5 trailblazing digital solutions supporting children's rights

As children raise their voices against discrimination and call for inclusion, here are digital interventions enabling and empowering young people.

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UNICEF Innovation
22 November 2022

Innovation is critical to building a better world with and for children.

From the climate crisis and gender inequality to poor access to mental health support and the global learning crisis, delivering the results children need now requires us to do more and do it faster. 

In the wake of World Children’s Day, as children around the world celebrate their rights and raise their voices against discrimination and call for inclusion, we share five enabling digital interventions equipping and empowering young people, regardless of gender, age, race or nationality, to engage in social action even from the farthest corners of the world and the most challenging of contexts.   

UNICEF through the Breakthrough Partnership has been particularly supportive in terms of assisting with smartphones, data and airtime to make these vital follow ups possible.
UNICEF/UN0655858/Schermbrucker

FunDoo is a chat-based youth-engagement platform equipping adolescents with problem-solving and critical thinking skills through a gamified learning-by-doing approach.

It launched in India in 2020, and is now projected to scale to 17 countries by the end of 2022. Gaining about 700,000 engaged users in one year, the fast-growing platform runs in partnership with government, schools and the private sector to reach every child, everywhere.  

Briefing session with the U-Report community members in Goma.
UNICEF/UN0411425/Ndebo

Over 35,000 people are benefiting from Voices of Change, a feedback system that allows people living in the most challenging humanitarian contexts to share ideas and raise concerns to service providers working in their communities.

Using online, offline, phone-based, and face-to-face platforms, young people in affected communities can effectively and safely share life-saving information to improve their own wellbeing and those around them.  

Hala, 15, teaches her younger sister how to use a tablet in their home at the Za'atari Refugee Camp.
UNICEF/UN0470804/Gelman / VII Photo

Here4U supports and improves the well-being of unaccompanied and separate children (UASC), young migrants and refugees.

It combines multiple approaches, including digital awareness, mental health literacy, and counselling. After a successful pilot in Italy, Here4U has been scaled to support counselling over 50,000 young refugees displaced by the war in Ukraine.  

Adolescents collecting air pollution data in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as part of the “Programme Air Pollution Youth Mappers”.
UNICEF/UN0253465/Pasquall

Youth for Climate and Clean Air is a social innovation championing young people to take climate action, meaningfully sparking action from young innovators in Mongolia.

It provides an interactive policy scorecard to help access, interpret, and compare policies related to children, youth, climate change, and air pollution. More than 1.5 million young people in the country have engaged in this innovation, and plans are underway to scale to six more countries. 

User testing Oky with girls in Indonesia
UNICEF EAPRO

Oky is the world’s first period tracker app designed by girls, for girls.

This unique app provides fun and interactive ways for girls to learn about and maintain menstrual health, breaking the silence around an historically taboo topic. With 100,000 users in 4 countries in 2021, it has the ambition to reach 10 million girls in 20 countries by 2025, leaving no girl behind.