Every child has the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable and abundant environment.

But children today are facing more weather-related extreme events than ever before. More droughts. More floods. Longer heatwaves. More extreme wildfires. Devastating storms.

As these events accelerate year by year, so do the threats to the natural resources children need for their development. Without food, water, air and land, children’s health, education, livelihoods and safety are at risk. Families take their children out of school, relinquish them into forced marriage, send them into hazardous child labor — or worse — to keep food on the table. Violence flares along with stress, directly impacting children. 

ChildFund is not a climate-focused organization, but we are a child-focused organization. We center children as we work with communities to build sustainable resilience as well as prevent and respond to the harm flowing from environmental shocks. 

 

[Indigenous] people have their own traditional knowledge. It’s only that we have not really tapped it. It’s something amazing when you try to understand it.

image8kcy9.png

Centering Children in Building Sustainable Resilience

We see what natural catastrophes do to children and youth who live on the frontlines of environmental destruction in the low-income countries where we work. Our local partners and country offices see firsthand how these events undo the developmental gains children and youth have made toward achieving their potential. 

This requires a holistic response that embodies both adaptation and environmental care — across all levels of society — to ensure the continued achievement of positive outcomes with children across health, education, protection and livelihoods.

ChildFund’s approach to fostering resilience in communities is focused on ensuring the safe, clean, biodiverse and abundant environment children and youth need to grow up healthy, educated, skilled and safe. This requires holistic approaches at all levels of society, centering not only child and youth needs but also their meaningful and active participation in actions at the community, national and international levels.

At the local level, this looks like prioritizing children’s and young people’s right to information, resources and participation in environmental care and adaptation within their communities. It also looks like helping build their skills and facilitating opportunities for them to raise their voices on the national and even global stage to call for action on their behalf, and for the opportunity to play a meaningful role in preventing further environmental degradation and protecting the future that is their right.

To help communities build their resilience to environmental shocks, we collaborate with local partner organizations to take proactive, child-focused action as relevant to the local context. This includes adaptive agriculture initiatives like drought-resilient crops and planting techniques, water management like drip irrigation, water conservation methods and rainwater harvesting, and diversifying livelihoods to reduce reliance on weather-sensitive income. Where sudden storms and flooding are becoming increasingly frequent, disaster risk reduction activities and enhanced early warning systems for disasters are prioritized. Most everywhere, it includes building sustainable and resilient water and food supplies as well as infrastructure, such as flood defenses for schools. It requires leveraging local experience and traditional wisdom to keep efforts relevant and sustainable.
Learn More: ChildFund's Regreening Africa Project

Children and youth need information about what the health and preservation of nature and ecosystems mean for them now and in the future. Understanding that they are part of nature, that nature is part of them, inspires action — action that can in turn enhance young people’s mental health and well-being by easing the pervasive anxiety that their generation experiences more than any before. In many communities where ChildFund works, local partner organizations support communities to apply nature-based solutions like reforestation and afforestation to prevent erosion, improve water quality or provide shade. We also promote reduction of food waste and recycling as well as sustainable farming and livelihoods. Children and youth play a large role in educating their communities about and bringing them together to enact environmental care. Learn More: ChildFund Philippines supports youth to care for their environment

At ChildFund, we know that sustainability starts with us, and that we need to do our part as an organization before we ask children and families in our programs to do theirs. So, guided by new environmental standards, an environmental policy and youth representatives from Africa, Asia and the Americas, we are taking actions like sourcing local food and no plastic for events, amping up recycling in our offices, switching to energy-saving lighting (our Sierra Leone office has even gone full solar!) and more.

ChildFund Insider Series:
Environmentally Smart Programming

Learn more about the impact of environmental degradation on children and what ChildFund is doing to help them cope.

Explore Our Impact

  • Natural disasters through children's eyes

    What do natural disasters look like to children? Their artwork, poetry and other creations tell a story of great hardship, but also of deep hope.

  • World Cleanup Day in photos

    Around the world, children and youth are celebrating World Cleanup Day by raising awareness of environmental care and cleaning up their communities. Check out just a few photos from parts of the world where we work.

  • Youth caring for the environment

    Young people are critical partners in protecting our planet. Project Greenlight, a flagship environmental conservation project in the Philippines, aims to train youth "Eco-scouts" to address environmental issues, mitigate natural disaster risks and serve as climate activists.

Meet Our Experts

Keeva Duffey

Keeva Duffey

Sr. Advisor, Climate Action

LinkedIn