Children’s perceptions of violence are an essential input when it comes to designing, implementing and monitoring prevention policies and programmes. However, their views and experiences are rarely collected systematically, especially in low-income settings. Now, there’s an easier way of filling this knowledge gap.

Developed by Brazil’s Igarapé Institute, the Child Security Index (CSI) is an open-source smartphone app which generated considerable excitement on its launch in 2014. It won the Google Impact Challenge prize, was covered by media from the BBC to O Globo, given a platform by TEDGlobal and attracted interest from the World Bank and UNICEF, among others.