Child Resilience and Protection Project

closed

On September 6, 2017 Irma, a Category 5 storm, made landfall on Sint Maarten, leaving a trail of devastation throughout the country, including education sector infrastructures. This natural disaster revealed that schools are insufficiently prepared for natural disasters, that the education system is also not equipped to cope with the psycho-social consequences of natural disasters on students and school staff, and that the child protection system was not prepared to deal with the increased number of child abuse and neglect during and after emergencies.In April 2018, to support rapid and sustainable recovery from Hurricane Irma, the Government of The Netherlands established a Sint Maarten Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience Trust Fund (SXM TF) for up to EUR470 million, to be managed by the World Bank. Since July 2018, the SXM TF, governed by a Steering Committee composed of the Government of Sint Maarten, the Netherlands and the World Bank, has begun to implement selected activities in support of recovery, reconstruction, and resilience under the framework of Sint Maaarten National Recovery and Resilience Plan. These activities are chiefly implemented by the country’s National Reconstruction Planning Bureau. The Project aims to contribute to the Trust Fund’s overall objective of resilient reconstruction.The Project will support the implementation of Sint Maarten’s 2018 National Recovery and Resilience Plan and is aligned with Sint Maarten 2019 Education Master Plan.The Project has four components: (1) Nurturing children and adolescents’ well-being by (a) enhancing the system’s capacity to manage students, parents and school staff’ psycho-social needs and strengthening their resilience; (2) Strengthening Child Protection systems; (3) Strengthening schools and MECYS’ resilience to disasters; and (4) Project Implementation Support.The Project will be implemented by the Non-Governmental Organization UNICEF- Netherlands (UNICEF-NL).The total allocation to this Project is US$5 million. A Project Preparation Grant was granted to UNICEF-NL in April 2020, for an amount of US$512,000. As the result, the amount of the present Grant is US$4,488,000.