On behalf of the children of Haiti, UNICEF child protection expert Nadine Perrault shares a thank you in a video interview to the volunteers and supporters of the US Fund for UNICEF. Perrault, who is normally based at UNICEF’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office in Panama, was deployed to Haiti to support UNICEF’s work on the ground, including efforts to identify and protect unaccompanied children. During her time there, she witnessed the life saving work of UNICEF and its partners.
Elizabeth Merola recently visited UNICEF programs in Zambia. In this post, she recounts the experience of visiting a rural health clinic.
The drive to Keemba Rural Health Clinic from the closest town is a long and bumpy ride due to the uneven dirt roads. Looking out the window I see children walking to and from school alongside the road and across fields that are being prepared for the first rains of the season. Cows are crazing and ox carts are transporting people from one village to the next.
When we arrive at the clinic, mothers with their children are waiting for post-natal and prevention of mother-to-child treatment (PMTCT) care. The nurses dressed in white stand out among the women with colorful wraps.
I am immediately drawn to Brenda who is 7 months old and attached to the back of her mother, Rolina. Rolina waits patiently in line for her turn to speak with the nurse. Her calmness gives me the impression that there is no urgency for her visit and she has been in this position many times before.
The Permanent Secretary of the District of Lusaka, Mr. Stephen Bwalya, is also present. He empowers the students to inform their teachers when there is no soap at school. The children’s response is laughter which I believe indicates enthusiasm about their new charge.
UNICEF Communication for Development Officer, James Simasiku, also speaks to the children and encourages them to take the messages about cholera prevention home to their families.
Banja plays music, dances and performs skits to reinforce the importance of hand washing. The presentations are fun and entertaining for the students
UNICEF Ambassador Lucy Liu recently traveled to Lebanon, where she met with Syrian children and families who had fled the violence in their homeland.
“It is a children’s crisis,” Ms. Liu said, as she visited a makeshift refugee camp in the Bekaa region of Lebanon.
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