Communication with stakeholders
To further enhance our expert credentials we worked to maintain a close dialogue with our stakeholders in 2022. The aim of all our communications activities is to position War Child as an internationally acknowledged expert on the psychological impact of war on children - able to influence key stakeholders and increase awareness about our mission and work.
This strategy saw us increase our presence across the news media. Our fundraising hub in the Netherlands generated a wide range of coverage in leading outlets including Algemeen Dagblad, NPO Radio 1 and NOS Jeugdjournaal - the latter a Dutch television news programme specifically for children. Meanwhile, an interview with our CEO, Ramin Shahzamani made a front-page splash in the New York Times. The article discussed the psychological impact of the war in Ukraine on children.
Indeed the Ukraine crisis and our resulting emergency response remained the major news moment throughout the year - with everything from a short documentary with Ukrainian singer Katie Koss to an interview with ex-footballer Andriy Shevchenko being picked up by major media outlets including The Guardian and TT News Agency in Sweden. Our trip to Poland with Shevchenko in July generated a sizeable 98 media hits.
Our ongoing strong relationship with information portal ReliefWeb also gave us a direct inroad to the humanitarian community - with a wealth of stories published online covering our Fast Aid work but also our evidence-based approach and related methods.
The year wouldn’t have been the same without the presence of Dutch footballer and War Child Ambassador Vivianne Miedema. Her trip to an asylum seeker centre in Assen generated widespread media attention. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank her for her dedicated work to champion our mission.
We also maintained a constant dialogue with our 89,000 regular givers through our own channels - such as our websites, social media, email flashes and Peace of Paper publication.
Of course, our biggest stakeholders are the children and young people who take part in our programmes - that’s why we continued to make their voice heard through a variety of platforms in 2022. One particular highlight was the appearance of our youth advocate Patrick Kumi at the UN Security Council in July. Patrick made a compelling statement at the Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict calling for the participation of war-affected youth in national decision-making processes among other key recommendations.
And it’s not just the youth themselves who can translate our mission into something tangible - many of our staff have lived experience of war and conflict too. The stories of John Garang Nhail, our Psychosocial Support Officer in South Sudan, Sasha Yarova, Communications Officer for our Ukraine Response and countless others really brought the importance of our work to light.