Organisation: Save the Children
Service: User Research, Content Co-Creation, and Distribution

The Challenge:

51% of the Tanzanian population are children. Around six million Tanzanian children aged 0-14 years living below the poverty line and approximately 2.8 million fall below the food poverty line. Children living in poverty are more vulnerable to abuse, child labour and other violations of their rights. The Government of Tanzania has set a child rights framework for achieving positive changes in children’s lives: passing comprehensive laws to protect the rights of children. However, many kids do not know their rights. And much of the public does not understand the rights of children.

As a result, Save the Children – the world-renowned non-profit dedicated to protecting the rights of children across the world – wanted to find a way to engage the Tanzanian public around children’s rights, with content for children, parents and the general public about positive reinforcement and discouraging violence against children.

The Partnership:

Ubongo is not only dedicated to educating kids, we are also committed to ensuring they are valued and protected. We worked with Save the Children to use music and the arts as a way of promoting the rights of children, at school and in the home. Together with Save the Children and Tanzanian artist, Damian Soul, we remixed a child rights song called “Watoto Wetu” and produced an animated music video starring an animated version of Damian Soul and the characters of Ubongo Kids. The song was a call to action for Tanzanians to think of all children as their children and the nation’s future, urging people to join together to stop violence against children, with the repeating chorus, “Our Children, Our Nation.” It was released and played on radio stations across the country, and also broadcast on TV with Ubongo Kids on the “Day of the African Child” in 2016 reaching millions of families in Tanzania. We continue to include the music video in our children’s block in Tanzania, and the song has gained widespread popularity among kids and adults alike.

The Impact:

We have monitored how parents of Ubongo Kids viewers have changed their behaviors over time, as we’ve added more content promoting positive discipline, including this collaboration with Save the Children. From 2016 to 2017, 14% fewer parents of Ubongo Kids viewers reported beating their children. This is a promising sign that caregivers are moving away from using violence to discipline their children, and instead practicing positive parenting.