UNICEF in Uruguay gets creative
Here's a quick trivia question: What's the capital of Uruguay?
It's Montevideo. If you didn't answer correctly, don't feel too bad. Most people don't know much about this small South American nation, which is often overshadowed by its larger and better-known neighbors like Colombia and Argentina.
Which is why it was such a treat to have Uruguay's UNICEF Representative, Tom Bergmann-Harris, drop by last week and tell us all about the country, its children and what UNICEF is doing to help those in need.
Faced with one of the country's worst economic crises in history, Uruguay is struggling to provide their children with a good education. Many rural schools are in tatters with few books and scant schools supplies. Current school drop-out rates top 40 percent in some communities.
To turn the spotlight on this issue, the creative staff at UNICEF in Uruguay grabbed the media's attention this past winter by organizing a cross-country horseback trek to visit rural schools. Why on horseback? Because it's the traditional way many countryside children travel to school in Uruguay.
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| © UNICEF Uruguay/Valerie Booth and Agustin Martinez |
| The UNICEF Horseback team rode 620 miles across Uruguay this past winter, receiving a lot of press coverage. |



Today, the "acronym of the day" is UNICEF. If you ask anyone here at UNICEF you will quickly find out that it no longer stands for United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, the original full name of the organization when it was formed in 1946.
I realized you can think of soccer and children’s aid as inextricably linked because they are each a kind of life support for millions across the globe. Soccer is a global movement, a way of bridging gaps across social classes, language, cultures, etc. It breathes life and dreams into children, just as a vaccine allows a child to think about a future, not a fate.





