OUR WORK

Save the Children in Pakistan currently implements programmes in the following areas:

Child Protection

Every child has the right to be safe. Our child protection programs aim to keep children safe around the world, regardless of who they are or where they are from. We focus on children who are at heightened risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence and put in place mechanisms to prevent and respond to such protection risks. We work with the government, civil society, children, youth, families, communities, and societies to support children and promote social norms and attitude changes to create an enabling environment for children.

 Our work aims to support states to establish the systems necessary to make child rights a reality and addresses the systemic, underlying, and/or structural aspects that enable or hinder children’s rights. Save the Children strongly believes that civic action is needed to make children’s rights a reality.

Education

The Education thematic area brings together our thematic education work to Save the Children members, Country Offices, and other parts of our movement under one global umbrella across both humanitarian and development contexts.

 We unite people from across the movement to share knowledge, discuss new ideas, harmonize approaches, and promote collaboration to improve the quality of our programming and advocacy across the globe.

Across the world, the most deprived, marginalized, and disadvantaged children are the most affected by the learning crisis, such as those caught up in emergencies, facing extreme poverty, or discriminated against because of their gender, disability, ethnicity, or religion.  More than half the world's school-aged children are not learning. We believe that all children- including the most deprived and marginalized- have the right to a quality basic education. Our key areas of focus in this regard are:

• Basic Education

• Education in Emergencies

• Early childhood care and development

• School health and nutrition; education technology

• Mental Health and Psychosocial Support

• Advocacy and policy

Health and Nutrition

Through its comprehensive health and nutrition programmes, Save the Children focuses on strengthening the health system of Pakistan by ensuring access and availability of Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH), nutrition, primary healthcare, and Family Planning services. We strive to increase the coverage of health services to those in the poorest hardest to reach places so that no child dies of preventable causes. We test innovative models and approaches to generate evidence and create avenues to leverage resources for implementation at scale. During times of conflict or disasters, we ensure that life-saving healthcare, MNCH, and nutrition services are provided to the affected population, such as augmenting government’s efforts in Covid-19 response responding to the need for improved access to personal hygiene, Save the Children has established WASH infrastructure and rehabilitated sanitation facilities in schools. We continually strive to ensure that every child has the right and access to a safe water supply and adequate sanitation facilities and is enabled to perform basic hygiene.

Emergencies 

Pakistan Floods Response 2022

Pakistan experienced unprecedented heavy monsoon rains from mid-July till August 2022, which caused widespread flooding affecting 116 districts, across all provinces. A national emergency was announced by the Government of Pakistan on August 26, 2022, with 90 districts across Pakistan declared as ‘Calamity Hit’. Floods have submerged many villages and caused significant damage to the infrastructure-partially or fully destroying houses, schools, and hospitals and severely impacting livelihoods in the country where half the population depends on agriculture and livestock. According to the UN, 33 million people have been severely affected, out of which 16 million are estimated to be children, thus requiring immediate humanitarian assistance.

Save the Children is currently delivering an extensive response in Sindh, KP, and Balochistan to address the immediate survival needs in worst-hit districts, and is now progressing towards recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction to minimize the adverse effects of flooding on education, health, nutrition, WASH, food security, and livelihoods of children, women, and their families.

As of March 15, 2023, Save the Children has reached more than 321,478 people, including more than 158,308 children through life-saving activities under flood response 2022.

One Pager

A weekly summary of Save the Children Floods Response in Pakistan that includes a sector-wise summary of community needs of the affected population and the number of people reached through various initiatives in health, food assistance, CP, MHPSS, shelter, and NFIs, education and WASH.

Click here to view the one-pager.

Click here to view the Key Highlights of the Pakistan Floods Response 2022.

Climate Change

Understanding and addressing climate change is critical to Save the Children’s mission of protecting human health and the environment. We accomplish this mission through our interventions in climate change, environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and green jobs. We believe in empowering children’s voices as change agents and drive the climate agenda through encouraging leadership in the climate movement.

The climate crisis has a direct impact on children all over the world, posing a grave threat to their survival, learning, and protection. Born into the climate crisis, today's children and future generations will pay the highest price, if urgent action is not taken- particularly those living in the world's most vulnerable communities.

Save the Children plays a distinctive role in amplifying children's voices and fostering climate leadership. We want to help children, particularly the most vulnerable, who are disproportionately affected by climate change, become part of the solution and influence decisions made by global and local authorities.

Save the Children is a new entrant in the field of environment and climate change. Realizing the significance of the impacts of environment and climate change on its programme and operations, SC Global drafted its first Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change Policy. Taking cue from SC Global, SC PKCO began integrating environment and climate change in its programme and operations in 2019. In this short duration, SC PKCO has undertaken some impressive initiatives such as the integration of children and youth in the Pakistan Nationally Determined Contributions report.

