The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) aims to showcase the Pakistani teenagers’ awareness of sustainable development goals through the art exhibition “Empowering with Love: Pakistan”. An officer from CBCGDF noted that the exhibition would collect creative artworks from teenagers to display their understanding of Pakistani refugee and environmental issues to China.
To date, some 2.7 million Afghans have been forcibly displaced by war, conflict and violence. Neighboring Pakistan, which is also a developing country, accepted 1.4 million of them. The sudden influx of people exacerbated the shortage of natural resources. Villages are often far apart, and limited water points require residents to walk hundreds of meters every day to get water. Facing hot weather, people have no electrical appliances for storing and preserving food and medicine. Nonetheless, over the past four decades, Pakistan has made incredible efforts to resettle and protect Afghan refugees and support the maintenance of regional peace.
When humanitarian response capacity is reaching its upper limit, UNHCR has long explored the use of clean energy to meet the challenges faced by host communities and refugee families: water, electricity, light, and heat. In China, UNHCR is joining hands with CBCGDF to contribute to the sustainable use of clean energy for Afghan refugees and Pakistani residents through a youth charity art exhibition since last year. At present, the first batch of excellent works have been summarized.
Through different themes, including new energy robots, marine animals poisoned by pollution, etc., young painters strive to use brush to reshape the fate of many people with light and warmth in Pakistan, many of whom are teenagers like them.
