Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, but it's not too late to honor that special woman in your life with gifts that will make a lasting impression—UNICEF Inspired Gifts.

Inspired Gifts is an innovative program that allows you to purchase real, lifesaving products—like family water kits and oral rehydration salts—to be shipped directly to one of over 150 countries where UNICEF is saving children's lives.

Unfortunately, we know mothers in Myanmar are facing unbelievable challenges this Mother's Day. Thankfully, UNICEF's Myanmar office has already delivered essential supplies—including first aid kits and oral rehydration salts—to the hard-hit areas of Myanmar.

Help us restock our warehouse shelves with family water kits, oral rehydration salts, and mosquito nets before the next disaster strikes. Then, let her know about your gift with a personalized ecard. 

She'll be honored, and both of you will be proud. Happy Mother's Day!

This winter, American Airlines and UNICEF want to reward YOU for helping save children’s lives. Until January 31, 2008, you can earn American Airlines miles when you donate to UNICEF. For every dollar you donate to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, you’ll receive two AAdvantage miles. Of course, you must be an AAdvantage member to get your miles; and you can only take advantage of this online offer by visiting our Donate and Earn Miles page. Go to our Gifts that Give page to find out more.

You can also donate your unused Delta or Northwest Airlines miles directly to UNICEF. If you’re a Delta SkyMiles member, you can donate your miles to any of the charities participating in Delta’s SkyWish program, including UNICEF. If you have a Northwest WorldPerks account, you can donate your miles to participating AirCares charity partners, including UNICEF. With UNICEF active in over 150 countries to save children’s lives, you know those miles will be put to good use.

If you want to find out more about giving a gift that helps save children's lives, visit our Gifts that Give page.

Things are getting festive! If you give one of our Gifts that Give to deck your halls, part of the sales price goes back to UNICEF. Here are some gifts that celebrate the holiday spirit.

Every year, Baccarat designs a limited edition holiday ornament commemorating the UNICEF Snowflake that hangs above Fifth Avenue in New York and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This year’s stainless steel ornament features a dye cut of the UNICEF Snowflake, and retails for $95. For every ornament sold, Baccarat donates 20 percent of the purchase price to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Twenty million children are currently displaced through conflict or human rights violations. Hallmark has designed a special commemorative bouquet to support UNICEF’s program for children caught in such emergencies. For every UNICEF bouquet sold (purchase price $59.95), Hallmark will donate 5 percent of the purchase price to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to help children in emergencies.

This season, your holiday gifts can help save children’s lives. Go to our Gifts that Give page for more information.

Water: It’s the most basic necessity. Yet one billion--that’s right, one billion--people do not have access to safe water. 425 million children under 18 face water shortages. And 1.5 million children under five die every year from diseases where lack of adequate sanitation and clean water is a contributing factor. You can help UNICEF reduce these needless deaths by buying an Inspired Gift that gives children access to safe, clean drinking water.

By giving a water pump ($408), you are providing clean water for an entire community. UNICEF designed this sturdy deep-well hand pump, which has already been installed in over a million communities.

A basic family water kit ($130) contains buckets, collapsible water containers, soap, and water purification tablets and is especially useful in emergencies. Your gift will help 10 families.

When you give water, you really do give life.

This holiday season, you can add a little sparkle to someone's life and help save a child at the same time. If you give one of our Gifts that Give this holiday season, part of the purchase price will be donated to UNICEF. Who said all that glitters isn't gold?

To celebrate its partnership with UNICEF, Tiffany and Co. created a silver snowflake charm inspired by the UNICEF Snowflake that shines outside Tiffany's Fifth Avenue store. The sterling silver charm comes in two sizes and retails for $85 and $100. When you purchase a charm at any New York area Tiffany store through December 31, Tiffany's will donate 25 percent from the sale to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Cartier donated $1.2 million dollars from the sales of its LOVE Charity bracelets to charities last year, and is continuing that tradition this year. UNICEF Ambassador Sarah Jessica Parker is supporting the blue silk cord UNICEF LOVE Charity bracelet, and Cartier will donate $100 from the sale of each bracelet (retail price $475) to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Available in 35 boutiques. For more information and boutique locations, visit www.love.cartier.com

Nearly 10 million children under five die each year. Malnutrition plays a role in over half of these deaths. 20 million babies a year are born with low birth weight and need nourishment to grow healthy and strong. If you would like to help feed these vulnerable children, give an Inspired Gift this holiday season.

