Faith Partnerships

World Vision has broad and trusted partnerships with a network of more than half a million faith leaders from diverse religious backgrounds. These leaders play a unique and essential role in shaping their communities.

Through evidence-based models, World Vision:

• Equips faith leaders to examine how religious beliefs can unintentionally support harmful traditional practices that hinder children from experiencing life in all its fullness.
• Partners with faith leaders to design and deliver interventions that support children’s holistic development.
• Fosters respect and unity among leaders of different faiths, helping them recognize their influence in addressing barriers to children’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
• Promotes peacebuilding and social cohesion through approaches that encourage dialogue and nonviolent communication.

We work with a large network of faith-inspired partners, including institutional donors, nongovernmental institutions, civil society, the private sector, and faith leaders. Below are some of the global partnerships that expand our ability to reach the world’s most vulnerable children.

• Children on the Move Coalition: A group of 14 faith-inspired organizations work together to end violence against children on the move, including refugee, immigrant, and internally displaced children. We believe that by working together, we can end violence against children in all its forms.
• It Takes a World to End Violence Against Children: World Vision’s global campaign seeks to ignite movements of people committed to keeping children safe from harm. Its name reflects the fact no single person, group, or organization can solve this problem alone, and faith leaders are essential in this effort. A number of faith-inspired organizations, including Arigatou International, Micah Global, World Council of Churches, and World Evangelical Alliance are part of this growing movement of people speaking out to end violence against children.
• Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Learning Communities: This international collaboration examines the activities, contributions, and challenges of faith groups in achieving humanitarian and development goals. The Joint Learning Initiative was formed because its leaders identified an urgent need to build collective understanding of the potential for local faith communities to improve health and well-being. World Vision has partnered with the Joint Learning Initiative since it began in 2012. Learn more about the partnership.
• Through a global partnership, we aim to develop and implement the Channels of Hope Muslim adaptation for gender and child protection.
• Asia Pacific Faith Coalition: This partnership was created by World Vision and consists of ACT Alliance, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Soka Gakkai International, Arigatou International, and Asia Civil Society Partnership for Sustainable Development.
• Faith Action for Children on the Move Global Forum: This platform brings together diverse faith-based organizations (including World Council of Churches, Islamic Relief Worldwide, and ACT Alliance) to end violence against children, particularly those who are forcibly displaced, either internally or as refugees. World Vision provides secretarial/convening support.
• Additional faith partners:
  
  • International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development
  • Medical Teams International

Across our faith and development programming, World Vision partners with key research institutions to assess the impact of our programming and support continuous improvement to further catalyze faith communities to achieve development outcomes.

Some of our key research partners include:

• Baylor University
• Columbia University
• Coventry University
• Fuller Theological Seminary
• Johns Hopkins University
• Overseas Development Institute
• TANGO International
• University of Alberta
• University of Cape Town
• University of Groningen

Together with Queen Margaret University in Scotland and Columbia University in New York, World Vision conducted a five-year (2016–2021) multi-country, longitudinal study on Faith Communities’ Contribution to Ending Violence Against Children. The study explored the changes and impact of Channels of Hope for Child Protection across three sites representing different religious environments: Senegal (predominantly Muslim), Uganda (Christian and Muslim), and Guatemala (Christian).

Some of the most significant study findings were changes in attitudes toward children and child protection:

• In Senegal, the study showed statistically significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes regarding corporal punishment, birth registration, and child marriage.
• In Uganda, participants showed increased acceptance for eliminating corporal punishment and child marriage and for reporting child abuse.
• In both countries, the percentage of faith leaders and their spouses who agreed that not all traditional customs benefit children significantly increased, from 31% to 79% in Senegal, and 61% to 84% in Uganda.

Additional studies in Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Tanzania showed strong evidence that Channels of Hope positively impacted family relationships and contributed to positive outcomes in areas such as child protection, health, and nutrition. The model also effectively counteracted harmful cultural, social, and gender norms, while improving positive and nurturing parenting practices.