Save the Children

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A new climate-resilient school built to withstand extreme weather has opened in Pakistan's Sindh province, where just one in five of the nearly 20,000 schools that were destroyed or damaged in catastrophic flooding two years ago have been or are being rebuilt, Save the Children said.

The school, built by Save the Children and now handed over to the Sindh Ministry of Education and Literacy, replaces a building that was destroyed in 2022 and is designed to withstand flooding, with high ceilings and increased ventilation to keep students cool during intense heatwaves, and with solar panels to provide sustainable, uninterrupted electricity. It will benefit 412 students.

The hope is that the new climate-resilient school will pave the way for future similar projects in Sindh province, where about 19,808 schools were damaged or destroyed two years ago, disrupting learning for 2.9 million children, with Sindh province one of the hardest hit areas.

Since the floods, only 1 in 5 schools - or about 4,000 - have been or are being rebuilt due to a lack of funding, said Save the Children, leaving about 2.3 million children without adequate classrooms.

More than 1,700 people lost their lives in Pakistan in the 2022 floods, which displaced around 8 million people. So far this year, more flooding across the country has killed 357 people, including 183 children. Intense heatwaves are also jeopardizing children's health and their rights. Temperatures exceeding 45°C in parts of Sindh lead to more than 15,700 people in the province being treated for heat-related illnesses between May and July and the closure of schools for more than half of the country's school-aged children.

Children attending the new school had been forced to learn under tarpaulins over the past two years. Pakistan has one of the world's highest rates of children out of school. About 36% of children aged five to 16 - or 25.3 million – are not attending classes. More than three-quarters of those have never attended school.

Save the Children has been working in Pakistan since 1979 and was the first international NGO to respond to the 2022 floods emergency, reaching more than 1.1 million people in flood-affected areas, including about 600,000 children. Among them, 27,400 people have benefited from education programs, including temporary learning centers and teacher training, and the reconstruction of schools.

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Links:

• Save the Children - Where We Work - Pakistan