The pandemic is far from normal. It’s almost like living in a war but with an enemy you cannot see. It strikes, hurts and kills and you are helpless to fight back. Increasing number of adults are reporting anxiety, depression and overwhelm. Children have it tougher, often with no voice or vocabulary to express their lack of understanding of the distortion around them. This is equal to trauma and it has it’s impact, like every trauma, in the long term. We have to accept it. We also have to equip ourselves with an understanding of what it looks like.

Schools for more than 168 million school children globally have been closed for almost a year. At least 1 in 3 schoolchildren have been unable to access remote learning while their schools were closed. At least 1 in 7 children and young people lived under stay-at-home policies for most of 2020, leading to feelings of anxiety, depression and isolation. Child helplines report an increased number of calls from children experiencing loneliness. There is also a huge jump in cases of child abuse. And this is only what is reported.

This survey is aimed at creating an awareness of the impact and coping or lack of coping as shown by kids across ages on various parameters. The compiled global data provides insight to normalize some ways of coping and create support for those that could be concerning.

Thank you in advance for your participation to understand kids around the world better.

Coz your kids, they need a voice!