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Environment and Relief Work

CINI in Environment & Climate Change

CINI intervenes in some of the most environmentally fragile geographical areas, such as coastal and deltaic zones; flood-prone, riverine, mangrove areas; land affected by salinization and arsenic contamination, also of ground water; metro cities and slums; deforested hills and drought-prone regions. In addressing vulnerabilities of children from a holistic perspective, including through an
environmental lens, CINI supports young people who are victims of recurrent cyclones, floods (i.e., tsunami, Aila, Amphan, Yash, Assam floods), earthquakes (i.e., Nepal), epidemics and pandemics (i.e., COVID-19, dengue outbreaks). It also assists them as they increasingly turn into environmental migrants with their families or on their own.

Acting on such environmentally fragile terrains, CINI has learned to merge development,humanitarian and emergency work in one single community-based convergent and preventive approach. In seeking to promote children’s rights to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, CINI’s 5-Year Strategy 2022-2027 therefore identifies the environment and climate change as a thrust area in programming for children.


Focus Areas

To strengthen its commitment to creating a child-friendly environment, CINI identifies a set of core dimensions where to concentrate its work to address the impact of environmental degradation and climate change on children’s rights, including their environmental rights:

  • Infectious Diseases with a focus on Disaster Management
  • Food security, hunger and malnutrition
  • Protection of water sources and equal access to safe drinking water
  • Promotion of hygiene and sanitation by waste management
  • Heat protection by promoting green
  • Air and sound pollution especially in urban settings
  • Energy saving to prevent misuse of energy
  • Urban Programming aimed at making cities friendly to children with a focus on
  • environmental displacement and migration in urban slums and on the streets

Strategic Directions

Over the next 5 years strategy period, programme interventions will be consolidated to further children’s rights to a sustainable environment,
especially in three main directions as follows:

  • Ensuring that children are an essential part and have a voice in climate change strategies and response plans at the local and policy levels
  • Integrating an environmental perspective for children in the existing health, nutrition,education, child protection and adolescent programmes to ensure that the rights of children to health, nutrition, education, protection are integrated with their fundamental environmental rights
  • Protecting children from the impact of climate change and environmental degradation implementing children’s and environmental rights through specific environment-oriented programme interventions

Area of Interventions

CINI’s experience in environment space can be categorized mainly in the following three broad sectors:

I. Responding to disaster situations like cyclone/flood, pandemic (COVID-19)

  • Relief distribution
  • Rehabilitation (repairing houses/distributing boats)
  • Awareness on environmental hazards and various pandemics
  • Setting up Sahayata Kendras
  • Community-based disaster preparedness /resilience building

II. Addressing hygiene and sanitation

  • Awareness building
  • Behaviour change communication
  • Training

III. Working with vulnerable children living in environmentally fragile terrains (Delta area, coastal areas, flood prone, riverine, in the metro cities etc.)

  • Assesses the vulnerabilities of children through environment lens
  • Resilience building of community, duty bearers, service providers

Our Experience in Research and Project Implementation addressing Climate Change issues

CINI Implemented project on Climate Change issues during 2011-2014 in Kolkata and South 24 Parganas districts in partnership with Navadanya and Centre for Environment Education focusing on:

  • Awareness generation of communities especially women and children
  • Promoting smokeless chullah and solar lamp
  • Waste disposal and cleanliness
  • Promoting Saving of Energy through BCC
  • Orientation of the farmers’ group on the use of organic farming as a substitute of pesticides and Kitchen garden to community

CINI conducted a collaborative research project to Assess Adverse Health Outcome of Exposure to Household level Air Pollutants in Rural Community – in collaboration with TERI which was supported by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

CINI is building community resilience against pandemic & climate change with the support of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in West Bengal & Jharkhand covering a total of 5,03,564 direct population. The project responds to global challenges like one of the deadliest pandemics (Covid 19), environmental degradation, and climate change by working collectively with various
stakeholders and community people.

In partnership with NISHTHA/JHPIEGO, CINI also implemented a project titled ‘Creation of Model Resilient Villages’ leveraging community level participatory approach in Assam, across 200 villages of two selected blocks. The aim of the project is to create model resilient villages with respect to public health emergencies to mitigate associated risks and respond to evolving challenges. The attempt is to build and strengthen resilient abilities of a village with the potential to recover in the face of prevalent stress or shocks. The project gives importance to flood mitigation, preparedness, recovery strategies, disaster risk reduction and climate action advocacies among others health centric
interventions in order to reduce prevailing disease burden in order to prevent infectious diseases and other public health emergencies.

Our Experience in Campaigning, Advocacy, Capacity Building, Awareness Generation22

  • CINI’s flagship programme “What Children Want Campaign” aiming to address climate change issues from children’s perspective
  • State Consultations with Children on Environment & Climate Change in 12 states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamilnadu, Uttarakhand, West Bengal
  • Model creation on Adolescent-led Child Friendly Community focusing Environment &
    Climate Change in Murshidabad district, West Bengal
  • Rally, Art Workshop/Drawing, clean-up drives, plantation drives, celebration of importantdays like International Mother Earth Day, World Environment Day
  • Talk to Mayor initiative – Children talk to the Mayor of Kolkata about their problems related to environment & climate change and place their demands for improvement
  • UN Recognition for Street Champions for their contribution on climate change and its impact on violence against children
  • Capacity building of team & community (adolescent, child parliament, mother & community groups) on environment and climate change
  • Development of IEC materials on pollution, environment protection, climate change & healthrelated issues

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