Our Team, Our Partners

I could not have hoped for a better start for the Partnership to Protect Children (PPC).  We are growing by the day.

Our Core Team

MacBain Mkandawire, Founding Director, Youth Net Counseling (YONECO), www.yoneco.org/mw, in Zomba, Malawi.  MacBain founded YONECO in 1997 to address the social injustice and reproductive health issues affecting youth, women, and children.  In 2006, YONECO created the first child abuse hotline in Malawi, and  currently Mr. Mkandawire is engaging leaders in the Malawi government to create buy-in from police, prosecutors, and social services to join the partnership.

Neil Kennedy, MD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Malawi, and Consultant Pediatrician, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), Blantyre.  Dr. Kennedy trains medical students and pediatric residents and works at QECH, which has 250 beds for children.

Karen Manda and Martin Nkuna, UNICEF, Malawi Office of Vulnerable Children and Child Protection.  Karen and Martin work with leaders in government and the community to help improve the systems that respond to children in all aspects of child health, development, and safety.

Ken Appelbaum, JD, Deputy Chief of Child Abuse and Sex Crimes, Queens County District Attorney's Office in New York.  Ken has over 20 years experience as a prosecutor, including the last 12 years prosecuting child physical and sexual abuse.

Erica Smith, LCSW, has done therapy and research regarding traumatized children and families and has been a professor for masters level social work students in New York.  Erica will work with local therapists in Malawi who are working to help improve the mental health services provided to children.

Kristin Barlup, a director at Common Ground, a non-profit which creates innovative solutions to reduce homelessness, is the Community Outreach Director of the Partnership to Protect Children (PPC) and will be growing the relationships between local organizations in Malawi and PPC.

Jack Brewer, Founder of Bridging the Global Gap (BGG), www.jackbrewerfoundation.org, is funding the Partnership to Protect Children, and was responsible for growing the relationship between PPC and the Malawi government.  Jack Brewer and other BGG officers and SIPA classmates will be continuing their microfinance program in Malawi when visiting in March 2009 along with PPC.

Aaron J. Miller, MD, FAAP, Director, Lincoln Child Advocacy Center at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, Bronx, New York; Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College; member of the International Society to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Ray Helfer Society; Founder of Partnership to Protect Children, and author of this blog.

Our Partners

Honorable Joyce Banda, Malawi Foreign Minister, Founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation which runs seven orphanages and two additional secondary schools.  Hon. Banda started the Malawi National Association of Business Women, was a key proponent of the law passed by parliament outlawing domestic violence, and in 1997 was awarded the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger.

International Society to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), www.ispcan.org.  ISPCAN Councillors Joan Van Niekerk and Julie Todd of South Africa, and Councillors Lisa Fontes and Howard Dubowitz of the United States have been instrumental in helping to shape the PPC curriculum, and more importantly, to provide guidance and insight on how to best grow the partnerships within Malawi and the PPC.

The Ray Helfer Society, www.helfersociety.org:  Helfer Society members Linda Cahill, Resmiye Oral, David Corwin, and Kristin MacLeod have shared information on curriculum development and long-term program development as PPC works to grow a partnership that is both sustainable and replicable.

Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, www.sipa.columbia.edu.  SIPA is where the Partnership to Protect Children was first born in September 2008 when EMPA student Jack Brewer first told his classmate Aaron Miller that he should bring a program to Malawi to help children and to begin creating a new partnership.

A Partnership is Born

Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, healthy environment, and it is the duty of every one of us, from every profession, to work together to make this come true.

I am a child abuse pediatrician working at a city hospital in the Bronx, NY. In September 2008, I started at Columbia University School of International andPublic Affairs studying on Saturdays for a Masters of Public Policy and Affairs. Within a few, short weeks, my classmate Jack Brewer, founder of Bridging the Global Gap, made me a simple proposition: "If you create an initiative to help children in Malawi, I will fund it."

So here were are in November, creating the Partnership to Protect Children - a multi-disciplinary team including medical, mental health, law enforcement, and prosecutors - working with Malawi Foreign Minister Joyce Banda to form key partnerships in government and with non-govermental organizations on the ground who are working to protect children.

Beyond each separate discipline learning and sharing about how to care for abused children, the key element of the Partnership to Protect Children is to bring those doctors, mental health specialists, social workers, police, and prosecutors together in one room so that they can begin dialogue, become familiar with each other, and learn how many areas of interest they do have in common. Working together as a team is the only way to make sure no child is forgotten or left in harm's way.

This blog, then, will serve as a record - a growth chart, as we pediatricians might say - to have a space to evaluate and share how we, the Partnership to Protect Children, are continuing to grow. We'll post pictures, share stories, and list key lessons we learn along the way. We plan to develop a model that is both sustainable and replicable. We have already heard from doctors, psychologists, and child advocates from all around the world who want to share their insights as we plan this project, and we look forward to sharing our experiences with anyone else who is hoping to improve the lives of children.