Provision of Life Saving quality Protection and Education services for vulnerable South Sudanese ref SUMMARY
This 25-month action is a continuation of PIE’s intervention in Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz, supported by ECHO since '14. It aims to provide CPiE and EiE for vulnerable South Sudanese refugee children in 4 camps. To improve attendance, address retention and learning outcomes, the Action addresses barriers to access education, ensuring the safety of children in and on the way to school. The action will also focus on CP services and system strengthening. PIE will enhance access to these services for refugee children, including PSS, in a safe and protective environment. CPiE will be provided through a number of complementary interventions. Additionally, the action addresses needs of IDPs and conflict-affected populations in Metekel. Ongoing conflict caused massive destruction, which disrupted schools while children and adolescents, especially girls, also reported trauma and are in dire need of protection services, including multipurpose cash assistance to meet their basic food needs. Ethiopia is dealing with large numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, in addition to recurring climate-induced disasters (droughts and floods). UNHCR (May 2021) reported that there are 806,541 refugees (65% children) including 372,067 from South Sudan; the majority of them being hosted in Gambella. The influx of refugees from South Sudan has continued throughout 20/21, with a total of 8,220 refugees registered at Pagak reception center, of whom 7,824 were relocated to Nguennyel refugee camp (Gambella). To release the pressure on Gambella, more and more refugees have been relocated to Benishangul-Gumuz. Although increasing influx is expected to persist, the Regional Refugee Response Plan is severely underfunded. This deficit has a direct impact on the delivery of assistance to at-risk population, including unaccompanied and separated children, female-headed households, survivors and at-risk children of different forms of abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation. The high number of vulnerable children, coupled with the deterioration of the context due to Covid-19, flood disasters, and the current crises in Ethiopia, place CPiE and EiE as high priorities in both Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz response programs. The principal objective of this Action is to improve the wellbeing of refugee girls and boys through integrated education and child protection intervention in Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz Refugee settings, and conflict-affected IDP and host communities in Metekel zone. Specifically, this will be achieved by providing quality child protection and primary education to children in South Sudanese refugee Camps (Nguenyyiel, Kule camps in Gambella and Tsore and Gure Shembolla camps in Benishangul-Gumuz) and IDP settings (Mandura, Dangur, Dibatie woredas in Metekel zone of Benishangul-Gumuz) while ensuring wellbeing through safety and quality learning opportunities. The Action benefits from existing cooperation modalities, built during the 6 previous ECHO projects. Plan contributes to the UNHCR led Best Interest Determination (BID) panel. Plan facilitates the process across the camps through its Child Protection Information Management System (CPIMS), which links with UNICEF and Save the Children. Plan cooperates with ICRC for cross-border tracing and feeds information into the East Africa Regional database. Plan has a role in the facilitation of in-country tracing. Plan conducts adult and/or child verification upon request from the UNHCR regional office and the Protection working group in Gambella. The Action benefits from the cooperation with UNICEF with regard to guidance on the quality provision of psychosocial support to girls and boys in Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) and schools. The EiE component targets children (focus on girls) including children with disabilities between the age of 7 to 14. Other direct beneficiaries include: (foster) parents/caregivers, community groups, teachers, assistant teachers, mothers in school, PTA members and incentive workers.
The main target group for CP activities are:
- Separated children: separated from both parents/from their previous legal or customary primary care-giver/other adult family members.
- UASC: separated from both parents/relatives.
- Other children at risk: children with specific protection risks (non-unaccompanied and separated children).
- Children at risk of separation from their family/foster care in the case of abandonment. Plan will provide safe access to primary education in an inclusive environment through the following activities:
1. Train and coach national teachers, incentive teachers and assistant teachers to improve educational outcomes in Nguenyyiel and Gure-Shembolla refugee camps.
2. Construct and furnish disability friendly primary school blocks, WASH facilities, VIP latrines to improve teaching and learning
3. Recruit and retain sufficient and qualified monthly incentive workers
4. Procure and provision of school supplies and scholastic materials
5. Organize Awareness-Raising campaign on the importance of education, with emphasis on Girls’ education in Nguenyyiel and Gure Shembolla refugee camps
6. Support and strengthen school co-curricular activities
7. Support and strengthen school based community structures
8. Support and strengthen PSS and CP referral pathway in schools
9. Establish functional MHM rooms and distribute locally-made sanitary pads
10. Provision of PHESA, GIE, training for other partner organization for three days

CPiE activities will focus on:
1. Conduct community-led risk assessments
2. Build the capacity of staff and foster families to enhance service quality and promote protective environment
3. Provide incentives to staff
4. Maintain and rehabilitate CFS and YFS to promote children and adolescents' wellbeing, construct Tukls in YFS to promote community dialogue
5. Provide direct assistance to vulnerable boys and girls and foster families
6. Strengthen protection mechanisms through enhanced CPiMS, referral coordination and enhanced support-distance monitoring
7. Support and strengthen community-based child protection mechanisms to prevent and respond to child protection risks
8. Empower adolescent girls and boys to promote decision making and positive interaction In order to guarantee a sustainable delivery of assistance, Plan International maintains a well-functioning organizational set-up in the target areas. The regional office in Gambella with 78 national staff and Assosa with 35 staff (in Benishangul-Gumuz) ensure that the support to refugees in both areas is of high quality. In addition, PI has more than 500 incentive refugee teachers, case workers and social workers. Project staff involved in the response are trained in CPiE, EiE, child rights, PI code of conduct, child safeguarding policies, SGBV, Gender equality, Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Project Management and Safety and Security. Regular coaching and mentoring is also provided to national staff, incentive workers and community structure members to strengthen the ownership and sustainability of the project. PIE has good relationships with relevant government bodies and is an active member of several clusters and co-chairing the PSEA networking group in Gambella, ensuring complementarities and a smooth continuation of the response. PIE is well placed to sustain CPiE and EiE for current and new-influxes, while making full use of experiences, organizational set-up and investments already done in infrastructure.