Programs in progress

Environmental protection and education in one: collected plastic waste is being turned into plastic bricks for the construction of classrooms in Côte d’Ivoire.

Hundreds of thousands of girls and boys in South America’s largest country are being denied their right to education. Due to the pandemic and resulting school closures, more than 44 million Brazilian girls and boys were unable to attend school in 2020, and 5.5 million children and young people had no access to school activities at all, either in print or digital form, in class or remotely.

In Malawi, quality school education is a luxury. More than half of learners cannot read properly, and only a small proportion of children complete secondary-level schooling. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of training for teaching staff. UNICEF’s support makes the ongoing training of teachers in Malawi possible.

In Nepal, 10,400 babies die each year due to being born underweight. Early and continuous skin-to-skin contact would massively improve their chances of survival. That is why UNICEF is working to implement the Kangaroo Mother Care approach in disadvantaged regions.

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death among children under five in Bangladesh. With the right medical treatment, most of these children could be saved.

Hundreds of thousands of children in Madagascar work day in, day out on vanilla plantations, in mines and quarries, on the streets or in other people’s households.

Children and young people make up nearly 10 percent of Romania’s population. The aim of UNICEF’s work in the country is to protect and empower them, and give them access to quality education and health care.

Many schools in El Alto, the highest major city in the world, have no clean water or toilets. This encourages diarrhea and other infectious diseases, and keeps children away from class.