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

Pakistan still inundated

Three weeks after this photo was taken, the humanitarian situation in Pakistan remains dire. This photo of a submerged city in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the northern province which was the first to be hit by massive flooding, is being replicated throughout the flood zone.

Posted by UNICEF USA on August 24, 2010 2:19 PM
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Pakistan update from UNICEF's Muhammad Rafiq

Dr. Muhammad Rafiq is Officer in Charge of the UNICEF Provincial Office in Khyber Pukhtoonkhawa, Pakistan. He send this report from the field.

The recent floods in Pakistan have been the worst I have ever seen in my 53 years. When I was young we heard from our elders that there were great floods in 1929, but we currently think that these are twice as bad. Nobody has any memory of a worse disaster.

For children this was truly terrifying. They were grabbed out of their beds by parents in the middle of the night and had to run to safe ground as water poured into their houses. The only warning they had was from local Mosques telling them to leave. They ran without their shoes and without their belongings.

Posted by Alisa Aydin, UNICEF USA on August 4, 2010 2:25 PM
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Why you should keep giving to help Haiti

	U.S. Fund for UNICEF President, Caryl Stern

U.S. Fund for UNICEF President, Caryl Stern originally wrote this blog post for The Huffington Post on January 20, 2010. Please consider making a donation today to support UNICEF's lifesaving work for children in Haiti.

This has been, without a doubt, one of the saddest yet most rewarding weeks of my life.

News from UNICEF staff on the ground in Haiti is simply heartbreaking. In crammed hospital tents—ringed by piles of amputated limbs, bodies, and raw sewage—injured children lie shocked and alone. Throughout Port-au-Prince, people wander the streets in search of food, water, and lost family members. Chaos continues to choke this devastated nation.

But a huge influx of help has arrived and continues to arrive, thanks to the generosity of the American people. Water, medical supplies, therapeutic food, tents, blankets: tons of supplies and equipment are landing in Haiti. So are teams of experts, men and women seasoned in disaster relief who know how to hit the ground running.

Large humanitarian organizations like UNICEF sometimes get criticized for their very size. People worry that they must be bogged down by bureaucracy, or high administrative costs. But that is simply not the case. And a disaster like the Haiti earthquake starkly demonstrates how valuable size, reach, and decades of experience can be.

Mass amounts of supplies and sophisticated supply networks are needed right now, as are strong, longstanding relationships with the Haitian people and government. Organizations that possess these are able to be faster and more efficient in the current chaos. In addition, because they buy supplies in such large quantities, they are able to negotiate the absolute lowest prices.

Posted by Caryl M. Stern, UNICEF USA President and CEO on January 20, 2010 4:27 PM
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Aid arriving for Haiti: water and sanitation a priority

Relief efforts continued four days after a devastating earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti resulting in wide-spread destruction and unimaginable loss of life.

Urgent relief supplies are making their way onto the island, however damage sustained at Port-au-Prince’s primary port, and congestion at its airport have forced UNICEF and her partners to explore alternate routes to get desperately needed aid to quake victims. One way has been diverting flights into the Dominican Republic— Haiti’s neighbor to the east—and then trucking supplies across the border in convoys.

© U.S. Fund for UNICEF/Alleyne/2010

Specially chartered British Airways jet sits on tarmac in Santo Domingo after arriving from UNICEF's Supply Division in Copenhagen. The urgently needed relief supplies will be trucked across the border in convoys.

One such flight recently landed in the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo, carrying UNICEF relief supplies destined for Port-au-Prince. The specially chartered flight arrived from UNICEF’s Supply Division in Copenhagen on a British Airways jumbo jet. The UK carrier and UNICEF partner, OXFAM helped facilitate the delivery from Denmark and British Airways flight crew were on hand to assist in the offloading of supplies.

On board were tents and reinforced tarpaulin for the provision of temporary shelter, health and hygiene kits, including obstetric and surgical supplies, as well as GPS receivers to help mitigate the challenges in telecommunication and logistical coordination. As cluster lead for water and sanitation in Haiti, one of UNICEF’s priorities is the distribution of family water kits, water purification supplies and other supplies for household-level sanitation.

