“Worse than the War”: An Ethnographic Study of the Impact of the Ebola Crisis on Life, Sex, Teenage Pregnancy, and a Community-Driven Intervention in Rural Sierra Leone
“Worse than the War”: An Ethnographic Study of the Impact of the Ebola Crisis on Life, Sex, Teenage Pregnancy, and a Community-Driven Intervention in Rural Sierra Leone
The purpose of this research, undertaken by the Inter-Agency Learning Initiative on Community-Based Child Protection Mechanisms and Child 
Protection Systems, is to illuminate both the wider impacts of the Ebola crisis on people’s lived experiences, with an emphasis on children, and its more specific effects on issues related to teenage pregnancy and its prevention. The key findings are presented in three sections: general effects of the Ebola crisis, effects on teenage pregnancy and related issues, and effects on the community-driven intervention. Four key recommendations grew out of this research, which include strengthening the training and monitoring of emergency workers, improving the alignment between community practices and those recommended by Westernized health systems, building emergency preparedness and response and disaster risk reduction into community-driven interventions, and re-prioritizing the prevention of teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone, building social protection into prevention efforts.
Click to download the following resources:
Youth Soldiering: An Integrated Framework for Understanding Psychosocial Impact
This book chapter from Adolescents and War: How Youth Deal With Political Violence aims to contribute to a more holistic understanding of the consequences of youth soldiering, recognizing the diversity within the category “child soldiers” and using young people’s testimonies to show how youth understand their experiences and choices. It examines the varied roles and experiences of youth soldiers, connecting these with gender, the choices young people make while associated with an armed group, and their evolving sense of meaning and identity. Then this chapter probes the impact of youth soldiering within a holistic framework that links psychosocial well-being with health, cosmology, economics, and social roles and relations. Finally, it includes reflections on this holistic conceptualization for social reintegration and peace-building.
Click to Download:
Psychosocial Assessment of Education in Gaza and Recommendations for Response
After major conflict in the Gaza strip in 2007-2008, UNESCO conducted a study to understand how the education system had been affected by the current situation in Gaza from a psychosocial perspective. In particular, how are learners, teachers, students and professors across the system coping? To answer this question, a large scale assessment that covered all levels of education and all the governorates in Gaza was conducted from December 2009 to March 2010. The findings show that students and teachers alike face high levels of psychosocial challenges. Since the war, learning outcomes have decreased significantly.
Click to Download: