Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Mirza, do you want to add anything?

[Dr. Tanjina Mirza]

I think those were great points that were raised.

The old-fashioned radio came in very handy in West Africa. For many of our programs, whether they're in Mali, Senegal,Burkina Faso or northern Nigeria, the radio is very popular and we have used it a lot. In places that Mr. Ayoub also mentioned, like Jordan refugee camps, we have used e-tablets where the connectivity is better. In each country, we have tried to use context-specific education support, not only for the families but for the teachers.

One important point to realize in mobilizing the community is to use the religious elders, the traditional healers and the grandmothers. These are social influencers. When you start talking to them and involving them in the programs, they have a tremendous impact on making sure the children are not left out of school.

I'm a refugee myself. As a child growing up and going to school years ago, I experienced exactly these kinds of accelerated learning programs myself. It's so important to keep the children, especially girls, at school because once you lose that generation—that learning window is small—you can't get it back.

Plan International Canada and many of the colleagues we have mentioned do this year in and year out in many countries. Plan is responding in over 50 countries. We already have local partners and thousands of volunteers who are part of the communities. They know how to navigate it better. I think that outreach and the presence we already had globally have served us very well during COVID because we can pivot in each country and context differently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Our final questioner in the first round is Ms. McPherson for six minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to start by commenting on a comment that was made by one of my colleagues about how Canadians are not supportive of international development and contributions to that. As someone who's worked in the sector for most of my career, I'd just like to say that I believe Canadians are much further ahead than government in terms of their support. I would encourage all of the panellists who have joined us today to send in those polls that we all have access to that show the huge support Canadians have for international development and our commitment there.

We've heard so much about the impacts of COVID-19 and I think it's been very, very clearly articulated that the biggest impacts have been on girls, on displaced populations and on refugee populations, but also predominantly on girls. I'd like to ask Ms. Mirza if she could talk a little bit about how Plan is adapting the field programs for girls because of COVID-19?

[Dr. Tanjina Mirza]

We had to pivot, like many of my colleagues mentioned earlier, very quickly within the pandemic. That was where the NGO's agility really worked, because within months we were able to change and pivot all our programs.

For the girls, the biggest one we were focusing on—and continue to focus on—is keeping them in school, whether it's remote learning, radios—as we talked about—or all kinds of other mechanisms, because we know if girls stay in school, the likelihood of them getting married early will be reduced. Already in the pandemic, we are seeing a huge increase in suspected early forced marriage. Keeping girls in school was a big one.

Distance learning was possible in some countries, such as in Ghana. We had remote learning in northern Ghana but it's not always possible in all contexts. Internet connectivity is not equal around the world so you have to be very context-positive. It was not available in all places.

The second program that we've focused on a lot for girls—especially adolescent girls, who tend to be forgotten—is the access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. The health systems in developing and especially fragile contexts are poor as it is. With COVID, the sexual and reproductive health services were almost forgotten. There's the necessity to continue access to those services, which means training the front-line health workers, providing PPE, making sure there's understanding about this disease and raising awareness in the community as well as in the family about COVID. That was a huge task in the first few months.

The third one that I wanted to highlight is on food security. We are seeing huge surges in lack of food in many parts of the world. It's interesting because it wasn't due to COVID in that community but to the supply chain and the connectivity all around the world. It has created huge challenges. We are providing a lot of special food services and food assistance through vouchers and cash programs, and we are making sure women and girls are getting those.

Those are some quick examples from around the world to make sure the girls are kept safe at home because, as we heard earlier, there is a rise in gender-based violence at home. Home is the place they were, yet they were not always as safe as we would have liked them to be. Ensuring those kinds of services and awareness are available for girls, especially adolescent girls, is a big priority and remains so.

Thank you.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, and thank you for all the work Plan does on behalf of women and girls around the world. It's very important.

Ms. McIsaac, I'd like to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about how Right to Play International has also been able to pivot its work during COVID. Can you talk a little bit about the proportion of displaced children and those living in conflict situations and the access they had to education while the schools were closed?

[Susan McIsaac]

Initially, we did a lot of work to pivot in terms of focusing literally on hygiene, on keeping kids learning, on remote learning, and on psychosocial support. We knew instantly that there would be a need for children to have real mental health supports. A lot of the programming efforts went into that remote learning and ensuring that children had that support.

At this point, I feel compelled to call on Elias and bring him into this. He is such a leader in our program area.

Elias, do you want to touch on a few things that we've done?

[Elias Ayoub]

Yes. Thank you, Susan.

There was [Technical difficulty—Editor] also around working with youth in some of the countries we're in, especially when you're talking about youth refugees and youth who are impacted by crises. Even prior to COVID, they were often dealing with the issue of a lack of hope. A lot of youth around the world are finding it very difficult to think about what their future holds. I think COVID has exacerbated that feeling among youth and children in a lot of the countries where we operate.

