Without Violence Website

Without Violence website (WV) is an initiative to improve the lives of children around the world by addressing violence against children. Their website aims to develop effective communications strategies that can help broaden and deepen engagement among policy makers and advocates on the issue of violence against children. "It has involved a process of action-research with advocates, opinion leaders and journalists in media capitals around the world and led to the production of some new content available on this website."

Based upon a "need to reframe the issue of violence against children in order to make more people feel like it is ‘their issue’ and that they have a meaningful contribution to make in solving the problem," the resources on the website have a "greater emphasis on the solvability of the problem and [include] specific success stories and solutions that inspire people and give them hope" The long-term strategy is to shift the narrative around violence against children by providing evidence to help people become "effective advocates and storytellers, and to help them build bridges into new constituencies."

The project is soliciting ideas and offering an infographic and a shared video, as well as links to organisations and articles and studies available on the internet. It has a facts page, aTwitter feed page, a success stories page, and a page with seven World Health Organization (WHO) strategies:

1. Support parents and caregivers
2. Develop Children's Life Skills
3. Provide Support Services To Victims
4. Reduce Harmful Use of Alcohol
5. Reduce Access to Guns, Knives and Pesticides
6. Empower Women
7. Change Cultural & Social Norms

"Success stories" include, for example:

• The Baltimore, Maryland, United States (US), Safe Streets project, which uses "the participation of street outreach workers - often former gang members - who worked with high-risk individuals to ‘interrupt’ and mediate violent conflicts, act as positive role models, and encourage them to go into employment or educational training." In its most successful neighbourhood, "there was a statistically significant reduction of 56% in homicides and 34% in non-fatal shootings."
• The Early Enrichment Project of Istanbul, Turkey, aimed to create a literate family environment among socially under-privileged mothers and their children, which included discussion on child development with parents and home visits by mother's aides to provide learning materials to parents and teach them how to use the materials with their children. A two-year evaluation showed a 73% reduction in harsh punishment of children.
• The IMAGE project in eight rural villages in the South African province of Limpopo provided small business loans and training, including 10 one-hour learning programmes to discuss gender roles, cultural beliefs, relationships, communications, domestic violence, and HIV. "Loan repayment rates of 99% led to increased food security and household assets; women showed higher levels of self-confidence and capacity for collective action and - within a two-year period - intimate partner violence was reduced by 55% among women who participated in the project."