Sharing lessons from the journey to scale

Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim Ma’aji from Pexels 

Large scale problems like child sexual abuse and gender-based violence require bold solutions that can be scaled up for impactful change. However, working towards reaching such solutions often requires organisation-wide shifts in mindset and approaches. Centrs Dardedze and Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC) are two of Oak’s grantee partners that have designed sustainable scale-up strategies in their efforts to prevent child sexual abuse. They achieved this by working with Spring Impact, which helps innovators scale their impact and change more lives. The learnings from their experiences were recently captured in case studies and a webinar, which can be accessed on the Spring Impact website.

Centrs Dardedze, a not-for-profit organisation based in Latvia, implements the Jimba (Džimba) programme, which teaches kindergarten and primary school children about personal safety and safe relationships. The programme’s highly successful approach providing support to school personnel on how to tackle difficult topics related to child sexual abuse, had already achieved impressive growth. With the help of Spring Impact, it was able to reach an additional 50 kindergartens, and now, 65 per cent of kindergartens in Latvia participate in the programme. In addition, Centrs Dardedze’s staff and leadership worked to design and test a more financially sustainable and collaborative business model for their programme. This new approach will help Centrs Dardedze reach even more children. Click here to read the case study in full.

Expanding solutions across regions, Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC), a department under the College of Health Sciences at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, is also scaling up its Parenting for Respectability (PfR) programme. This community-based parenting programme focuses on helping to prevent violence against children, as well as gender-based violence across Uganda. The programme aims to achieve positive outcomes for families, as the team provides educational sessions that help inform parents about positive parenting strategies to consider when it comes to disciplining children. The case study identifies areas for intervention to address cultural and societal norms, and illustrates the importance of focusing on impact, over gathering extensive evidence when approaching solutions. Click here to read the case study in full.

Recently, Spring Impact presented lessons from these two organisations and their journeys via a webinar. Click here to watch the recording and hear real-world stories, insights, and lessons on addressing the issue of sexual abuse against children at scale.

Helena Duch, Head of Solutions sub-programme at Oak says, “We are inspired by the work of our partners examining their innovations with scale in mind. CHDC and Dardeze have been evolving their programmes and organisations to reach their desired impacts.”

This grant falls under Oak’s Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Programme, which supports partners to build and mobilise the evidence base of scalable solutions for child sexual abuse prevention. You can read more about the programme clicking here.