Earlier this month, in a laboratory in West London, a very special meeting took place.
I was honoured to represent Save the Children as the host to the Duke of Sussex and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - The Director General of the World Health Organisation, alongside medics and humanitarian professionals, at Imperial College.
We came together at the Centre for Blast Injuries, to see the cutting-edge research that takes place there and to understand the impact of explosive weapons, specifically on children.
The partnership Save the Children has with the Centre - dedicated to meeting the clinical needs of children injured by explosive weapons – is the first of its kind anywhere in the world.
We reflected on that world as we stood among the robots and 3D printers, many of the group knowing personally and profoundly the impact explosive weapons can have.
10 children in Gaza are losing one or both their legs every single day. It's the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. From Ukraine, to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Myanmar, more and more weapons - designed to pierce through concrete - are piercing children's skin.
Our teams are seeing children lose their legs before they've even learned to walk.
This should never be an inevitable consequence of war. This is the result of the extreme use of air-dropped explosive weapons in the towns and cities where children learn and play. Not only do we need to support children after they’ve been affected, we need to continue our advocacy to make sure this doesn’t happen in the first place.
And that’s what we talked about – knowing that the mission to protect children is huge, but that our ambition is too.
We talked about the Centre’s research into an entirely new, adjustable and affordable prosthetic knee joint that can ‘grow’ with a child. We talked about how the research can be practically applied through our blast injuries manual (soon there will also be a pain manual for frontline responders, translated into nine languages).
We talked about Save the Children’s campaigning – which calls out these visceral violations of child rights and demands governments hold violators to account.
It was inspiring to be in a room with people who feel this cause so personally, and who are totally committed to ensuring children caught up in these devastating conflicts still get the chance to have a happy and healthy future.
It’s painfully clear that our partnership with the Centre for Blast Injuries is more vital than ever before, but it was an honour to share the incredible work we’ve been able to achieve together so far.