Plumpy Nut Therapeutic Nutrition is a new, high-protein food paste. Three packs a day can save the life of a malnourished child. First used in Darfur, Sudan, Plumpy Nut reduced malnutrition there by over 50 percent. For $68, you can feed ten children for one whole month.

Other gifts that nourish include High Energy/Protein Biscuits, which are used in emergency situations to quickly provide nourishment to young children. And when breastfeeding is not an option, therapeutic milk helps a baby grow . Finally, an infant scale can help monitor a child's growth and keep illness at bay.

For more information on these and other gifts, go to our Inspired Gifts page.

Who doesn't like getting a new book to curl up with? And this holiday season, Tommy Hilfiger has partnered with UNICEF to offer some unique gifts that keep on giving.

When you purchase his new book, Iconic America: A Roller-Coaster Ride Through the Eye-Popping Panorama of American Pop Culture (retail price $60), Tommy Hilfiger will donate $5 to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. The coffe-table book, created with George Lois, features a mosaic of iconic images that describe the American experience.

But that's not all! The designer has also launched a new clothing line, the Capsule Collection, to support UNICEF this holiday season. T-shirts sell for $52, while sweatshirts go for $75-$100. For each item from the collection sold, Tommy Hilfiger will donate $5 to the U.S. fund for UNICEF.

To see more books to give, go to our online store, where all your purchases help UNICEF save children's lives. For all of our partners' gifts that support UNICEF this holiday season, go to our Gifts that Give page.

Give someone a gift that works twice as hard! Every time you buy one of our special Gifts that Give this holiday season, our partners donate part of the purchase price directly to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Here are some more of our partners’ gifts, or go to our Gifts that Give page to see all the goods.

Gucci is celebrating its longstanding partnership with UNICEF in two ways. First, the company has designed an entire line of accessories to support UNICEF. Until December 31, Gucci will donate 25 percent of its sales from this line to UNICEF programs that provide lifesaving health care, protection, clean water, and education to children in Malawi and Mozambique. The iconic piece in this collection is an exclusive version of Gucci’s much-loved Indy Bag. Gucci will donate 25 percent of the sales of its "Gucci for UNICEF" Indy bag to support UNICEF’s critical treatment and prevention programs for children in Mozambique and Malawi through November 2008.

While the pen may be mightier than the sword, millions of children around the world cannot read or write. This holiday season, Montblanc is supporting UNICEF's efforts to educate children and reduce illiteracy. When you purchase the special edition Meisterstück 149 "Power to Write" pen (retail price $695), Montblanc will donate $149 to support UNICEF education programs around the world. So your gift will keep on giving long after the holidays are over.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child--a guiding principle for UNICEF--is the most ratified human rights treaty in history. One right of a child is the right to education and recreation. Schools are often destroyed in emergencies, and recreation--vital for children's psycho-social well-being--is easily neglected. With our Inspired Gifts program, you can help protect these rights.

A School-in-a-Box kit contains pencils, notebooks, multiplication tables, and even a chalkboard. This portable school has been used in emergencies all over the world, so that children can go to school even during a crisis.

Here’s a video of the journey that a UNICEF School-in-a-Box takes.

Playing sports can give children hope and confidence. Our recreation kit, containing sports equipment like balls and team vests, lets children get healthy, socialize with other kids, and simply have fun--even in dire circumstances.

You can also give a gift that fulfills basic needs in an emergency. A tent protects a child from the elements and gives a family a much-needed home. A manually powered radio can warn remote communities of impending natural disasters.

To see all our gifts that can help save a child, go to the Inspired Gifts page.

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day.

For too long, children have been the missing face in the HIV and AIDS response and their needs are often overlooked. But they are the ones who offer the greatest hope for defeating the epidemic.

