For the love for the children.

Children in Ghana – both girls and boys – still experience frequent and multiple forms of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. The Child Protection Social Drive in Ghana is an innovative and dynamic framework in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’s Goals (SDGs) It also forms a major component of the Ghana Child and Family Welfare and Justice for Children Policies implementation process that have included distinct targets to end all forms of violence against children. The social drive is led by the Department of Community Development under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and other key development partners with support from UNICEF.

The Child Protection Social Drive has been developed which seeks to reduce the acceptance of social practices that have negative consequences on the protection of children by creating a critical mass of people capable to promote the adoption of behaviours favourable to the protection of children and adolescents. Ultimately, the social drive should support the reduction of violence against children and adolescents, including harmful practices. ‘Promote the wellbeing of children; Prevent abuse and Protect children from harm’ is the Social Drive ultimate call to action.

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Based on a collaborative effort and inspired by an on line Crowdsourcing model, the Social Drive is represented by a brand – GACA. GACA represents the proposed behavioural change and building a positive sentiment attached to it among its target audience, in order to make the change viral. GACA will be instrumental to perceive the idea of promote, prevent and protect children and adolescents’ from harm as the best or the most cost-effective option. As a result, the acceptance of social practices, which have negative consequences for children and adolescents’ will potentially decline. Furthermore the brand will help to

  1. Strengthen the change’s collective ownership;
  2. Make the change visible;
  3. Facilitate integration within existing programmes;
  4. Increase partnerships opportunities;
  5. Position children’s and adolescents’ proportion, protection and prevention from violent behaviours as fundamental to community development.