Grace* is a 16-year-old PEAS student, and one of the youngest voices in a continent-wide conversation about keeping children safe.
Grace and two of her fellow students recently joined the Second African Union Member States Validation Meeting on the Common African Position on Ending Violence Against Children. While delegates gathered in Addis Ababa, the three students dialled in from their PEAS classroom in Uganda to describe the forms of violence children across the continent still face in their communities, online, and in schools without proper protection.
Grace highlighted bullying and peer violence, sexual harassment and exploitation, corporal punishment, emotional abuse, cyberbullying, neglect and discrimination as the risks children face across the region. Then she set out what needs to change.
“Children learn best where they feel safe, respected and listened to,” she told delegates.
It is a simple message, and an important one. Feeling safe at school shapes whether a child goes to school and stays there. Feeling safe means children can concentrate on their studies and grow in confidence. Violence and fear pull in the opposite direction.
At PEAS, safeguarding shapes how we run our schools. Every school aims to be a place where children and young people are protected, understand their rights, can turn to trusted adults, and feel able to speak up when something is wrong. Independent studies have found that PEAS schools have stronger child protection policies and practice than schools in similar contexts, and that girls in PEAS schools feel safer than girls in comparison schools. Our Safeguarding Standards, made up of more than 20 indicators of best practice, are accredited by Keeping Children Safe, the international child safeguarding body, and guide both PEAS schools and the partner schools we support. Creating safe, nurturing schools where girls can thrive was also central to the work recognised when PEAS won the UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education in 2024.
Grace’s voice is influencing action far beyond the school gates. The African Union meeting brought together governments, child rights organisations, experts, development partners and young people from across the continent. Together they worked on two frameworks: the Common African Position on Ending Violence Against Children and the African Union Model Law on Child Online Safety. Both are designed to strengthen the laws and systems that protect children from violence, offline and online, giving countries a stronger shared foundation to improve child protection and turn commitments into practice.
Grace’s story shows what a good education can make possible. A good education is about more than exam results. It should help young people build the knowledge, confidence and agency to take part in decisions that affect their lives. Sometimes that means speaking up in a classroom or a school club. For Grace, it meant carrying the experiences of young people in Uganda into a conversation that reached across Africa.
By 2050, one in three young people in the world will be African. Making sure this generation has the education and skills to shape thriving communities, societies and economies is one of the greatest opportunities of our time – and young people like Grace are already showing what they can do.
What begins in one PEAS school does not stay there. The approaches that help keep Grace safe are developed and tested in our schools, then adapted with governments to strengthen school leadership, safety, teaching and learning across public education systems. Today, that work reaches more than 500 partner schools in Uganda, Zambia and Ghana. A safe classroom in one school can become the standard in many more, and the ripple effect can reach communities, countries and the continent.
There is still a long way to go before every child can learn free from violence. Policies and commitments matter, but their value will be measured by what changes for children at home, in their communities and in their classrooms.
Grace is one student in one PEAS school. There are thousands more, and plenty of them have something worth saying. Our job is to give them the education, and the confidence, to say it.
*Name changed to protect the student’s privacy.