Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field
Entries from Fieldnotes tagged with 'School-in-a-Box'
Lions Clubs help kids in emergencies
For more than 12 years, Lions Clubs International, the largest service club organization in the world, has been an important partner to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF in providing children in emergency situations with School-in-a-Box kits
Monday Photo: UNICEF tent schools
It’s been almost two months since the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Although it seems like there’s less urgency with the news coverage on the quake, there are long-term effects of the disaster. This past weekend, the New York Times published an article commenting on how the earthquake left not only the city in ruins, but the education system as well.
>Read the full article on nytimes.com
Hundreds of teachers, and thousands of students lost their lives in the quake. Many schools and colleges have been destroyed, or are considered too dangerous to resume classes. With less schools and less facilities to properly train more teachers, the education of Haiti's children is in "limbo".
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| © UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0200/Shehzad Noorani |
| Children file into a UNICEF tent school, on the first day of classes in the remote village of Jacquot Merlin, above Port-au-Prince, the capital. UNICEF is also providing the children with educational supplies via a newly delivered school-in-a box kit, containing teaching and learning materials for 80 students. |
This week’s Monday photo shows children filing into a UNICEF tent school, providing much needed education support. UNICEF is also providing educational materials for students and teachers.
UNICEF is there before, during, and after an emergency. UNICEF is the lead coordinating agency for education, child protection, nutrition and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and is working with the Government, other UN agencies, international and local NGOs and private partners across these and other sectors.
To support UNICEF’s continued efforts in Haiti, please visit www.unicefusa.org/haitiquake.
More Than Just Toys
The box is full of goodies that would elicit squeals of delight from any toddler. UNICEF’s new Early Childhood Development Kit contains 37 different items—including dominoes, coloring pencils, building blocks, hand puppets, memory games, and cuddly stuffed animals—that can help provide a sense of normalcy for young children whose lives have been upended by disaster and conflict.
Launched earlier this month in Geneva, the kit was designed to help foster curiosity, development, and interaction for 50 children up to six years of age. The product of years of research, the new kit complements UNICEF’s School-in-a-Box. Read about the reaction of kids who received the kits in areas of Georgia that have been affected by conflict.
Always on the side of children
We're very relieved by the news of the Gaza cease-fire. As is the case with all violent conflicts, children have been suffering the consequences of thoroughly adult problems. UNICEF's mission to help children is vital in times like these. And we're not hampered by being on one side, or on another side—we are simply and always on the side of children.
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| © UNICEF/NYHQ2009-0016/Iyad El Baba |
| Gaza, 2009: On 12 January, a girl waits on a curb with empty water containers in the southern city of Rafah. Approximately 500,000 people have no access to running water. Water and sanitation services have partially collapsed due to considerable damage to the networks, difficulties faced to make repairs and lack of fuel for power. UNICEF is working with partners to distribute supplies, including family water kits. |
As I write, UNICEF is delivering six truckloads of emergency supplies and equipment to Gaza. With water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip badly damaged by fighting, UNICEF is worried about outbreaks of water-related diseases, such as diarrhea and cholera. So, working with our partners, UNICEF has already distributed more than 66,000 bottles of water, and emergency water and sanitation supplies for some 30,000 people.
Fighting also upended normal food supply lines, and many children are going hungry. UNICEF is rushing to distribute 7,500 cartons of high-energy biscuits—enough to feed 80,000 children for three months. We're also sending in much-needed health kits, obstetric surgical kits, midwifery kits, resuscitation kits, first aid kits and surgical instruments.
Sarah Jessica Parker: A small price with a big return
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| © UNICEF/07-0579/Pirozzi | |
| LIBERIA: An infant is weighed in a sling scale, as part of a UNICEF-assisted growth monitoring program, at Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, the capital. |
For the final 12 days of 2008, UNICEF celebrity Ambassadors and supporters are posting daily blog entries about the impact UNICEF Inspired Gifts are having on children around the world.
The holiday presents I love the most are the ones that mean something special. And I don't mean just the gifts I receive, but also the ones I give.
