Nishi Kumar is working as an intern at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF throughout the Fall. This is her first post for Fieldnotes.
The question echoes throughout war-torn Afghanistan: “What are you doing for peace?” For the third year in a row, all parties have agreed to a complete cease-fire to take place today, September 21.
The UN first declared this date the International Day of Peace in 1981 and in 2001 further designated it “a day of global ceasefire and non-violence”. International and civic organizations will celebrate the brief respite from violence with traditional musical performances, kite-flying contests, a nation-wide message of peace, and humanitarian campaigns.
UNICEF health workers will take advantage of the peace to wage their own war—against the spread of polio. Since 2007, when UNICEF, inspired by documentary filmmaker Jeremy Gilley and his non-profit Peace One Day, helped to broker the first cease-fire, we have conducted widespread immunization campaigns into conflict-affected areas in Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains one of the last four countries where polio, a completely preventable disease, is still considered endemic.
The upsurge in violence since 2008 has proven especially dangerous to the health of Afghan children: twenty cases of polio have already been confirmed for 2009. This year, over 15,000 health workers will perform door-to-door vaccinations across eight provinces and hope to reach 1.2 million children under the age of five.
As the global leader in vaccine supply, UNICEF has vaccinated over 7.5 million children across four countries against the disease but is sometimes unable to access certain regions due to security concerns. "Peace is necessary to access all children and vaccinate them against polio," said UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, Catherine Mbengue. "It takes just a few seconds to immunize a child—but the results last for a lifetime."
