Save the Children launches global campaign ‘Generation Hope’ in Bangladesh, for and with the children, calling for urgent actions on climate inequality.

In partnership with Breaking the Silence (BTS), this child and youth-led event which marked the launch of the Generation Hope campaign was held at Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka on Thursday (26 January). The chief guest for this event was also a child, echoing the design and execution of this campaign which is centered around bringing forth child and youth voices on climate change.

Dr. Ian Fry, United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of Human Rights in the context of Climate Change joined virtually at the event as a special guest. He said, “Last year I visited Bangladesh and listened to many stories and assertions of children and youth groups, and they had many strong messages for me. We must invest in children, we must invest in their rights, health, nutrition, education, protection from violence and poverty. We must listen to them and take actions.”

Generation Hope is a global flagship campaign of Save the Children which envisions a world that cares for children and their planet by fixing the broken system and accelerating action to address the connected crises of economic inequality and the climate emergency. The campaign aims to tackle economic inequality by ensuring fair funding to prioritize children’s rights and well-being, limiting catastrophic climate change & ensure children’s rights are at the heart of the world’s response.

“Generation Hope” is a child and youth-led campaign which will be implemented nationwide for the next 5 years. In the world’s biggest listening exercise named ‘Child Hearing’ Save the Children International spoke to more than 54,500 children from 41 countries to learn more about their experiences of climate change and economic inequality, their hopes for the future, and what they think needs to be done to solve these crises.

In Bangladesh, prior to the official launch of the campaign, Save the Children spoke to 5233 children aged between 12-18 from 6 districts across the country. All the countries running this campaign did this consultation with the children and the summary of their opinion and recommendations has been published globally as report . A child hearing session has been demonstrated in the launching event. some key statements and learnings that came through are –
“We believe economic inequality disproportionately affects women and girls and need more support to overcome this effect, and less wealthy people are more affected.
“We want adults to listen to and act on scientists’ advice about climate change.”

The recommendations came from the children in child hearing have been echoed by the chief guest of the event who himself is a child of 12 years. Afsan Mahmud Soikat said, “We have to take initiatives from our respective places to solve the climate problem. We need to take care of National and international climate plans get formulated properly, we want elder people to take immediate actions.”

A session was held to bring the climate experts and children face to face where both parties had a very interactive discussion on climate vulnerability and ways of mitigations.

Save the Children Bangladesh’s Country Director Onno van Manen, Deputy Country Director Dry. Shamim Jahan, Tasmima Hossain- Editor- The Daily Ittefaq and Chairperson, Executive Committee; Breaking the Silence, Iftekhar Mamud- Special Correspondent; Prothom Alo were present as chief guests at the event.