Pikin to Pikin Tok featured in the BMJ
Earlier this year, our Pikin to Pikin Tok project was chosen by the World Health Organisation’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) as an example of successful multistakeholder collaboration to improve children’s health.
We were running our Getting Ready for School (GRS) programme in the remote and impoverished district of Kailahun, Sierra Leone, when Ebola broke out, meaning we had to cease our work to safeguard children, teachers and staff. To continue supporting vulnerable people in this district, we redesigned the programme into a radio-educational project. The radio programmes, made in collaboration with children from Ebola-affected communities, shed light on the emerging issues during this crisis and supported children to deal with them. To work in these extremely challenging circumstances, the programme built on relationships that our local partner Pikin-To-Pikin Movement had established before and during GRS with the Ministries of Health, Education and Social Welfare, as well as with community groups and other organisations.
To showcase the success of this project, PMNCH supported us in developing a case study, one of eleven in a series, which has been published in the esteemed British Medical Journal on 7 December 2018. You can read our article here.
All the case studies will be launched at the Partners’ Forum in New Delhi on 12-13 December 2018. Pikin-To-Pikin Movement Executive Director Abdulai Swaray and Child to Child Trustee Susan Durston will present the case study. The Sierra Leonean Minister of Primary and Secondary Education and the Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation will also attend the Forum.