Education and Child Protection Specialist

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children’s rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has been present in Brazil since 1950, supporting the most important changes in childhood and adolescence in the country. UNICEF participated in major immunization and breastfeeding campaigns; the mobilization that resulted in the approval of Article 227 of the Federal Constitution and the drafting of the Child and Adolescent Statute; the movement for universal access to education; programmes to combat child labour; among other great advances in guaranteeing the rights of Brazilian girls and boys. In recent decades, Brazil has promoted a strong process of inclusion of children and adolescents in public policies. However, a significant portion of the population remains excluded. Therefore, in its cooperation programme with the Brazilian Government for the period 2024-2028, UNICEF focuses its efforts on the most vulnerable and excluded girls and boys, with a special focus on children and adolescents who are victims of extreme forms of violence. These children and adolescents in situations of greater vulnerability are spread throughout Brazil, but they are more concentrated in the Amazon, in the Northeast and in large urban centers. Through the UNICEF Seal, UNICEF promotes commitments to guarantee the rights of children and adolescents in the Northeast and in the Amazon regions in Brazil. In large cities, UNICEF works with a focus on reducing intra-municipal inequalities, through the #AgendaCidadeUNICEF.

UNICEF in Brazil works in partnership with federal, state and municipal governments, civil society, religious groups, the media, the private sector and other international organizations to promote the rights of all Brazilian girls and boys. UNICEF acts as a catalyst, inside and outside Brazil, uniting people and organizations and strengthening efforts to make children and adolescents a priority on the agendas of governments, society, companies and the media. UNICEF’s target audience is children and adolescents in situations of vulnerability due to discriminatory practices, ethnic or racial issues, emergency situations, disability, , HIV/AIDS and different forms of violence.

The period of the pandemic has had a major impact on the lives of children and adolescents in the country, all of whom have been negatively affected in terms of lack of protection and increased vulnerability, whether within the family, school or work and learning environments, or in terms of the safety of the interpersonal relationships experienced in their communities or urban centers.

In the last three years the educational indicators have shown a worsening of the situation of Brazilian public education; and a sharp increase in the number of cases of lethal and sexual violence against children and adolescents in large and medium-sized urban centers, verified in the latest national study produced by UNICEF and the Brazilian Forum of Public Security.

Children and adolescents’ victims or witness of all forms of violence continue to be the major concern. Strategies for tackling violence must necessarily include actions to prevent and respond to violence and consider the different sectors responsible and the essential policies that act at the root causes of the issue. The education sector and educational policies stand out in particular.

Violence has become more insidious for non-white children living in traditional, original or peripheral territories. For these groups, the reality of exclusion from school, lack of full access to health and decent inclusion in the labor market, or homicides has been revealed as a greater inequality.

In order to respond to this scenario, UNICEF has adopted the following outputs for its new country program (2024-2028) which will be implemented by the UNICEF Salvador Office.

• By 2028, at least 30 per cent of the out-of-school children and adolescents who were identified through UNICEF initiatives will be supported to enroll or reenroll in school, to access the Internet in schools and learning pathways.

• By 2028, children and adolescents in vulnerable situation, will be experiencing learning opportunities to develop foundational, transferable, and digital skills as expected to their age.

• By 2028, children, adolescents, families, communities (including school communities) and other groups adopt behaviors that reject violence against children, and decision makers prioritize children’s protection from physical, sexual and lethal violence in legislation and policy frameworks.

• By 2028, cross-sectoral child protection systems are coordinated and well-resourced and have strengthened capacities to prevent and respond to violence against children and to provide quality and accessible services for all)

• By 2028, eight urban centers present strengthened integrated, cross-sectoral and territory-based governance on planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation for the prevention of and response to violence against children

Under the general guidance of the Head of the Salvador Field Office, the UN Volunteer will be responsible for providing technical assistance, incidence and advocacy on Education for All and Protection of Children from Violence though four dimensions and strategies, which are: improving school environments to be more protective through the “Education that Protects” (ETP) methodology; the School Active Search initiative (SAS) ;implementation of the National Law on ” Protective Hearing”; the use, by Guardianship Councilors (Conselheiros Tutelares) of the case registration and referral system SIPIA; sexual and lethal violence prevention strategies based on gender and race perspectives; and racial, gender and straightened territorial identities sin the territory of Valeria and Salvador (by UNICEF City Agenda, Salvador/BA) and in the states of Sergipe, Minas Gerais and Bahia via the UNICEF Seal initiative; and Working with state governments, establishing alliances with civil or private society organizations and with communities, families and adolescents of the territories prioritized by UNICEF.

The UN Volunteer will contribute to the development of programme at territorial level in the programmatic contents by implementing following activities:

a. Provide technical assistance on Education and Protection issues to the Salvador team responsible for implementing the UAPI (Early Childhood Friendly Unit) initiative through mobilization, adherence, monitoring, evaluating and certification activities of the initiative.

b. Provide technical assistance to implementing Partners (Ips) and other Child Protection and Education partners and advocating at municipal and state levels for the participation in UNICEF Seal, UNICEF Urban Agenda, and other Child Protection and Education strategies, including by providing anti-racism training for education public service and other social technologies on racial literacy for educational professionals.

c. Support the implementation of Basic Education strategies: School Active Search (SAS) in the municipalities of UNICEF Seal and in the states of Bahia, Minas Gerais and Sergipe as well as in Salvador capital city.

d. Provide technical collaboration with UNICEF´s partners and Implementing partners (IP) to implement Education & Environment and Beyond school age themes in specific territories or states.

e. Provide technical assistance for the implementation of Education that Protects (ETP) strategy in Salvador through mobilization and capacity building activities for educational professionals at school communities in defined vulnerable territories in Salvador, influencing school curricula regarding violence and structural racism that impact learnings.

f. Support the implementation of the” Law on Protective Hearing” (n. 13.431/17) at municipal (Salvador and Metropolitan Region) and state levels, contributing to improving sectoral referral pathways, as well as to prevention programmes aimed at combatting sexual and lethal violences based on gender and race perspectives.

g. Promote the use i by Conselheiros Tutelares of SIPIA for registering and referring cases of violence against children (VAC).

h. Provide technical assistance to and monitoring of the Municipal Committee on Homicides Prevention of Salvador, and the Intersectoral Committee on the Implementation of Law 13.431/17 in order to assure the performance of this public policy mechanism to prevent the lethal and sexual VAC, improving protective public policies based on gender, race and ethnic equality.

i. Contribute to the analysis of the bottlenecks of the previous National Protocol for the Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescents, Elderly People and People with Disabilities in Situations of Risk and Disaster. December/2012, in order to build and support the dissemination and implementation of the next reviewed Protocol at states and regional level in alignment with national UNICEF team.

j. Identify new funding opportunities and develop fundraising proposals for Child Protection and Education, contributing to the resource mobilization strategies.

k. Participate in internal and external meetings accordingly as agreed by UNICEF and/or with partners. Either in person and/or on-line. (GT meetings, territorial, local and national meetings).