A new book outlining how military training programme works to protect the rights of children in conflict prone areas will be launched in Nairobi on August 20th, 2010.

The book titled, Behind the Uniform will be officially launched at the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) in Karen (Defence Staff College), at 11.00 am to coincide with the end of a workshop targeting the Kenyan military.

Save the Children Sweden has documented activities of these trainings in the book on how the military training programme works, its approaches, successes and challenges.

It is based on evaluation reports, questionnaires and interviews bringing out personal observations by the militaries themselves.

Save the Children Sweden started training military personnel, with focus on pre-deployment training of peacekeepers, in child rights and child protection in Africa in 1998.

The initiative came in response to a key recommendation from the groundbreaking Graca Machel study on the impact of the armed conflict on children (UN 1996) which clearly stressed the necessity of putting the protection of children on the international peace and security agenda.

To date, the training programme is being implemented in 19 countries (5 in East Africa and 14 in West Africa) reaching out to many thousands of soldiers.

Within these countries the focus is not only on peacekeeping missions due for deployment but also on national armed forces with the objective to create child protection units and integrate the training as part of the national curriculum.

Save the children also works with key strategic regional institutions such as the IPSTC in Kenya and ECOWAS in West Africa. The aim of the programme is to have the military take full ownership.