s Integration arena
- how to make girls’ issues central on the reintegration agenda
- reintegration guides DDR process?
- building the evidence base
- girls’ full participation in all phases
- what about girls who do not want to return home?
- short-term programming and funding
- how to effectively support girl mothers’ children
- building stronger support & protection systems that link multiple
levels, include social and legal protection, and support all war-affected
and at-risk children