A safe space for girls to grow online

The internet and information technology widens access to learning, enhances the quality of education and empowers users with new skills and opportunities.  Recent research by Intel Corporation and backed by data from the U.S State Department and UN Women found nearly 25% fewer women and girls are online than men and boys, and this gender gap climbs to above 45% in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. The report issues a call to double the number of women and girls online in developing countries from 600 million today to 1.2 billion in 3 years.

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Seven ways Plan is improving children's access to health around the world

Empowering girls to understand the risks of early pregnancy in Zambia

Operating health centres in Indonesia

Building toilets in Timor Leste

Empowering women to educate other mothers about the importance of health in Sri Lanka

Reducing the rate of mother and child deaths in Cambodia

Every child deserves the right to health. 
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Eradicting female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone

At the age of 16 Christiana was forced to marry a man older than her father and to take part in a secret FGM ceremony to initiate her into womanhood. “All the women in our family have been initiated. They were preparing me for marriage. The man who wanted to marry me told my family into initiate me into the secret society. I was not pleased about that because my granny who raised me was not around. When we went there I was so afraid. I almost fainted in the process. I was really painful, that was why I was so afraid. ”

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Plan UK

Throughout the last year the focus of each month has been different covering all of Plan International's core areas and campaigns: education, health, water and sanitation, protection, economic security, emergencies, child participation and sexual health, including HIV, Because I am a Girl, Count Every Child and Learn Without Fear.

Over the next six months, until the end of June, the focus will change to specific Plan foundraising countries and what they do.

The focus of May is Plan UK

Right to health: what you need to know

Children who access their rights have the best start to life. But what are child rights, and why is health one of them? Here's what you need to know about every child’s right to health, no matter where in the world they are. 

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The goal shooter: Christine's story

A year ago Christine’s form on the netball field plummeted. For the passionate 15-year-old who was once hailed her school’s best player, this was devastating.

“I was so careful, I feared to move, I wouldn’t jump or scatter my legs,” says the teenager who lives in the rural town of Tororo in eastern Uganda.

“I was afraid and worried because I didn’t know what was happening to me. The first time I got sick, I would just lie still, be quiet and sleep. I was in so much pain.” 

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Children bear the brunt of climate change

Children will be severely affected by climate change in Eastern and Southern Africa, warns a report released by Plan and Practical Action. The effects of climate conditions are becoming visible by the day, and children are experiencing them the most, the report states. Children bear a disproportionate burden of the consequences of climate change such as an increase in hunger, disease, population displacements and resource-based conflicts. For example, the report says, the time spent to access safe water is increasing.

For 75% of the households in the study it required 30 minutes to get to a water source and for 18% it took between two and three hours. Women (63%) and children under five years (25%) were more affected by water shortages. ‘Sometimes women have to camp overnight near the waterholes until they fill up again, exposing them to a series of risks,’ the report says.

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