In my role as chief executive of Save the Children International, I get to meet children from so many complex, fragile environments facing situations that are unimaginable to most of us. At a refugee transit centre on the border of Sudan and South Sudan this year, I met a 13-year-old boy who had fled the war in Sudan with his extended family and spoke of the heartbreaking loss of both his parents.
For no matter what, children are children. They want to play. They want to laugh. They want to learn. They want a future. And we need to be there to support them and to listen to them. It could be so easy to feel overwhelmed by these heartbreaking stories, but switching off is not the answer, although increasingly this is seen as the solution.
Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shows that news avoidance hit record levels in 2024 with 39 percent of people saying they actively avoid the news. They attributed this to the volume of information and the negative nature of the news making them feel anxious and powerless.
Funding for humanitarian crises has also fallen, with only about 43 percent of the United Nations' appeals for aid being fully funded. This decline raises urgent questions about our collective responsibility towards vulnerable children whose rights and futures are at stake.
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