Celebrating Families: A Journey Together 

‘Can you please teach our parents to put us back in their hearts?’ This was the response of a young Malian boy when asked what the term ‘child well-being’ meant to him. Upon hearing this, the interviewer paused and asked him to repeat what he said, wanting to be sure they heard correctly. He repeated, ‘Can you please teach our parents to put us back in their hearts?’. This request has been embedded in the heart of World Vision ever since.

One and a half years later, in response to the boy’s request, a listening exercise was conducted with over 600 parents participating. One of the most significant results of the listening activity was a parent’s plea, ‘Can you teach us how to raise and properly care for our children?’. These two requests led to a journey of discovery for the Celebrating Families Project Model.

The Lausanne Children & Families Network’s focus is ‘Children everywhere, walking with Jesus’. This idea sits at the core of World Vision’s work as well, as our vision is to have, ‘life in all its fullness for children’ based on John 10:10. We believe that parents and caregivers hold the primary responsibility for the nurture of children and to create a safe environment where children can thrive and spiritually form. The Celebrating Families project model enables this and acts as a catalytic tool of the church that incarnationally strengthens engagement with families. Led by the need of a young boy who wanted to be loved, and parents who wanted to show love, God revealed the connection points for the model in five words: love, grace, goodness, forgiveness, and thanksgiving. These ultimately lead to a transformational journey of shared learning and holistic change, through which people discover God’s love and purposes for them as they work with others to address injustices and improve and sustain child well-being¹.

What is Celebrating Families?

Celebrating Families (CF) is a unique project model implemented in over 60 countries since 2011, when the workshop curriculum was first developed, and the full project model followed in 2017. CF is a biblically based approach that addresses the broken relationships that we see at the root of child vulnerability and is a wonderful example of how our Christian identity contributes to more sustainable and transformational outcomes for children of all faith traditions. CF works across contexts and can be used in communities with different faith traditions and across a variety of contexts (rural, urban, and fragile). CF takes the learner on a journey from their past experiences towards the fullness of life. Major topics in the curriculum include:

• Domestic violence and its effect on children’s physical, emotional and spiritual development.
• Positive parenting and discipline from a biblical perspective.
• The role of parents in nurturing children’s faith and spiritual well-being.
• Faith and reflexive principles to nurture positive, loving relationships within the family and restore hope for the future.
• Gender and disability inclusion from a biblical perspective.

How does Celebrating Families work?

Research shows that CF works on two different levels to help families and caregivers create supportive environments for children.² First, with parents and caregivers, using experiential behaviour change approaches to encourage and equip them to address their children’s spiritual needs. Secondly, Celebrating Families equips faith leaders and other community influencers to tackle social norms and create communities that actively support their children’s holistic development.

CF is most effective when it is used in support of child well-being outcomes³ in child protection, education, health and livelihoods. Research demonstrates together with regular project monitoring and evaluation that Celebrating Families, when embedded as part of a technical programme, can lead to reduced domestic violence, reduced child marriage, increased school attendance—especially for girls, increased child participation in home life, increased positive discipline, increased spiritual nurture, and in parents increasingly recognizing and valuing children’s inherent dignity and worth as created and loved by God.

Moreover, the integration of faith into CF as a project model is a core part of its functionality. According to a Child Protection actor in Afghanistan, ‘Celebrating Families without the faith component would still have an impact, but the religious texts give it richness and meaning. It is a source of trust and confidence.’⁴

Want to learn more?

To learn more about Celebrating Families, register here to attend the Celebrating Families: A Journey Together webinar on 8 August at 13:00 GMT. This webinar will tell stories about and discuss how the Celebrating Families Project Model is fostering positive and loving relationships within families and inspiring spiritual nurture for vulnerable children in different contexts around the world. Join us on 8 August and check out the resources below to learn more. 

To see the many stories of how CF has contributed to the transformation of people and families, you can have a look at the following videos and case studies: 

Videos

• Vietnam
• Cambodia

Case Studies

• Understanding ‘Celebrating Families’ contribution to family well-being: Key findings from Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Tanzania case studies: Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK, 2019.
• Celebrating Families Case Study: Afghanistan: Understanding ‘Celebrating Families’ contribution to family well-being in Afghanistan. 
• Celebrating Families Case Study: Myanmar: Understanding ‘Celebrating Families’ contribution to family well-being in Myanmar.  
• Celebrating Families Case Study: Tanzania: Understanding ‘Celebrating Families’ contribution to family well-being in Tanzania.

Additional Resources 

• Celebrating Families Project Model e-Orientation
• Celebrating Families external page

Endnotes

1. World Vision’s Policy on Transformational Development: https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/2019-07/Transformational Development Policy.pdf
2. Understanding ‘Celebrating Families’ contribution to family well-being: https://www.wvi.org/publications/case-study/faith-and-development/understanding-celebrating-families-contribution
3. For more information on Child Well Being check out the ChildWell-beingReferenceGuide.pdf (wvi.org)
4. Celebrating Families Case Study: Afghanistan https://www.wvi.org/publications/case-study/faith-and-development/celebrating-families-case-study-afghanistan

Photo Credit

1 . World Vision Celebrating Families