2025 RISK Award goes to an indigenous children and youth DRR project in Bolivia

The €100,000 award was granted to the ChildFund International during a ceremony hosted at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2025 by the UN Office for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR) and the Munich Re Foundation, the award’s sponsor.

Representing ChildFund International at the ceremony, Ms. Ximena Loza, Country Director for Bolivia, expressed her gratitude for the recognition:

The Risk Award is an honour to ChildFund in Bolivia, its partners but, most importantly, to the Chuiquitano People, who will bridge their ancestral indigenous wisdom with new technologies to empower children to get on the frontline of Disaster Risk Reduction in the low land forest.

The winning project addresses the current vulnerability and low response capacity of schools, the psychological impacts of wildfires on children, while improving vulnerable schools’ preparedness and resilience to future events, and empowering indigenous youths and school-age children as climate advocates in eight villages from the indigenous territory of Monteverde, belonging to the Chiquitano Nation in Bolivia.

The project’s main objective is to support indigenous schoolchildren, adolescents and youths to become agents of change for emergency preparedness as well as environmental stewards within their schools and villages through an eco-based disaster risk reduction approach, implementing nature-based solutions, rescuing ancestral knowledge from the indigenous elders and using low-cost technologies, such as smartphones and drones, to monitor the forest components.

The award was welcomed by the ceremony’s keynote speaker Ms. Katherine Sotomayor, a representative of youth and the Executive Secretary of the Youth Network for DRR in the Americas and the Caribbean, who said:

This recognition celebrates something deeper than a single action: it celebrates a different way of seeing risk. It celebrates capacity-building from the ground up, with hands that support, with voices that alert, with hearts trained not in fear, but in shared responsibility.

Mr. Dirk Reinhard, Vice Chair of the Munich Re Foundation, congratulated the winner and highlighted the significance of this year’s theme “Children and youths as agents of change for DRR”:

Data from the UNDRR, the UNHCR and many others show that children and young people are disproportionately affected by disasters. Not only are their lives and health at risk, but their developmental opportunities are too. Disasters can interrupt schooling and cause trauma. However, it is important to emphasize that children and young people are not only victims in these situations; they can also become agents of change.

He has noted that this year’s award attracted a record 500 proposals, with 18 shortlisted candidates featured in a dedicated publication.

Ms. Paola Albrito, the UNDRR Director, commended the project for its inspirational impact:

We need more champions of resilience like yourself if we are to accelerate actions to achieve the Sendai Framework by the year 2030.

She also noted that UNDRR is calling on countries to take two key actions: first, protect children and youth from disasters, particularly within schools; second, empower children and youth by educating them about disaster risks they face and involving them in risk governance processes.

About the RISK Award

Launched in 2012, the RISK Award recognizes operational projects in the field of disaster risk reduction, and is awarded every two years based on recommendations from an international jury. The endowment for the RISK Award is provided by the Munich Re Foundation.
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