Child Friendly Spaces

[1] They provide children with opportunities to develop, play, learn, and strengthen resiliency either after a crisis or during a protracted emergency in a safe, child friendly, and stimulating environment.

[1] One reason for their popularity is that they offer potential for adaptability of activities to diverse contexts, rapid deployment, and low relative costs.

Given that stress levels and incidents of abuse rise during emergencies, providing children with this space and parents with time can mitigate risks.

[3] They then became a common part of the humanitarian response and have since been used in Angola, Chad, Colombia, Denmark, East Timor, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Russia, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Serbia, Somalia, Spain, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, and Uganda, among other countries.

[3] World Vision and Columbia University, along with Save the Children, UNICEF and others, engaged in a three-year collaborative project to document the outcomes and impacts of CFS.