SC PKCO supported the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) in designing a comprehensive, extensive and all-encompassing policy advocacy campaign geared towards greater engagement of youth in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) development and implementation process. The study titled “Enhancing the Role of Youth in the Implementation of NDCs in Pakistan: Advocacy Strategy and Action Plan’ is a unique initiative of SC PKCO and M0CC to involve youth in determining the NDCs for Pakistan. It is a 5 year advocacy campaign strategy with action plan for engaging youth in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The Red Alert campaign was an innovative initiative and is Save the Children’s first ever regional or multi-country campaign and influencing project on the climate crisis. Put simply, this aims to build grassroots activism, and leverage stronger public awareness and political will to drive more effective, child-sensitive action on climate and environmental crisis mitigation and adaptation.

Zero Waste Eco Festival

Save the Children organized Pakistan’s first ever “Zero Waste Eco Festival” to raise awareness amongst children and the youth about climate change and environment-related issues. The festival created an immersive experience for attendees to come together in nature and partake in sustainable activities and practices to learn how to reduce their ecological footprints.

The festival created a marketplace of sustainable products, designs, and ideas. It brought together green companies and start-ups working on sustainable technology; organic and local farmers working with sustainable practices; and non-profit organizations that are working on environment-related issues, with notable organizations such as TrashIt,

The festival was organized around the principles of “reuse, reduce, recycle.” and ensured that the event was designed using innovative ideas and sustainable materials such as bamboo, UV printing and wooden carvings. Special consideration was given on reducing plastic and other waste with regards to the event set up, as well as branding and marketing material. Our official ticketing partnersalso helped minimize paper waste by helping set up a QR code based ticketing system for the event.

Saaf Suthra Sheher was engaged to manage the waste at the event, and effectively ensured that all the waste that was generated was recycled, upcycled or safely disposed. The company also set up several recycling stations at the event, and a group of youth volunteers was trained to effectively teach and guide guests on how to discard their trash. The festival can serve as a case study and road map for companies and organizations to reduce the environmental impact of large scale events and festivals in Pakistan.

Zero Waste Eco Festival also featured a panel discussion on “Youth Engagement for a Sustainable and Climate Resilient Future.” Panelists included Ms. Marion Pfennings, Head of Development Corporation at the German Embassy Islamabad; Mr Atif Sheikh, Executive Director of the Special Talent Exchange Program; Sheryar Arif Khan, Assistant District Commissioner Islamabad; Brigadier Muhammad Aslam Khan (Retd.); Chairman Pakistan Economy Watch; and Syed Ehtesham Ul Haque, Principal Environmental Design Engineer.

Notably, the event also featured a “Conversation with Young Climate Activists. Youth panelists included Zia Ur Rehman, President of NUST Environment Club, and Eisha Ayub, Save the Children’s Red Alert Climate Activist among others.

Mr. Khuram Gondal, Country Director, Save the Children in Pakistan, delivered closing remarks at the festival and said: “Although the climate crisis already affects everyone on this planet, it is the lives and futures of our children and youth that will be the most affected. That’s why it is so important that they are part of the solution. We designed this festival to raise awareness amongst the children and youth in an exciting and innovative way, that instils a drive and passion in them to take up climate related activism and advocacy. The idea was to create an interactive platform for them to share their voices and explore sustainable products, practices and ideas.”

Children and the youth also had the opportunity to participate in a wide array of interactive workshops and study circles. The workshops engaged children in activities about composting food waste into fertilizer, planting seeds and growing their own gardens, olive oil extraction, as well as creating their own body scrubs and self-care products from natural materials. Study Circles included climate charged discussions on renewable alternative energy solutions, green tourism, as well as the water crisis and water management.

Harness Energy set up solar panels around the festival to power lights, fans, and mobile charging stations to showcase low cost and effective alternative solutions for energy generation and consumption. The festival effectively engaged children and the youth in a wide array of activities and conversations to encourage new forms of action and activism that can prepare the future generation to respond effectively to ecological and climate related challenges.

My Forest Child

My Forest Child is a unique, multi-faceted approach that conducts mass tree planting to restore damaged forests. Through the MFC project, 15,000 saplings were planted over an area of 20 acres on 3rd Avenue Islamabad, in collaboration with Capital Development Authority (CDA).

Two climate awareness sessions and two digital hangouts with school children were conducted in different schools under MFC activities, in which children were involved in generating a discourse on the climate change crisis, in order to understand their ideas, opinion, and perspectives.