Emergencia SOS: DANA Valencia

SOS Children’s Villages Spain participated as a sponsoring organisation in the 1st Emergencies Without Emergency Forum, promoted by Keeping Children Safe. The forum provided a space for exchange and reflection on organisational child safeguarding in crisis and humanitarian response contexts. The organisation’s participation helped reinforce a key message: in an emergency, the protection of children and adolescents cannot be pushed into the background.

The organisation took part in a discussion panel alongside international organisations and child protection experts to explore the risks, challenges and good practices that arise during emergencies. In this space, SOS Children’s Villages Spain highlighted its experience in international cooperation, humanitarian action and child protection, sharing lessons learned both from an institutional perspective and from field intervention, with the participation of SOS Children’s Villages Guatemala.

In her speech, Nadia Garrido Annoni, Director of Advocacy, Development Cooperation and SOS Academy at SOS Children’s Villages Spain, stressed that crises are no longer exceptional, but a persistent reality in many contexts. For this reason, child protection must be understood as a humanitarian priority in itself. She also recalled that every organisation has the responsibility to prevent risks, do no harm and act upon any sign of violence, exploitation or neglect—an obligation that is not reduced in emergency contexts, but strengthened.

During her presentation, Nadia emphasised that emergency response must integrate protection from the preparedness phase, include accessible and safe reporting, investigation and response mechanisms, and guarantee a child-centred approach, with confidentiality, psychosocial support and no revictimisation. She also advocated for child protection with a cultural and rights-based approach, grounded in the universality of rights, the do-no-harm principle, work with communities and local leadership, and the safe participation of children and adolescents.

Alongside this strategic perspective, the forum also featured the participation of Nicolás Alfaro, National Director of SOS Children’s Villages Guatemala, who shared the organisation’s intervention experience in one of the most vulnerable countries in Latin America, affected by natural disasters, forced displacement and recurring climate crises. In his presentation, Nicolás focused on how emergencies amplify existing risks for children, such as physical and psychological violence, sexual abuse and exploitation, human trafficking and family separation.

Based on this reality, he explained that child and youth safeguarding must be understood as an essential pillar of every humanitarian response. To this end, he presented three fundamental pillars: prevention through preparedness, safe response during emergencies, and care and reparation when cases occur, always with an approach centred on children’s rights and well-being.

Nicolás also shared the experience of the project funded by the Community of Madrid in Jocotán, in Guatemala’s Dry Corridor. This integrated intervention seeks to strengthen 200 caregiving families so they can feed, protect and care for the health of children under the age of five in a context of food insecurity. The project brings together actions in child nutrition, basic healthcare, psychosocial support and community strengthening, including monthly meetings in safe spaces, community campaigns, workshops and drills, as well as coordination with public institutions, local governments and protection networks.

The findings shared from Guatemala show the need to integrate child protection into every phase of the response. These included the weak presence of local risk-management structures, limited knowledge of response plans, the lack of early warning systems and the fragility of child protection networks, alongside social risk factors such as the normalisation of violent practices and limited access to healthcare services.

SOS Children’s Villages’ participation in this forum, in addition to its role as sponsor, reaffirms its commitment to humanitarian action that places children at the centre and understands protection not as an optional component, but as a collective responsibility. The organisation maintains that an effective crisis response must guarantee safe environments, strengthen families, coordinate with public protection systems and listen to children and adolescents as key actors in their own protection.