Green Behaviour
A safe, clean and green environment for every child
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- Tiếng Việt
Challenges
The future is now. The climate crisis is already a reality for children in Viet Nam.
They are the least responsible, yet carry the greatest burden. Climate change and the destruction of the environment are direct threats to every child’s ability to survive, grow, and thrive. The same factors that are driving climate change and exposing Viet Nam and the world to increasingly severe natural disasters, including the burning of fossil fuels and rapid industrialization, are also severely degrading the environment.
No child is untouched. It affects the water they drink, the air they breathe, the soil and oceans they rely on as sources of food, and the biodiversity that is critical to maintaining an Earth healthy and safe for all species, including humans.
The situation is acute.
Water pollution contributes to almost half of the population not having access to safely managed drinking sources and three million people are affected by water scarcity, heightening the risk of disease. With Viet Nam ranking 159th out of 180 countries in air quality, toxic air puts children’s health and brain development at risk. The country is also the fourth largest contributor to marine plastic pollution globally, with garbage released into the ocean affecting the living environment and health of hundreds of thousands of children, women and their communities.
Solutions
Children have a right to a safe future in a clean environment.
This is formally recognized in United Nation’s General Comment No.26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change.
UNICEF works with children and our partners for a future where every child lives in a green, safe and clean environment. To achieve this, our societies and each of us needs to change our behaviour towards realizing a greener environment that is safe for us and our children.
Our tech-savvy national communication campaigns encourage and showcase environmental protection initiatives led by children, while partnerships with national and local authorities, schools and youth-led organizations inspire a shared vision of reimagining a greener Viet Nam. So action meets every community’s needs, we help set up climate-themed social innovation clubs working on sustainable and continually evolving responses. We are also active in communities to help them go green, with support to schools to introduce solar power and net-zero toilets.
Through our support to children and young people, as agents of change, they can demonstrate to friends, families and communities that everyone can go green. This means children mobilizing collective and individual action to clean the air, prevent soil and coastal erosion, protect water sources, tackle plastic pollution within waterways and communities, champion recycling, discourage the burning of rubbish as well as practice water and electricity conservation. Our Holistic Parenting programme also encourages green behaviours among families by integrating environmental consciousness into parenting practices. With an understanding that protecting Viet Nam is everyone’s responsibility, children can lead the way in showing that every action counts.
UNICEF’s goal is every child and adolescent thrives and lives in a safe, clean and green environment. Through behaviour change campaigns and key partnerships, we engage children and young people and seek ways to reduce environmental degradation and pollution. This is achieved by changing harmful practices and bringing solutions that focus on children and prepare public services and communities to respond to climate events. We are also active in communities to help them go green with technology and innovations to meet the climate challenge.
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