VARD reaches children, women, and youth with services it provided the nutrition, health care, protection and education they need to be healthy and happy..
VARD recognizes that changing knowledge is not enough to change behaviours: We partner with families and community leaders to understand their needs and motivations identify their strengths, and lower barriers to positive change. In every sector, our SBC programmes bring together local knowledge with scientific insights to support the most vulnerable. We don’t work to change who people are – we work to change the environments in which they act, making it easier for individuals and communities to adopt protective practices for children and youth.
We also recognize that improving the situations of families requires social change. VARD actively engages with children and youth within South Sudan to strengthen the role they play in creating the societies they want – societies in which equity prevails, stigma and discrimination recede, and their own voices contribute to meaningful change. Above all, we focus on participation and accountability to give families more control over the decisions that affect their lives.
With the institutional workforce in the field, VARD has been prioritizing in social and behavior change for over 3 years. Our work blends traditional and emerging approaches: While communication and community engagement remain central to what we do, we also rely on methods from applied behavioral sciences, human-centred design, and digital and implementation research to achieve the change families deem most critical.
