The year 2020 will forever be memorialized as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented global crises in its wake. Suddenly and quite sadly, children across the world had this new unseen monster disrupting every aspect of their lives and, threatening to cast a dark and powerful impact on their childhoods. Nobody was certain what impact the novel corona virus would have on children and it was deemed safest for children to remain indoors and out of school. This new reality not only severely disrupted critical services including learning and play, but also exposed millions of already vulnerable children to a multiple dip of adversity.

Hardly six months into the pandemic, about 1.6 billion children were out of school, and hundreds of millions of families and households were experiencing severe disruptions in their livelihoods. It is estimated that by the end of 2020 over 117 million more children were newly poor (Global Coalition to End Child Poverty). At this point, it was clear that our world at Arigatou International had been turned upside down, and that our work to eradicate child poverty, had been made, at once, that much more difficult and urgent. This, report, thus, details our interventions within the year towards protecting, empowering and supporting children in the context of and under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year book is in many ways, a narrative of our work and that of our partners in the pursuit of endeavours to respond to child poverty. From religious leaders, to international organizations, to grassroots child rights workers, people on every continent have enthusiastically welcomed these initiatives.

We wish therefore to say a very hearty thank you to all those who made tireless effort to make the activities and thoughts reported here possible – and we invite you to read and share widely, these stories of building a better world for children by ending child poverty.

For more information and to submit your change story, kindly contact us.

Extreme poverty is one of the most extensive forms of human degradation. Perhaps the greatest moral scandal in the world today is that over a billion people continue to live in squalor and indignity while there is enough resources for everyone. Interfaith Initiative to End Child Poverty is committed to the simple dictum that that no child, and no one indeed, should live in extreme poverty.

For more information on how you can submit your change story contact us.