Mother-to-child transmission is the primary cause of HIV infection in children. And it is preventable. HIV test kits can help stop the transmission of HIV to unborn children. This holiday season, you can purchase an HIV test kit in yours or someone else's name and help stop the spread of AIDS.

Another way to make a big impact: give a gift that helps immunize children against deadly childhood diseases. Vaccination works: The Measles Initiative just announced that through global efforts measles deaths in Africa have fallen 91 percent since 2000!

For $23, you can buy enough measles vaccine to vaccinate 50 children. $40 can buy a bicycle that will allow field workers to deliver vaccines to remote villages. And $560 can buy a cold box to store vaccines in the hottest climates.

Check out our Inspired Gifts shop to learn more about giving gifts that help UNICEF save children's lives.

UNICEF is all about children. So our partners have come up with some gifts for the kids on your holiday gift list. If you purchase any of our Gifts that Give, part--or all--of that purchase price will benefit UNICEF.

Here are just a few of our Gifts that Give:

IKEA Soft Toys. For every soft toy you buy at IKEA during the holiday season, IKEA will donate $1 to be split between the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Save the Children. Toys range in price from 99 cents to $19.99.

ATP “Feder-bear” Beanie Baby. Roger Federer, UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador and the world’s Number 1 Tennis Player, is now also a Beanie Baby! For every one of these specially designed plush bears purchased for $8, ATP will donate $5 to its ACE partnership program with UNICEF, helping children around the world.

You can even donate Pampers Rewards Points. If you’re a member of the Pampers Gifts to Grow Rewards program, you can donate your points to UNICEF. For every point you give, Pampers will donate 5 cents to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to help provide life-saving tetanus vaccines to pregnant women.

And don't forget UNICEF's online shop, where you can buy children's games, puzzles, toys, books, and videos. So give a gift that helps save a child's life.

UNICEF is making it possible for you to purchase some of the products it uses in emergencies like the Bangladesh cyclone to save kids' lives.

You can buy these items either in your own name, or give them as a gift in someone else’s name. For example, for $22 you can give oral rehydration salts (pictured here) that can save a child from dehydration. For $30 you can give high-protein biscuits, developed especially for emergency situations. And for $305 you can purchase an emergency health kit that provides three months of health care for 1,000 people.

Visit our Inspired Gifts store to see how to purchase these and other lifesaving gifts.

This holiday season, give an Inspired Gift and help save a child’s life.

Some very important people were recently honored here in our New York office: the winners of the Pier 1/UNICEF/Weekly Reader greeting card contest! Here they are with U.S. Fund for UNICEF President Caryl Stern: Karen Hong (age 13), Shone Williams (age 8), and Josephine Kao (age 11).

The cards they designed will be sold exclusively at Pier 1 Imports stores through the holiday season. Each pack of ten cards costs $10, and Pier 1 is donating 100% of the sale price to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF! So your money goes directly towards helping save children’s lives.

UNICEF started selling greeting cards in 1949, when a 7-year-old girl gave a painting to UNICEF to express her gratitude for the aid given to her war-torn Czech village. Congratulations to our young winners, who are carrying on this tradition.

Yes, the holidays are pretty much here.

And that means cards to write, meals to make, traffic to navigate—and gifts to give. But does your niece really need another doll? And doesn’t your bookworm friend get all his reading material at the local library anyway? How about giving a gift that really matters--a gift that can help save a child's life.

UNICEF USA has launched a new online store called Inspired Gifts.These are lifesaving items that you purchase in your own or in someone else’s name that will go directly to children in need in one of the 150+ countries where UNICEF works. They range from vaccines, to protein biscuits, to recreation kits. So now you can show your niece the true meaning of the holiday season, give your friend the gift of making a difference, and, best of all, give a child the gift of life.

We’ll be highlighting all of the Inspired Gifts and other special shopping opportunities on this blog throughout the holdiday season. To get you started, how about 2 insecticide-treated mosquito nets for $15?

In Africa, a child dies from malaria every 30 seconds. A mosquito net can lower the rate of infection by 50 percent. Just $15 buys two repellant-treated mosquito nets that can save a child’s life. That's pretty simple math.