Integrated Education, Child Protection and GBV emergency response in Kapoeta East to provide safe, equitable and dignified access to Education for girls and boys in 16 schools AVSI South Sudan has been implementing EIE projects in the Kapoeta region, covering the areas of Kapoeta East and Kapoeta South, since September 2017, including a successful response to the Cholera outbreak funded by the SSHF. ACROSS is one of the few partners working in the remote area of the county (Kauto plateau). On the base of this expertise and knowledge of the specific context of Kapoeta East, this project intends to bring immediate education support especially to attend pressing needs in terms of refurbished facilities, better hygiene and sanitation standards, and improved capacity of teachers, both with regard to education practices and child protection.
In particular AVSI, in partnership with ACROSS, intend to work on three different pillars: 
- a specific packet of trainings for teachers and PTAs to improve the quality of education services
- a structural intervention to provide improve access to safe and protective education service through construction of new TLS and a WASH program that will respond to the immediate hygiene needs of pupils and schools
- A protection intervention aiming to strengthen the education system response capacity of the community and education actors in order to mitigate the impact on crisis affected people.and to increase access to more education neglected beneficiaries

The strategy behind this intervention is to use schools as catalysts for behavioral change regarding GBV, child protection and hygiene promotion.

The first pillar of this intervention will focus on providing the schools with adequate facilities to have a conducive and clean learning environment. TLS will be established in schools that are lacking classrooms or where classes are congested. Constructing proper latrines, bathing shelters and distributing hand-washing facilities and general hygiene supplies will be crucial in the response. The current situation of the latrines (in all schools) of 1 every 112 students in average (not sex-differentiated), is far below the SPHERE standards of 1 toilet every 30 girls and 1 toilet every 60 boys, does not guarantee a safe and clean learning environment. In fact, they are insufficient in number and in quality, and many of the available are already filled or almost collapsed. Key activities: construction of boreholes and latrines, installment of water tanks and hand-washing facilities, distribution of WASH items.

The second pillar will be addressing the capacity gap at the school level. Majority of the teachers are volunteers and have never received any training while PTAs are mostly dormant and never guided on what is their roles and tasks in school management. The capacity of teachers will be improved on a number of topics, some educational -- including training on EiE, basic pedagogy and learner-centred methodologies – some cross cutting – including WASH and protection, especially for psycho social support and GBV case management.

The final pillar will be to strengthen protection mechanisms in the schools and make capacity-building on schools actors like teachers and PTAs. Sensitization on child rights and gender based violence will be carried out in the schools and in the communities, in order to improve an equitable and safe access to education and to reduce the stigma toward girls education. Referral pathways will be established for children with need of psycho-social support and women victims of GBV
In summary, the project will  reach a total target of 5505 pupils (3132 boys and 2373 girls) of whom 31 disable. Teachers targeted in the different trainings (ECD, PSS, etc) are in total 145 people (120 males and 25 females). PTAs reached will be 100 ( 55 male and 35 female). Concerning constructions, the target will be 5 TLS (of two classrooms each), the renovation of 1 school block in Kuron PS, the construction of 7 gender-segregated permanent latrines, the installation of 1 water tank and the construction of 1 bathing shelter in St. Bakhita Girls SS in Narus