Children do not start wars. Yet when conflict rages, children are disproportionately punished by its brutality. Here, in the Central African Republic, 1,900,000 most vulnerable children live in a context affected by conflicts and disasters; more than half of them have been forced from their homes. The impact of conflict permeates every facet of a child’s life. It robs them of their friends, family and community, removing their sense of well-being. Of the country’s population of 4.6 million people, 2.9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and almost 20% of them are internally displaced persons, often multiple times (HRP 2019).

Violence has spread into areas that were relatively stable, compounding humanitarian needs. Successive waves of conflict have halted early recovery in much of the country, where conditions are already poor due to extreme poverty and limited basic social services.