The COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 1 billion children, putting them at risk of falling behind due to school closures. The crisis hit the most vulnerable children the hardest. In these challenging times, it is very important to support children and encourage their physical and mental wellbeing.

As part of COVID-19 response, Aflatoun International worked together with UNICEF on the Ready to Come Back: Teacher Preparedness Training Package which is aimed at helping schools to reopen as safe as possible. In addition to that, we have developed two new tools that are built around water, sanitation, and hygiene as well as social and emotional learning aspects. These are our new thematic supplements for our Aflatoun curricula: Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) & Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). The supplements are aimed at providing children and teachers with good instruments to combat some of the effects of COVID-19 and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

WASH

The WASH supplement was created in response to Aflatoun International’s network demand for a specific material that focuses on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. This material is based on the vision that children and their communities have important roles in adopting good hygiene practices and managing water efficiently in everyday life or in the case of pandemics. The activities included in the supplement involve interactive learning methods to engage participants in an inclusive manner and address themes like safe drinking and, food safety, water scarcity, female and male intimate hygiene.

SEL

The importance of hygiene and sanitation has been emphasised more than ever during the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic, however, has also left its mark on children’s mental health. In response, Aflatoun International, with support of the partner network, created the Social Emotional Learning Supplement. This manual, aimed at children in the Aflatoun core programme, provides students with social-emotional skills. The supplement includes activities to help participants develop their emotional awareness and find tools to become more resilient and work towards their social and financial fulfilment.

These supplements are available for all our network partners. For more information contact gabriela@aflatoun.org.

Want to learn more about our curricula? Check out this page.