What we've tried to do remotely, what we've tried to adapt our programs to do, is to provide more opportunities for youth to be leaders and to be solution-oriented, providing solutions to the many issues in their communities. Just from the small sample we've seen in many of the countries we're working in, we've seen a lot of positive results from youth-led initiatives and the work of youth in contributing to solving their own issues. I think that's a very positive development [Technical difficulty—Editor] and we hope in the future.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

That takes us to the end of our first round. We have very little scheduled time left with our witnesses. I propose that for the second round, we take the remaining time and simply divide it equally to give each member representing an official party two minutes—one minute for a question and one minute for an answer.

With your consent, let's proceed that way to take advantage of the remaining 10 minutes.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Diotte.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Dr. Mirza, you talked about gender-based violence and gender-based issues. I'm wondering what the special challenges are in dealing with this when you have many societies that might not see genders as equal. For instance, some societies would ask why you should send a girl to school. What are the special challenges there, and what can be done about that?

[Dr. Tanjina Mirza]

That's a great question. Interestingly, I think people everywhere do want to send their children to school. There are barriers that remain for all children, but more so for girls.

Just raising awareness about the importance of education has been tremendous work. This whole gender integration is not just about targeting girls. We have focused heavily at Plan International on male engagement and raising awareness with traditional elders. They often tend to be men. Father figures, spouses, grandfathers—they have tremendous power in decision-making at home. When we want to talk about raising awareness on this, it's not just at the household level but also at the community level with religious leaders and traditional elders.

At the policy level, oftentimes the education policies are not very supportive. For instance, in some countries, when unmarried girls get pregnant, they are not allowed back in school. It's important to make sure that those barriers are removed at the policy level. We almost need a multi-layered, multipronged approach to keeping all children in school, but especially girls.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Saks.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses who have taken time today. The work you do is absolutely incredible.

I really appreciate the time we're taking in this session to really talk about mental health and the important aspects of that.

Ms. Brusati, I'm fascinated with the work of IRC, specifically with the Sesame Workshop program. I see it as a unique opportunity to address intergenerational trauma as a result of conflict and how family dynamics impact early childhood learning.

I know we don't have a lot of time, but could you briefly share the impact of this absolutely incredible program?

[Annalisa Brusati]

Thank you.

Our Sesame program has reached children across the Middle East, across the countries affected by the Syrian crisis, in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and within Syria itself, really working to support young children's mental health and well-being, as well as supporting and providing guidance to caregivers and parents around how to work with their children, how to play with their children, how to interact with their children and really encouraging that nurturing care and that nurturing relationship between caregivers and children.

I don't have exact statistics in relation to the specific impact this program is having. I don't have the actual numbers we've reached, but I'd be happy to share those numbers after today's discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Brusati, in answer to my previous question, you talked about satisfying basic family needs, which surely include access to food. However, certain conflict zones, including Yemen, find themselves in a situation of extreme insecurity in terms of food supply.

How do you think the COVID-19 crisis will have exacerbated food supply issues in conflict zones?

If time permits, other witnesses could also answer my question.

[Annalisa Brusati]

Yes, COVID has exacerbated meeting basic needs and families' ability to provide nutrition for their children. We've carried out several simple assessments through our teams and through child protection focal points that we have in countries, and we have seen that child neglect and child labour are two of the top child protection priorities that have come out so far, as being exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

When we look at child neglect, it's very much linked to the fact that parents and caregivers need to continue going out to work, and so are leaving their children on their own, as well as not being able to provide sufficiently for their children, including from a nutritional perspective. Child labour has also increased exponentially, in part because children are at home. Parents often take their children with them to work, as well as the more exploitative labour that we've seen children falling into.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. Brusati.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Finally, Ms. McPherson, it is your turn for another two minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, and I'll try to be as quick as I can.

Ms. Brusati, thank you for your work.

You spoke today about how displaced children have always suffered from school closures and from an increased risk of violence, and you said that COVID has deeply increased these impacts. You also spoke of the multi-trillion-dollar cost of not having children in school. I'm delighted and excited about the together for learning campaign that will look at refugee and displaced children, but is there anything else we need to know about the impacts on children if we don't act with the necessary urgency, and maybe the potential gains if we do act decisively and adequately?

[Annalisa Brusati]

At IRC, we did a really strong campaign at the beginning of the COVID pandemic around the shadow pandemic of violence that we're seeing as a direct result of the containment measures. When we talk about violence, it's violence against children within the home and an increase in GDV. What we're seeing is a reduction in the gains we've made since the millennium development goals and in the SDGs as well.

If we do not invest in protection services, in support services and in education services for these children, we're going to lose the investments we made through the millennium development goals and the SDGs. We're going to be going back 20 to 30 years in the gains we've made, and all the investments that we've made in the last 20 to 30 years are going to be seen going backwards. It's impossible to quantify the loss that means for both the children of today and also the future economically for our countries, as well as for the countries where we're working and the conflict settings where we work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

On our collective behalf, colleagues, I'd like to thank the witnesses for their appearance today, for their testimony, for their expertise and their incredible service.

We all would have liked to have had more time with you, but it was extremely useful.

I would also like to thank our amazing interpreters for their work, especially considering the sound quality issues. I really appreciate it. I want to thank them for the support they are providing to the committee.

Colleagues, with that, thank you. Enjoy your evening. Keep safe.

We stand adjourned until our next session.