Sharing Web Resources: Averting a lost COVID generation

 

Averting a lost COVID generation

A six-point plan to respond, recover and reimagine a post-pandemic world for every child

https://www.unicef.org/media/86881/file/Averting-a-lost-covid-generation-world-childrens-day-data-and-advocacy-brief-2020.pdf

    I, again, selected UNICEF as a resource to share with everyone. COVID-19. After almost one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the impact of the virus on the world’s children and young people is becoming clearer – and increasingly alarming. Children face a trifecta of threats: direct consequences of the disease itself, interruption in essential services, and increasing poverty and inequality.

    The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may be stressful for children. Fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Public health actions, such as social distancing, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. Through social isolation, this is the child's inability to access external support networks, such as school, tutoring services, friendly environments, and play activities. It is thus evident that social isolation should be evaluated as a contributing factor for environments inappropriate to children's mental health. Disruptions to essential services such as education, health care, nutrition, and child protection interventions are harming children. A severe global economic recession is impoverishing children and compounding deep pre-existing inequalities and exclusion.

    It is also necessary to understand that, in many homes, social isolation amplifies the harmful experiences that the child has faced for a long time, without the possibility of minimizing psychological aggression and resulting in toxic stress. There is therefore an urgent need for psychosocial support, especially for families that had already displayed risk factors for healthy child development prior to the pandemic.

                             

UNICEF created a six-point plan to protect our children

    The devastating impacts of COVID-19 on children will reverberate for years to come. In response to the pandemic, governments around the world have mobilized billions of dollars to save their economies. But there is another impending loss if we do not act: a lost generation of children

    Building on the powerful promise from 172 Member States of the United Nations to Protect Our Children, the six-point plan to protect our children includes urgent action to mitigate the worst effects of the pandemic as it continues to spread around the globe. It also proposes a set of practical and concrete actions to safeguard child rights now and to reimagine a better future. It aims to bring the world back together around a common cause: the health and well-being of current and future generations and the full realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

1. Ensure all children learn, including by closing the digital divide.

2. Guarantee access to health and nutrition services and make vaccines affordable and available to every child.

3. Support and protect the mental health of children, and young people and bring an end to abuse, gender-based violence, and neglect in childhood.

4. Increase access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene and address environmental degradation and climate change.

5. Reverse the rise in child poverty and ensure an inclusive recovery for all.

6. Redouble efforts to protect and support children and their families living through conflict, disaster, and displacement.

    Almost a year into the COVID crisis, the long-term impact on children and young people whose lives have been upended by the disruptions in key services and the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic remains unknown. With the crisis continuing to deepen, it is essential that much more time, resources, and effort are invested into understanding better the full impact of the crisis on the world’s youngest citizens and formulating proven and promising practices to meet their rights and needs. Like most things worthwhile, it will be challenging to achieve. But for our common future, and for the present and future of our children, it is a challenge we must rise to as soon as possible. 

    The pre-COVID ‘normal’ was never good enough for children, and it is in our hands now to reimagine and deliver on a better future for children and young people coming of age during this first truly global emergency.