CSC Annual Conference 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic and responses to it have brought threats to street-connected children on a scale unlike any seen before. It has also highlighted the inequalities and threats that existed pre-covid, that have been magnified.
At this years annual conference, we will be discussing the impacts of the pandemic on street connected children and young people and hearing directly from them about their experiences, considering governments human rights obligations during the pandemic as well as running practical sessions around education and mental health to help support the CSC Network’s work. There will also be plenty of opportunities to meet other organisations and hear about their work, and to share challenges and successes.
The conference will be entirely virtual – click on the links below to register for sessions. Please note, some sessions are open to CSC Network Members only and will require an access code to register. Network members will be given this code in the weekly bulletin, or please email communications@streetchildren.org for the code.
Download the Conference Agenda
See our summary of 2019’s conference, including presentations and videos.
Monday 2 November
10.00 – 11.30am
Child-led initiatives and voices from the ground: children and young people’s experiences of Covid-19
In this session CINI India will share their experiences of child led research centered around vulnerability & service mapping for street connected children in Kolkata followed by examples of the child led advocacy they have been conducting during the pandemic.
The session will also provide the opportunity to hear directly from children and young people about their lived experiences during the pandemic and an open interactive session between participants.
Click here to register for this session
12.00 – 1.30pm
Introduction to CSC and networking opportunity for members
We will be running two open networking sessions with a brief introduction to organisations who have recently joined the CSC Network, followed by the opportunity to meet other organisations and share experiences and learning.
We will run this session again on Wednesday 4th later in the day to allow organisations in different time zones to attend.
2.30 – 4.00pm
Innovative approaches to children’s learning and wellbeing
Madeeha Ansari, Founder of Cities for Children
Danielle De La Fuente, Founder of Amal Alliance
In this session participants will hear about two innovative educational tools and models that have been piloted in Pakistan and Bangladesh, designed not only to allow children to continue their education during emergencies but to supplement it with social emotional learning techniques that will help them build resilience through challenging times.
Participants will take part in activities taken from both organisation’s models, followed by presentations on why these approaches to learning are so important, and the practical tools and techniques they use.
Madeeha Ansari, Founder of Cities for Children
Danielle de la Fuente, Founder of Amal Alliance
4.30 – 6.00pm
Discrimination, street-connected children and the pandemic
Translation available in Spanish
David Ricardo Quijada Ceballos, CONACMI, Guatemala
Sarmad Ali, Legal Awareness Watch, Pakistan
Lael Mohib, Enabled Children Initiative, Afghanistan
Santigie Bayo Dumbuya, We Yone Child Foundation, Sierra Leone
In this session, we will hear from four organisations about how the pandemic has magnified the ways in which street-connected children and young people have been discriminated against in Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. Each organisation will consider this theme from a specific area – disability, juvenile justice, governments and state actors and women and girls – and discuss their own experiences based on their work.
This session will consider the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and street-connected children being left out of relief efforts, as well as any opportunities it has opened up to address long-term inequalities.
Sarmad Ali, Director of Legal Awareness Watch Pakistan
Santigie Bayo Dumbuya, We Yone Child Foundation, Sierra Leone
Tuesday 3 November
9.30am – 11.00am
Working with street-connected children and substance misuse
Brenda Bogere and Nicola Sansom, S.A.L.V.E International, Uganda
This session will be an open conversation about the different methods and programmes CSC Network members have used when working with children and young people to support them through substance misuse.
It will focus on some of the key challenges such as building and maintaining trust, working with families to help them understand substance misuse, funding for longer-term projects and how to ensure staff are also safeguarded, so that organisations can learn from each other and strengthen their approach to this work.
Click here to register for this session (for CSC Network members only)
Brenda Bogere, Drug Rehab Manager, Salve International
Nicola Sansom, CEO, Salve International
11.30am – 12.30pm
CSC launches new e-learning platform
In this session CSC will be demonstrating our newly developed e-learning course ‘Realising street children’s rights through human rights advocacy’.
This course introduces the concept of rights-based advocacy and explores the steps involved in putting together a comprehensive advocacy strategy. Participants in the course will also have the opportunity to share insights on challenges and successes in advocating for street-connected children’s rights, and to discuss the UN treaty body system and how you can use it to strengthen their advocacy.
The course will be opened for registration during the Conference.
Click here to register for this session (for CSC Network members only)
1.00 – 2.00pm
CSC AGM
Separate agenda will be made available.
3.00 – 4.30pm
Training session on mental health and wellbeing during Covid-19
Victoria Burch, Child Psychologist and Trustee at Action for Child Trauma International
A learning session looking at the increase in children’s anxiety during Covid-19 and speaking through some simple ways to help children manage their anxiety and build emotional resilience. The techniques presented will be suitable for people working directly with children and young people who do not have a mental health background, and can be used in settings with few or no resources.
The session will go through how to recognise anxiety in children through their behaviour and what they say, how it affects them and some tools and techniques that individuals and organisations can adopt to help address anxiety.
The session will include exercises, games and activities that can help build resilience in children, as well as case studies and examples of how simple techniques can help address anxiety in children and young people.
Click here to register for this session (for CSC Network members only)
Victoria Burch, Clinical trustee for Action for Child Trauma International
Wednesday 4 November
10.00 – 11.30am
Introducing working group on women and girls
Karin Joseph, Amos Trust
Jessica Clark, CSC
We are pleased to share with the CSC Network our first working group, which will aim to capture and share different methodologies for working with women and girls, and to share expertise to strengthen the way we approach this work within the network.
The working group will be co-chaired by CSC Network members Amos Trust, who will be discussing the aims and objectives of the working group in more detail during this session for organisations who are interested in joining the working group or just finding out more about this work.
Click here to register for this session (CSC Network members only)
12.30 – 2.00pm
Government’s human rights obligations during Covid-19
Lizet Vlamings, CSC
CSC Network Organisations
In this session we will be looking at governments’ human rights obligations during the pandemic, and hearing from different CSC Network organisations about their advocacy successes and challenges during the pandemic.
Click here to register for this session
3.00 – 4.30pm
Introduction to CSC and networking opportunity for members
We will be running two open networking sessions with a brief introduction to CSC for newer network organisations, followed by the opportunity to meet other organisations and share experiences and learning.
We are also running this session on Monday 2nd earlier in the day to allow organisations in different time zones to attend.
Click here to register for this session