07/06/2026
This World Environment Day, we didn't mark the occasion with another seminar that ends when the chairs are stacked away. We chose to leave something behind that endures.
Today, CLADO, with the support of the of Youth Affairs KP , and in collaboration with Adabiyat-e-Atfal KP, proudly launched "Fitrat ke Muhafiz" an anthology of 20 original Urdu short stories written for children on environmental themes, by 20 writers from across our province.
The title means "Guardians of Nature," and that is exactly how we want our children to see themselves: not as helpless witnesses to a changing climate, but as its protectors and stewards.
We were honoured to host Mr. Muhammad Usman, District Youth Officer Peshawar, as our Chief Guest, alongside our CEO Abdur Rehman Afridi, Dr. Raj Muhammad Afridi (President, Adabiyat-e-Atfal KP), and the wonderful writers whose imagination fills these pages.
This is not where our climate journey began. CLADO was the first in the region to publish a trilingual booklet on Understanding Climate Change in Pashto, Urdu, and English because we believe the climate conversation cannot remain locked inside policy briefs and English-language reports. It has to reach people in the languages they think, dream, and tell stories in.
For us, climate is not a side project. It is one of the most urgent questions of our generation, and we are choosing to meet it on our own terms: through culture, through art, and through literature. Where others reach for charts and carbon budgets, we reach for stories, because a child who falls in love with a river in a story will spend a lifetime protecting it.
This is what addressing climate change looks like, the CLADO way.
To the writers, the partners, and the young people who made today possible: thank you. This book is for the children of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and for the world they will inherit.
