Action for Children 2025: Building Safer, Greener and Peaceful Environments
The start of each new year brings renewed hope: hope that conditions for every child born that year and the years before and after, will promote their healthy development. Yet the headlines in 2024 revealed increasing risks for children and their families, particularly young children. Most recently, in California, the contribution of abnormal weather activity to the rapid spread of wildfires has led to ongoing devastation impacting children’s air quality, shelter, and access to resources. Conflict, displacement, extreme heat, air pollution, drought and a host of other environmental risks disrupt children’s physical, psychosocial and mental development, preventing them from meeting their full potential. This has to change.
Father Involvement: A Catalyst for Transforming Gender Equity and Early Childhood Development in the Next 1000 Days
Father or male caregiver involvement is good for children and families. Caring father-child relationships in the early years are essential for children’s development and wellbeing. The recent launch of the two-part Lancet series, Early Childhood Development And The Next 1000 Days reveals that about 70% of children co-reside with their fathers. Despite the significant role that fathers play in children’s lives, parenting interventions still largely focus on mothers, particularly as it relates to the next 1000 days.