A new video launched by Campaign for Australian Aid has captured the success of Pass It Back, an innovative Sport for Development program using rugby to increase gender equality and equip children and young people in Asia with essential life skills to overcome the challenges of poverty and inequality.
ChildFund Australia, in partnership with Women Win and Asia Rugby, launched the initiative in Laos and Vietnam in April last year, and hopes to expand it across countries in South-East Asia.
“The program was designed to help young people to overcome challenges, inspire positive social change and pass it back to their communities,” said ChildFund Australia CEO, Nigel Spence.
ChildFund Australia is one of over 65 aid and development agencies represented by the Campaign for Australian Aid, a movement of people, organisations and businesses who believe aid is essential in building a fairer future for all.
“Pass It Back delivers an integrated rugby and life-skills curriculum, providing important learning opportunities with a focus on leadership, gender and financial literacy, ” said Mr Spence.
“Rugby is an unfamiliar sport in many Asian countries, meaning there are no fixed ideas about who should be playing it. We`re seeing how the program is equipping women and girls with strong leadership and life skills.”
An example of one such woman is 27-year-old Huyen who`s from one of the poorest communes in the Kim Boi District in Vietnam. Married and with a 5-year-old daughter, Huyen is one of 25 individuals in training to become a rugby coach thanks to Pass It Back.
“I consider myself so lucky because it is very uncommon for women to be allowed to attend any social activities after getting married,” said Huyen.
Through our Free From Violence campaign, ChildFund has been a loud advocate amongst those calling for a world where all children are safe and child protection is a global priority.
We celebrated a win for our advocacy late last year when the new 2030 Global Goals for Sustainable Development were announced and included target 16.2 to “End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.”
Today, we celebrate another significant milestone with the launch of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. Responding to the Global Goals, the Partnership will turn talk into action by advocating for, supporting and funding a coordinated approach to ending violence against children.
Violence against children continues to be an endemic problem, shared by every country in the world. In the past year, as many as 1 billion children globally have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence. Every five minutes globally, a child dies from violence. We know that a global problem requires a shared solution.
The Global Partnership will build and sustain political will to end violence against children. It will accelerate action by taking a globally coordinated approach, and it will strengthen collaboration between countries and actors.
By pooling resources and expertise, the Global Partnership will accelerate progress towards the 2030 target. The Partnership ultimately aims for commitments from every country on Earth to adopt national legislation, policies and programs to protect children and to achieve this, will support and feature €˜Pathfinder` countries who demonstrate a strong commitment to accelerating efforts to make children safe. Countries that have already initiated steps towards being Pathfinders include Indonesia, Philippines, Tanzania, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Romania, Sweden and Sri Lanka.
The Global Partnership will promote and fund strategies that are tried and tested through a multi-donor trust fund. Already, £40 million (AUD$70m) to catalyse the fund has been contributed by the UK Government and will be used for actions to address online violence and exploitation of children.
ChildFund has financially and technically supported the Global Partnership from its inception. We will continue our commitment through the ChildFund Alliance to advocate for and support a world where children can be free from violence.
ChildFund will also collaborate with key organisations, governments and the private sector to work with Pathfinder countries, and to encourage more countries €“ including Australia €“ to sign on to the commitments of the Global Partnership.
