Our Approach

Working With Communities. Building Solutions. Creating Lasting Change.

At Children Relief Service (CRS), our approach has been shaped by what we see and experience every day in the communities where we work.

Since CRS was founded in 2014 in Dzaleka, we have worked alongside children, young people, girls, women, families, refugees, and host communities facing difficult circumstances. We have seen children struggle to remain in school, families worry about where their next meal will come from, young people finish school without opportunities, and girls and women face protection and economic challenges.

These realities have taught us an important lesson:

People do not only need assistance. They need opportunities, protection, skills, information, and the chance to take part in building solutions.

That is the thinking behind the way CRS works.

We Listen Before We Act

We do not want to decide everything from an office.

When we enter a community or begin a programme, we first try to understand what people are actually experiencing. We listen to children, young people, parents, women, community leaders, teachers, and other people who understand the situation on the ground.

Sometimes the need we first see is not the only problem.

For example, a young person may need vocational training, but the bigger challenge may be finding a way to use that skill to earn an income. A family may need food today, but they may also need seeds, agricultural knowledge, or another livelihood opportunity that can help them provide for themselves tomorrow.

Listening helps us respond to the real problem, not only the visible one.

We Put Children First

CRS began from a concern for vulnerable children, and child protection remains at the heart of our work.

We have seen how poverty, displacement, hunger, interrupted education, neglect, abuse, exploitation, and violence can affect a child’s future.

For us, protecting children means more than responding when something has already happened. It means helping families and communities understand children’s rights, creating safer environments, supporting education, listening to children, and strengthening the people and systems around them.

Every child deserves to be safe, heard, respected, and given an opportunity to grow.

We Do Not Want to Create Dependency

One of the things we have learned through our work is that emergency assistance can save lives, but people also need pathways toward self-reliance.

This is particularly important in communities where humanitarian support has reduced or where families have fewer opportunities to meet their basic needs.

That is why CRS increasingly combines immediate support with opportunities that can help people build their own capacity.

We support areas such as vocational skills, entrepreneurship, agriculture, food security, sustainable livelihoods, education, youth empowerment, and girls’ empowerment.

When a young woman learns a skill, starts using it to earn an income, and becomes more confident about her future, the benefit goes beyond one training session.

When a family is able to produce food or develop a livelihood, it can strengthen the whole household.

Our goal is not simply to help people survive. We want to help create opportunities for people to move forward.

We Work With What Communities Already Have

We have learned that communities already have many strengths.

There are people with skills. There are young people with ideas. There are women who are ready to learn and lead. There are community leaders who understand local challenges. There are teachers, volunteers, farmers, entrepreneurs, and others who are willing to contribute.

CRS tries to build on these existing strengths rather than assuming that solutions must always come from outside.

We encourage people to participate in identifying problems, planning activities, implementing programmes, and finding ways to continue the work.

Community members are not just beneficiaries of our work. They are part of the solution.

We Connect Immediate Needs With Long-Term Change

The reality we see on the ground is that different problems are connected.

A child who is hungry may struggle to concentrate at school.

A young person without skills or employment opportunities may become increasingly vulnerable.

A family without a reliable livelihood may struggle to provide food and keep children in school.

A girl or woman facing violence may also face economic and social barriers that make it difficult to seek support.

For this reason, our programmes are connected.

Child protection, education, food security, livelihoods, youth empowerment, girls’ empowerment, and GBV prevention and response cannot always be treated as separate issues.

We look at the wider situation and try to respond in ways that strengthen people and communities as a whole.

We Focus on Young People and Girls

We see young people every day who have energy, ideas, and ambition but limited opportunities.

We also see girls and young women who want to learn, work, lead, and become economically independent but face barriers that make this difficult.

Through skills training, leadership, entrepreneurship, education, and other opportunities, we try to help them turn their abilities into possibilities.

Our approach is simple:

Give people an opportunity, build their confidence, and walk with them as they use what they have learned.

We Work With Both Refugees and Host Communities

CRS was born from the realities of displacement, and we understand that vulnerability does not belong to only one group.

In and around Dzaleka, refugees and host communities live alongside one another and often face many of the same challenges, including poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, limited services, and lack of opportunities.

Where programmes and resources allow, CRS seeks to work in ways that promote inclusion and strengthen relationships between communities.

We believe stronger communities are built when people are not left behind.

We Work Through Partnerships

There are challenges that CRS cannot solve alone.

We therefore value cooperation with government institutions, schools, community leaders, civil society organizations, humanitarian and development partners, donors, technical experts, and other organizations.

Partnerships help us reach more people, improve the quality of our work, share knowledge, connect communities with services, and develop stronger solutions.

At the same time, we remain committed to ensuring that our work reflects the realities and priorities of the communities we serve.

We Learn From What Happens on the Ground

Our approach has not been created in a classroom or written only in a policy document.

It has been shaped by experience.

Since 2014, we have faced challenges, learned from programmes that worked well, learned from things that did not go as planned, and continued to adapt.

Resources are often limited while the needs around us are much greater.

We sometimes have to do more with less.

But these challenges have also taught us to be practical, to listen carefully, to use resources responsibly, to work with others, and to keep looking for solutions.

We continue because the needs are real, and because we have seen what can happen when people are given an opportunity.

We Believe in Dignity

For us, development is not only about numbers.

It is about a child who feels safe.

A young person who discovers a skill and begins to believe in their future.

A girl who gains confidence and realizes that she can lead.

A family that can put food on the table.

A community that begins to believe that it can solve some of its own problems.

That is why we try to deliver our programmes with respect, dignity, inclusion, accountability, and compassion.

Our Commitment

Our approach will continue to grow as the needs of our communities change.

But one thing will remain constant:

We will continue to listen, work alongside communities, protect children, create opportunities, and support people to build stronger and more resilient lives.

We may not have the resources to solve every problem we see.

But we believe that we can contribute.

And we believe that when communities, partners, and people work together, even small opportunities can become meaningful change.

Working With Communities. Building Opportunities. Creating Lasting Change.

Children Relief Service (CRS)
Protecting Children. Fighting Hunger. Building Stronger Communities.