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Active child and youth participation has been a crucial response in 2021, a time in which children may not hold so many fond memories due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has posed multiple challenges: it has exacerbated existing children’s vulnerabilities while enhancing the number of children in vulnerable situations. And it has substantially increased child poverty, inequalities and violence against children across the world.

Children and their families have also experienced other consequences of the environmental crisis, as communities have been struck by unexpected floods and landslides as well as an increase in droughts, which affect their health and protection.

Confronted with these very difficult conditions, Terre des Hommes continued to strongly believe that we can build back a better world for and with children. And we further engaged to address the challenges of the pandemic, poverty, inequalities and violence, through our 730 projects, across 67 different countries while campaigning for the rights of the child.

See the projects and their impact on children and their communities in 2021 on the Terre des Hommes Annual Report here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely changed the lives of millions of people around the globe. During the pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of children involved in the worst forms of child labour. Public health restrictions and the closure of public markets and other economic sectors have also left many child workers and their caregivers with less income or unemployed. In this report, Terre des Hommes was interested to hear more about the views of children on what can be done to improve their situation during and after the pandemic by collective action of all relevant stakeholders.

2020 has been a special year in many instances. First with the COVID-19 pandemic which is causing so much suffering around the world and reversing decades of progress for children. The pandemic had a considerable impact on our programmes and functioning in a way that we had to reinvent ourselves.

Equipped with our sincere belief that we can build back a better world for and with children, Terre des Hommes has continued to address the challenges of pandemic, poverty, inequalities and violence through our 793 projects run in 70 different countries. As our combat to realise children’s rights is permanent we are now also actively working on the new Terre des Hommes International Federation Strategy which should be achieved by the end of 2021. Our vision is a world where children can live their childhood, young people are empowered and their communities are fully engaged.

As child participation is central to our work we have endeavoured to support children in raising their voices through the #CovidUnder19 initiative launched by Terre des Hommes in partnership with several other organisations. More than 26,000 children and young people worldwide responded to the survey about the consequences of the pandemic on their lives. Our “Dialogue Works” campaign was also launched in 2020 and aims at giving a voice to working children. Both initiatives are opening spaces for children to participate in local to global political debates and events to express their experiences, challenges and recommendations to political stakeholders in their own words.

See the projects and their impact on children and their communities in 2020 on the Terre des Hommes Annual Report here.