By FLAVIOR CHISHALA –

THE University of Zambia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Save the Children International aimed at highlighting issues affecting children through research.
The MoU will see the country’s highest learning institution, through the department of population studies, use research in identifying various challenges affecting children.
Save the Children acting country director Ruth Mulenga said her organisation recognised that research and learning was crucial to the needs of the children.
Ms Mulenga said the research activities would help the organisation stoke their success, failures and lessons learnt in everyday work as well as re-strategize to ensure that issues of children were incorporated in their programming.
Save the Children was working in five thematic areas including child protection, child rights governance, health and nutrition and child poverty, hence the need to work with other partners.
“Our mission is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate lasting changes in their lives as well as making sure that every child attains the right to survival protection development and participation,” she said
Ms Mulenga commended the department of population for offering their academic expertise that will help to build the welfare of the children in Zambia through research.
The collaboration would see UNZA students embark on internship research, special studies and impact evaluation programmes with the international organisation.
UNZA Dean of School of Humanities and social sciences Felix Masiye said the institution had to improve the service to community through the partnership with the international organisation.
“We are very happy that this collaboration will even bring us closer to the community that we are serving as this is the means of social development,” he said.
Dr Masiye pledged support for the partnership and that his team was ready to uplift the lives of children in the rural community of Zambia.