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MengHy, 12, collects snails to sell on Tonle Sap lake in Kompong Thom province, Cambodia. MengHy and his siblings Sreynut and Sreyleung live with their grandfather, Ky, and uncle Southea in a small floating house on the shores of the lake. They were abandoned by their parents some time ago. Their uncle gets up at 5am every day to catch fish to support the family. MengHy and his sister, Sreynut, also help support the family by going out to fish for snails on the lake. They bring these home to cook and sell as the fish can be hard to find
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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Sreynut, 14, stands for a portrait on her grandfather’s floating home on Tonle Sap lake. Sreynut says: ‘Our house is made of wood. We have a small broken boat. There are storms and wind and when they happen, I feel so scared. When I stay at home. I help my grandfather doing housework, like cleaning’
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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MengHy, 12, swims by his grandfather’s floating house. Ky has witnessed the impact of climate change firsthand: ‘In the dry season, [there are] less fish compared to the past years. The water is also dirty. We bought fresh water from the land to drink but it’s expensive. My grandchildren are not able to go to school because of Covid-19. I do hope that they will be educated and be able to find a good job’
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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Sreang lives with her husband and four children on the shores of Tonle Sap lake. She has lived here for more than 30 years and witnessed the devastating effects of climate change on the lake and her family’s livelihood, as fish stocks have rapidly depleted. They can scatter their nets up to five times and not get even one or two kilos to sell: sometimes they don’t catch anything at all. Sreang worries when there are storms, as they can’t make any money, which means she will struggle to feed her family and pay for her children to go to school
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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Sreang’s daughter Mara, nine, on a platform on Tonle Sap lake. Mara loves living by the lake, but lives in fear of the ferocious storms and says the water is not fit to drink because of pollution. Sreang’s main concern is for the future of her children, as when they finish primary school she has no idea where she will be able to afford to send them to continue their education. If fish stocks continue to deteriorate in the lake, they will become poorer and poorer, as there will be very little for her to sell to support her family
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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Chenla lives on Tonle Sap Lake with her parents and three siblings. The family all live in the same small boat as they cannot afford a house. Chenla says it is difficult living with a large family in such a small space, with just a palm leaf roof to shelter them from the sun. They have a small plastic tent for when it rains, but it doesn’t stop the water coming in. The family make about GBP3.50 a day from selling the fish they catch, which only covers rice and petrol for the boat, so there is little money for anything else
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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During storms, they can’t fish, which means they don’t earn anything. Chenla’s father, Sambath, 66, has lived on the lake since 1979 and has noticed lots of changes – the sun getting hotter, the rain patterns changing and illegal fishing – which he believes have affected the numbers of fish. Sambath says people created a lot of the problems through overfishing, cutting down the forest and destroying the lake’s resources. He used to go out on the lake and catch fish weighing between 3kg and 5kg. Now it has all changed and there are fewer fish, leaving him struggling to feed his family
Photograph: Lim Sokchanlina/Save the Children
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Pollution and climate change pose a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of millions of people in Pakistan. The country’s urban air pollution is among the most severe in the world. People burn massive amounts of solid waste, including plastic and rubber, on street corners, releasing toxic gases. Save the Children has formed 29 eco-clubs in schools across Pakistan where students can learn eco-friendly practices, such as reducing the use of plastic, proper disposal of waste and tree plantation
Photograph: Nad E Ali/Save the Children
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Zahra, 12, worries about the air quality in her home city, Lahore. ‘It affects my family because pollution can make us sick in our homes.’ She attends a Save the Children eco-club at her school where they learn eco-friendly practices and spread the message of climate change. ‘There is a lot of pollution. People burn trash in the street. I tell my parents and friends that we should not do that … We should not burn trash, we should plant trees, we should keep clean, that is important for climate change’
Photograph: Nad E Ali/Save the Children
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Abdullah, 13, loves cricket and studying at school, where his favourite subject is English. He is also passionate about the environment. ‘I try to help plant as much as I can as I feel it is our responsibility. I know that it is important for us to act. We are told that pollution is causing a lot of problems and rubbish is a huge issue. There is pollution everywhere. When we plant many trees and don’t pollute, our environment will get better’
Photograph: Nad E Ali/Save the Children
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Mariam lives with her parents, brother and sister in Lahore. Her mum is worried about the effect of pollution and poverty on her children. The pollution ‘is not good for health, and yes, it affects our children’s health, as they can get sick’. Mariam attends the eco-club at her school. ‘We will plant as many trees as we can. We will not burn our rubbish, we will dispose of it properly. We will also tell others to not burn their rubbish’
Photograph: Nad E Ali/Save the Children
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Margie, her husband, Gary, and their four children, Finn, Oscar, Harry and Romy, moved to Batemans Bay, Australia, in 2016. For their first month, it was wet season and rained constantly. Then, in October, the bushfires began. One day the family were told of a fire in the area and evacuated to a local beach along with thousands of others. The children remember seeing the sky turn orange. Harry, 11, remembers crying as he saw the fire approaching. ‘I remember seeing metal fly up through the smoke. We saw burnt leaves just falling on the ground’
Photograph: Matthew Abbott/Save the Children
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From there, the family drove directly through bushfire to reach an evacuation centre. When they were eventually able to return home, miraculously their house had survived. But wildlife was missing, and spot fires constantly popped up. Romy says: ‘It felt like touching the back of your neck when you’ve just been out in the sun. The thing that worries me a heap is that what if there’s more fires that are going to come? What if our house gets burned down?’ Margie says: ‘Hopefully, we’ll do more and look after the planet, like to reduce our waste and have a better impact on the environment’
Photograph: Matthew Abbott/Save the Children
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Jim has lived in Batemans Bay for 25 years, and his daughter Raeden grew up there. In November 2019 their lives changed forever when some of the largest bushfires in living memory hit the area. Like many, Jim was unprepared for the fire and evacuation, with no time to pack up their belongings as the fire approached. At 6.30am Jim received a text message warning of the fire and by 11.15am everything had been destroyed by the blaze. Jim tried to fight the fire for 25 minutes, but there was no water pressure and no firefighters. He was left helpless and forced to watch his home burn to the ground
Photograph: Matthew Abbott/Save the Children
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Raeden describes the fire as a ‘monster of flames’ that came crashing towards her: because of its size it could be seen for miles around. She has struggled with the fact her childhood home is gone, often reliving the experience through triggers such as missing her favourite teddy that was lost in the blaze. After two weeks, she went to see the remnants of their home, and says she just felt numb. Though Jim remembers bushfires in the past, he says the temperatures are increasing and he no longer sees the thunderstorms that provide relief from the intense heat
Photograph: Matthew Abbott/Save the Children
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Raeden says: ‘I was really upset just to see the house not there, but then I also didn’t know how to feel about it. So I just kind of was numb, just shocked. It’s just a big, like, monster of flames just crashing towards you. You can practically see it from everywhere, and especially with all the winds that was going on it just pushed the fire through’
Photograph: Matthew Abbott/Save the Children
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