In Sudan, UNICEF’s first initiatives with the Adolescent Kit, which began before the onset of conflict in 2023, involved implementing the Kit activities and approaches within life skills programmes for adolescents in the country’s formal schools, and as part of child protection interventions for refugee adolescents. Through UNICEF-supported trainings, teachers and youth workers developed their capacity to use the Kit’s approaches and activities, then designed plans to implement and use the Kit to catalyze and strengthen life skills programmes. Adolescents in those programmes participated in arts- and project-based activities such as community theatre, which promote their competencies for creative expression and problem solving, and open opportunities for them to develop innovative solutions to issues that affect them.
When the recent conflict in Sudan began in April 2023, UNICEF-Sudan's Education Team undertook a new, comprehensive Education in Emergencies initiative to utilize the Kit to reach adolescents with safe learning spaces, and to engage them as partners, with a focus on girls utilizing the Adolescent Kit as a key resource. UNICEF’s Education team, who had previous training-as-trainers for the Adolescent Kit, began by leading workshops with UNICEF-Sudan's national partner organization, orienting their youth facilitators to the key resources in the Kit for use to catalyze and engage adolescent clubs. Facilitators select, adapt and use activities from the Adolescent Kit that equip adolescents with the information, skills and support they need to become active partners in UNICEF Sudan’s EiE response, also emphasizing approaches that promote their psychosocial wellbeing and help adolescents to recover from distressing experiences. With support from their youth facilitators, adolescents in Sudan are now beginning to co-lead clubs in which they develop, practice and use essential competencies, and design and take action on projects to address challenges and contribute to positive changes in their communities.
Learn more about UNICEF’s work in Sudan. This link takes you to an external site.
