FACTSHEET EU Children of Peace Projects SUMMARY OF UNICEF’S WORK THROUGH THE EU CHILDREN OF PEACE PROJECTS
EU CHILDREN OF PEACE
The EU Children of Peace initiative is a lasting legacy of the Nobel Peace Prize that the EU received in 2012 for its achievements in peace on the European continent.
It was decided that the prize money will go to humanitarian projects, under the management of the European Commission – Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (DG ECHO).
EU Children of Peace is supporting a severely neglected sector: education in emergencies. The initiative funds humanitarian projects for children in conflict regions, providing them with access to schools where they can learn in a safe environment, as well as with psychological support to heal their traumatic war experiences.
In the first year of the initiative (2013), 28 000 children from Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Colombia and Ecuador, as well as Syrian refugees in Iraq have benefitted from it.
UNICEF has been chosen amongst one of the first five partner organisation to implement an EU Children of Peace project. UNICEF Pakistan was selected as project country.
In 2014, the scope has been extended to reach out to more than 80 000 children, with projects including South Sudan, Chad (UNICEF project), the Central African Republic, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Colombia and Ecuador.
From the initial EUR 2 million funding for the humanitarian projects helping conflict-affected children with education in 2013, the EU doubled the funding to EUR 4 million for the EU Children of Peace projects that are being implemented in 2014.