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Keeping Children Safe and Cool: Climate-Resilient Schools and Health Facilities in a Warming World

28.07.2026
Keeping Children Safe and Cool: Climate-Resilient Schools and Health Facilities in a Warming WorldPhoto credit: UNICEF

Date/time: 28 July 2026 - 14:00 (CEST)

UNICEF and the Global Heat Health Information Network are pleased to invite you to join us on Tuesday, July 28th, 2026 at 8:00 AM NYC /  1:00 PM UK / 5:30 PM India for a discussion on how schools and health facilities can be retrofitted or built from scratch with infrastructure that protects children from extreme heat.  

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Extreme heat is fast becoming one of the defining threats to child health and wellbeing worldwide. According to UNICEF's 2026 Children's Climate Risk Report, 1.5 billion children globally are now exposed to increasingly frequent and severe heatwaves, and 1.2 billion face extreme heat conditions, which are especially acute where schools and health facilities lack the infrastructure to keep children cool and safe. These exposures don't just threaten physical health; they disrupt learning and care delivery at the exact moments children need them most. For instance, in 2024 alone, climate hazards contributed to school disruptions for at least 242 million children. As overlapping climate hazards intensify across low- and middle-income countries, improving indoor thermal comfort in the places that provide critical child services has become an urgent public health priority.

 

Join Global Buildings Performance Network, Arup's International Development Group, the Global Heat Health Information Network, and UNICEF for a conversation on what it takes to translate this urgency into action. We'll cover why climate-resilient infrastructure matters for health outcomes and where children face the greatest heat exposure, before turning to real-world adaptations from the field taking place across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Together, these examples offer practical, tested pathways for practitioners and policymakers working to protect children from a warming world.

 

Speakers:

  • Yasir Arafat, Education officer, UNICEF Pakistan
  • Hayley Gryc, Associate Director, Arup
  • Dohyung Kim, Data Science Specialist, UNICEF
  • Dr. Sunita Purushottam, Country Managing Director, Global Buildings Performance Network
  • Alejandro Saez Reale, WMO/WHO Joint Office for Climate and Health, Global Heat Health Information Network
  • Chiranjibi Tiwari, WASH Manager, UNICEF Nigeria

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