The final day of the IC 2025 saw our child helpline members gather for “Regional Spaces”, where members from each of our five Regions – Africa, Americas & the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, Europe and MENA – came together in dedicated forums to focus on regional priorities, regional challenges, and regional solutions. Our partners present were also invited to hold their own shared space for the morning’s session.
These sessions were followed by a Ministerial Closing, where our friends and partners from the Zambian government took their leave, celebrating the success of the past few days and looking confidently forward to the future of child helplines.
An interactive session then invited participants to reflect on the mental health challenges that children and young people face in their countries today. Participants shared successful practices in prevention, intervention, and collaborationthat have helped improve mental health support, and discussed the enabling factors that made these possible. The session also explored aspirations for stronger national mental health responses and the evolving role of child helplines in that vision.
After lunch, a plenary session showcased the dataset CHI has been collecting from our members over the years, highlighting the validation and analysis processes, and presenting a new data visualization dashboard. We learnt about how child helpline data fits more broadly in the landscape of administrative data on Child Sexual Abuse, and members showcases data analytics tools for real-time data collection and analysis, offering practical insights into improving data accuracy, utility, and timeliness. Finally, we explored how ethically collected, disaggregated data can unlock richer insights and strengthen evidence-based advocacy —ensuring that children’s experiences directly inform national and global child protection efforts.
As we headed into our Closing Ceremony, we gave a warm welcome to our newest member, the 13219 Helpline, created by the Cyberteens Foundation of Bangladesh. The 13219 Helpline is for young people and run and operated by young people.
The IC 2025 concluded with the signing of “The Livingstone Declaration” by the five Regional Representatives on behalf of our child helpline members around the world.
Building upon commitments, pledges and undertakings outlined in previous International and Regional Consultations, it is a statement by our child helpline members of their commitments towards strengthening and expanding child helpline services globally, and their calls for action by governments and policymakers, international organizations and donors, civil society and community leaders, and the technology and telecommunications sectors, to support child helplines and scale up efforts to eliminate harmful practices against children.
The Livingstone Declaration is not merely a statement — it’s a roadmap. As Child Helpline International and our members move forward, the commitments made in Livingstone will guide our collective efforts to ensure no child is left unheard.
