Climate Change and ChildrenEvidence · Tools · MENA · India · Beyond

A Rotary Peace Fellowship Social Change Initiative

The evidence on climate change and children, in one place.

Reports, studies and tools on how a warming world is already shaping children's health, schooling, safety and daily life across the Middle East, North Africa and India. Curated by hand, tagged by region and by what is hitting children where you are, and kept current.

What is hitting children where you are? Pick one to filter the library.
Nearly 9 in 10 children across MENA live with high water stress.Draft claim from the Fellow's copy, attributed to UNICEF. Exact report and page to be confirmed before launch.
20curated resources, each with publisher, year, region, language and a line on why it matters. 149 added 19 Sep 2026, pending the Fellow's review.
5region tags, so the MENA picture stays visible and is never flattened into one story
19 Seplast reviewed, 2026. Every link opened on the date on its card. Newest item: 2026.

Evidence Library

Browse by where you are and what you are facing.

Every claim in the Handbook and Facilitator Guide traces back to something on this list. Tags are multi-select on purpose: one report can be global, about MENA, and about health at once.

Where the library stands today

How resources are chosen

  • About children, not climate in general. A report on heat that never mentions children does not qualify.
  • From a named publisher: UN agencies, peer-reviewed journals, established child-rights organisations, universities.
  • Published in the last ten years, or a standing reference (a course, a UN process page).
  • Tagged as the document frames itself. A global index stays Global even if it contains a Kuwait fact sheet; the situation tags are how you find that.
  • Excluded: news articles, opinion pieces, anything behind a paywall with no open summary.

What the tags mean

  • Region: where the document says it is about. Global, MENA, North Africa, India, South Asia, Türkiye. Countries come as the library grows.
  • Theme: the child outcome at stake. Health, education, mental health, displacement, safety, daily life, poverty.
  • Situation: the hazard. Heat, water stress and drought, floods, air pollution and dust, earthquake, displacement, disease.
  • Type: report, peer-reviewed study, factsheet, index, course, kids explainer, guide, toolkit, policy process.
  • Year: the year on the document or its landing page. 2019 onward; "n.d." for standing references; "tbc" where the Fellow confirms.
  • Language: English unless the card says otherwise. Arabic, Turkish, Hindi, Urdu and French items are tagged and filterable.

Update log

  • Expansion sweep: ten research passes (MENA, India, child health, education, mental health and displacement, child and facilitator materials, policy and rights, South Asia and Türkiye, Arabic-language, Turkish-language). Year, country and language filters and newest-first sort added. Every new item pending the Fellow's review.
  • Library opened with 20 resources across 5 region tags.
  • The Fellow's peer-reviewed set from her literature review; Urdu and Bengali materials; nutrition, WASH, urban heat, Gulf and Levant country sweeps.

Missing something? Suggest a resource (a short form that goes straight to the Fellow).

Toolkit

Two paired resources. Use them together, or on their own.

Built to be adapted, not just adopted: swap in your own country's examples, translate it, or fold single activities into a programme you already run.

Available

For children and young people

Climate Champions Handbook

Climate change explained simply across four real-life themes: education, health, safety and daily life. Hands-on group activities and a closing pledge, at one accessible reading level, with examples from across MENA and India.

PDF + web summaryAges 10 to 15English
Open the Handbook
Available

For Rotaract, Interact and NGO volunteers

Facilitator Guide

Everything needed to run a session: the evidence behind the Handbook, ready-made 45 and 60 minute session plans, and coaching notes for every activity, online and offline. No facilitation experience required.

45 and 60 min plansEach activity tagged to a Positive Peace pillar
Open the Guide
In progress · Oct 2026

For researchers and programme leads

Knowledge Brief

The full research picture behind this initiative: literature review, regional comparison across MENA and India, and the case for treating this as a peacebuilding issue.

In progress · Oct 2026

For organisations and partners

Stakeholder Brief

A concise two-page brief for organisations considering adopting or supporting this work, with what adoption involves and what it costs.

Every resource here is a starting point, not a fixed script. The Fellow's own materials are released under CC BY 4.0. Third-party documents keep their own licences and are linked, never re-hosted.

About the project

Children are rarely centred in climate policy or in peacebuilding. This site sits in the gap.

The problem

Climate change does not affect children the way it affects adults. Their bodies are still developing, they depend entirely on the adults and systems around them, and across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia they are growing up where climate risk is most concentrated: water stress, heat-driven school closures, displacement and disrupted schooling.

Built for MENA, India, and beyond

This project began with evidence and field work across both the MENA region and India, and every resource is built to be adaptable, not India content with MENA added as an afterthought. Country examples, case studies and activity framing can be swapped for local context wherever this is used.

About the Fellow

AG
Anisha Ghosh, Rotary Peace Fellow 2025-26, Otto & Fran Walter Rotary Peace Center, Bahçeşehir University.

Policy and advocacy professional with more than fourteen years in child rights, poverty and urban issues, including national advocacy roles at Save the Children India, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights and Miracle Foundation India. This initiative was developed and piloted with Rotaract and Interact clubs, combining academic research with field-tested community sessions.

Why this is a peacebuilding project

Climate stress strains the same things that hold peaceful communities together: fair resource-sharing, cooperation, trust between neighbours. The Handbook and Guide give children and young facilitators practised experience in exactly those behaviours, listening, negotiating fairly, deciding together, not just information about climate change. Each activity is tagged to the Positive Peace pillar it exercises.

Positive Peace pillarWhere it shows up on this site
Acceptance of the rights of othersHandbook theme "Safety": who gets water first when there is not enough; the pledge activity.
Good relations with neighboursFacilitator Guide 45-minute plan: the shared-resource negotiation game; displacement resources in the library.
Free flow of informationThis library itself: evidence in one place, tagged, open, with a citation on every card.

Three pillars named well, rather than eight gestured at. Mapping to be confirmed against the final Handbook.

Pilot & Evidence

What happened when a real club ran a real session.

Partner
Rotaract / Interact club, name to be added
Date and place
Pilot planned: month to be set by the Fellow
Who took part
Number of children and facilitators
What was run
Which Handbook activities, from which session plan

This page fills in after the first session: two or three attributed observations from facilitators, and one honest paragraph on what did not work. Photos only with written consent; no child is identifiable.

One real pilot with lessons learned is worth more than three hypothetical ones. This block is deliberately empty until then.