What we do

NPI works across the interconnected needs of children affected by crisis. Child protection is our foundation and runs through everything we do; education is our entry point into communities; and nutrition, water and sanitation are integrated progressively as our capacity and partnerships grow, in line with our Strategic Plan. Every area of our work is aligned to a recognised humanitarian sector and its standards, so that it connects directly to the wider response.

Child Protection

Sector alignment: Child Protection Area of Responsibility; Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS).

Child protection is our reason for existing. We establish and support community-based child protection — working with families, community leaders and local structures to prevent harm, identify children at risk, and respond. We provide, or connect children to, case management for the most vulnerable, including unaccompanied and separated children, survivors of violence, and children at risk of early and forced marriage. We deliver structured psychosocial support through child-friendly approaches and safe spaces, and we strengthen referral pathways so that a child who discloses harm reaches the right services. Prevention of and response to gender-based violence affecting children, and the prevention of early and forced marriage, are central to this work.

Education in Emergencies

Sector alignment: Education Sector / Education in Emergencies; INEE Minimum Standards for Education.

Education is our entry point and a powerful protective force. We support access to learning for out-of-school children through non-formal, accelerated and catch-up learning and foundational literacy and numeracy, creating pathways into or back to formal schooling. We support safe, inclusive learning spaces, and we address the barriers that keep children out — the costs of schooling, distance and safety, and the norms that particularly exclude girls. We support teachers and facilitators, and we build the protective and psychosocial dimension into learning, so that education spaces are also spaces of safety and recovery.

Nutrition

Sector alignment: Nutrition Sector; Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E).

We address children’s survival and health. We screen young children for acute malnutrition at community level and refer those identified to treatment services, working alongside specialised nutrition actors and the health system. We promote and support appropriate infant and young child feeding, including breastfeeding support for mothers, and we raise community awareness of nutrition and of the danger signs that require care. This work is integrated progressively, from the second year of our Strategic Plan, as capacity and partnerships allow.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

Sector alignment: WASH Sector; Sphere standards.

Safe water and sanitation break the cycle in which unsafe water drives disease and deepens malnutrition. We promote safe hygiene practices at household and community level, support access to safe water and to sanitation appropriate to the setting, and integrate the prevention of and response to waterborne disease — including cholera — into our community work, particularly around seasonal flooding and outbreaks. Like nutrition, WASH is integrated progressively as the organization grows.

Community Resilience, Participation and Accountability

Sector alignment: Cross-cutting; Core Humanitarian Standard; Accountability to Affected Populations.

This is both how we work and an area of work in its own right. We ensure genuine community participation in the design, delivery and review of our programmes; we establish accessible feedback and complaints mechanisms, including confidential channels for sensitive concerns; we give communities clear information about who we are, what they are entitled to, and how to complain; and we strengthen local structures so that capacity to protect and support children remains in the community beyond any single project. Throughout, we apply conflict sensitivity and Do No Harm — a discipline our own Banki assessment underlined.

How our work fits together

These areas are not separate programmes but one integrated response, held together by our focus on children and by cross-cutting commitments to safeguarding, gender and disability inclusion, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, and Do No Harm.