Bhutan
Save the Children started its first program in Bhutan in 1982. Today, we continue to work closely with children, their families and communities, the Royal Government of Bhutan and other partners to meet the ever-changing needs and ensure positive physical, cognitive and social-emotional development of all Bhutanese children.
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Challenges for Children
Some 20 percent of Bhutanese children have no access to education because they live in extremely poor or hard-to-reach isolated areas, or because they belong to ethnic minorities or have physical or mental disabilities. Unemployment among older youth also is a concern, as youth migrate from rural to urban centers in search of employment. Statistics show youth unemployment more than doubled between 1998 and 2005. Bhutanese children and youth also are being increasingly exposed to the negative side of modernization: alcohol consumption, drug use, teen-age pregnancies and forced marriages, violence and youth-related crime.
Numbers at a Glance
- The mortality rate of children under age 5 is 62 deaths per 1,000 live births.
- Infant mortality rate is 40 deaths per 1,000 live births.
- Maternal mortality rate is 255 per 1,000 live births.
- Adult literacy rate is 52.8 percent.
Our Response
Education: Save the Children has enhanced children’s access to education by constructing and rehabilitating community primary schools in remote areas and training teachers in classroom management and multi-grade and multi-ability teaching. We also provide scholarships to the most disadvantaged children — those from poor families and remote communities, children in conflict with the law, children with physical and mental disabilities and children from ethnic minority communities. To date, 7,629 children have benefited from schools supported by Save the Children.
Youth Programs: Save the Children has established youth centers in Thimphu, Phuntsholing and Zhemgang, where over 10,000 adolescents and youth access informational materials, attend youth forums, receive counseling services, watch educational movies/documentaries, learn basic computer skills and interact with friends/peers to discuss relevant issues.
Plans for the Future
Save the Children will continue to work through its education and youth programs to improve the lives of more than 120,000 Bhutanese girls and boys.
Life in Bhutan - My Village Has a School
Ten-year-old Dorji of Tshelingor village is joyous about her new school, Resinang Community Primary School, because she no longer sleeps in fear of waking during the night to find wild animals in her room.
The youngest in her family of four, Dorji used to walk three hours each way to attend the closest school. After a year of this exhausting daily journey, her parents built a one-room temporary hut near the school, so Dorji and her sister could live close by. Although her parents tried to visit on weekends, it was difficult for them during the farming season. Relying on her sister's minimal cooking skills for meals and tolerating the shifts in weather, the days would pass fairly well for Dorji, but the nights were frightening. "By the kind of sounds the wild animals made at night, I used to wonder how dreadful they must be," Dorji says. "Rain and cold wind were not much of a problem."
But when Save the Children built the Resinang School in Dorji's village, everything changed for the better. The school was so close that Dorji could live at home and go to school each day. Many other students also were extremely happy because they no longer had a long, tiring and often risky walk to school. The head teacher pointed out that children were able to get more attention and space in the new classroom. Parents were grateful, too; as one said, "Previously, we constantly worried about the long walk, and it gets worse during monsoon, when it rains and gets muddy; and we also have the fear of attack by wild animals, since it is heavily forested. Now we worry less about our children, as the new community school is quite near to our villages."