Posted by Richard Alleyne, UNICEF USA on January 18, 2010 1:16 PM
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Fighting cholera in Zambia

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—a sure way to get the important message across. The students close the event with their own performance - the national anthem sung by the school choir.

UNICEF and its partners of the “Your Life is in Your Hands” campaign are encouraged that the hundreds and hundreds of Twalumba students learned an important lesson that will help keep them safe from cholera during this and future rainy seasons.

Posted by Elizabeth Merola, UNICEF USA on November 17, 2009 11:17 AM
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Back to Iraq

It's pretty amazing how little Iraq is in the news these days. After all, there are still approximately 130,000 American troops in the country, (though between 35,000 and 50,000 troops are expected to pull out of Iraq by August). And there are still bombings every week that kill innocent Iraqis, including children.

© UNICEF/MENA06031/Giacomo Pirozzi

A boy fills his cupped hands with water from a UNICEF-supplied tap in the village of Kanikhan, some 65 km west of the city of Suleimaniyah.

Generally, though, the country continues to get safer. More stable. And this is very good news. One result? After six years of managing operational response from neighboring Amman, Jordan, UNICEF Iraq is relocating senior staff to Baghdad. In the coming year, all members of the Iraq country office will do the same.

Posted by Jen Banbury, UNICEF USA on July 23, 2009 12:27 PM
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No Ordinary Meeting

As a former journalist, I've been to a lot of meetings. School boards, planning commissions, city councils, all manner of community gatherings. Some were contentious, some productive, but the majority fell into one or all of these three categories: tedious, forgettable, and decidedly unremarkable.

Which is why I'm so delighted to report that the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s annual meeting earlier this month at New York's Desmond Tutu Center didn't really feel like a meeting at all. The extraordinary event—which featured moving testimonials from our partners and fascinating firsthand reports from UNICEF staff—packed the emotional power of a stirring ceremony or rally.

The meeting's theme—"Believe in Zero"— couldn't have been timelier. Though UNICEF has helped cut the worldwide child mortality rate by more than half over the last fifty years, 25,000 children still die every day from avoidable causes. Because of the economic crisis, deadly threats to children are actually increasing. It was galvanizing to stand in a room surrounded by so many people who believe that there is nothing more important than saving a child’s life. I'm convinced that, with more people like this, we can come closer and closer to the day when the number of children dying from preventable causes is not 25,000—it's zero.

© U.S. Fund for UNICEF/2009

U.S. Fund for UNICEF President and C.E.O Caryl Stern at the 2009 Annual Meeting.

A series of speakers, including U.S. Fund President and CEO Caryl M. Stern, Board Chair Anthony Pantaleoni, and Nightline co-anchor Cynthia McFadden, told the packed general session crowd about notable accomplishments, remaining challenges, and the need—now more than ever—to remain focused on our mission.

Posted by Adam Fifield, UNICEF USA on June 26, 2009 2:24 PM
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How a UNICEF well changed one girl's life

Twelve-year-old Ajimoh Yaya used to wake up at 4 A.M. each morning, walk more than a mile in the dark to the Abata River, and trudge home with buckets-full of water for her family's cooking, drinking and bathing. The river was the only water source for Ajimoh's village, Araromi Oke, in Ekiti State, Nigeria. In the dry season—when the river was low and prone to contamination—cholera, diarrhea and other waterborne illnesses raged through the community.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2007-0316/Christine Nesbitt

Ajimoh Yaya, 12, washes her younger brother before school at their home in Araromi Oke Village in the southwestern state of Ekiti, Nigera.

The river water didn't just affect the villagers' health; the difficulty of fetching water impacted the lives of everyone, especially children. Even waking up at 4 A.M., Ajimoh's arduous chores meant she was often late for school. And because there was so little water for all the household needs, it was difficult for Ajimoh and her siblings to bathe properly. "I had rashes all over my skin," Ajimoh recalled.

Posted by Jen Banbury, UNICEF USA on March 30, 2009 11:27 AM
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