UNICEF Inspired Gifts are the perfect example of meaningful holiday presents your loved ones will always remember. That's because the gift you are really giving is the chance for a struggling child to survive.
Give a UNICEF Inspired Gift of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, high-energy/protein biscuits, or UNICEF School-in-a-Box kits.
The gifts will go directly to children where these vital supplies are needed, and your friend or family member will receive a beautiful acknowledgment that the gift was made in their name.
It's a small price to pay, with a big return... to share with those you love the joy and satisfaction of having saved children's lives.
If you've ever considered supporting UNICEF's work, this is an inspiring way to help those who need it most.
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Thank you and happy holidays!
I am Sarah Jessica Parker, and I believe in zero.
25,000 young children die every day from preventable causes—things like malnutrition, poor sanitation and lack of safe, drinkable water. UNICEF believes that number should be zero.
Clay Aiken: Help kids in emergencies stay in school
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| © UNICEF/05-0203/Pietrasik | |
| SRI LANKA: Eight-year-old Shahid carries a batch of exercise books at Ak-Al Badr Nagar Vidyalaya School in the eastern district of Ampara. The books, which bear the UNICEF logo, are from a shipment of Schools-in-a Box. |
For the final 12 days of 2008, UNICEF celebrity Ambassadors and supporters are posting daily blog entries about the impact UNICEF Inspired Gifts are having on children around the world.
Every child has a right to an education.
Often times in emergency situations, it becomes harder than ever for children to go to school. Natural disasters and conflict often destroy schools and supplies, leaving children without a place or the tools to learn.
UNICEF works hard to make sure that children receive an education no matter what the obstacle. For just $186 you can send children in need a School-in-a-Box kit, offering an opportunity to an education that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Just think—one kit provides a temporary school for up to 80 children at a time in an emergency!
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As you count down the twelve days this holiday season, think of these children who have nothing but hope—don’t turn your back on a child’s right to education.
I am Clay Aiken and I believe in zero.
25,000 young children die every day from preventable causes—things like malnutrition, poor sanitation and lack of safe, drinkable water. UNICEF believes that number should be zero.
Haiti: Getting kids back to school
For many children around the world, fall means it’s time to go back to school after the long summer holiday. Not so this year in Haiti, which has been pummeled by four back-to-back hurricanes in the past few weeks. Storm winds and floods have destroyed many thousands of homes and businesses, left large parts of the country under several feet of mud, and disrupted the lives of 800,000 people—including 300,000 children.
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| © UNICEF/ HQ08-0744/Roger LeMoyne |
| HAITI: A boy walks at dusk across a flooded street in the older part of the flood-damaged city of Gonaives. Several weeks after successive hurricanes and tropical storms hit the country, many of the city’s streets remain covered in water and mud. |
In the coastal city of Gonaïves alone, almost 70,000 people have had to leave their homes. Two-year-old Fernando Thermidor and his mom, Judith, were forced to flee when the waters rose, and they’re now living with several thousand others in a school that’s been converted into a temporary shelter.
Though safe from the flooding, Fernando, Judith and the rest of the family are facing other dangers: crammed into a room with almost 200 other people, with no access to clean water or proper sanitation, the risks of contracting diarrhea and water-borne diseases are high. UNICEF is shipping many tons of emergency aid to Haiti, including blankets, hygiene kits, water purification tablets and oral rehydration salts. But with all roads and bridges connecting Gonaïves to the rest of the country washed away, the lifesaving shipments have had to be delivered by boat and helicopter.
UNICEF is there for New Orleans
Back in April, I traveled to New Orleans for the first time to meet up with my best friend, a Tulane alum. For years, she had boasted about the wonder of the city. Finally seeing it with my own eyes, I was struck by the thought that less than three years ago Hurricane Katrina had caused the death of more than one thousand people and had displaced nearly two million—including hundreds of thousands of children.
On Monday, almost three years to the day since Katrina, New Orleans was struck by another hurricane. Fortunately, Hurricane Gustav’s damage was minimal compared to the devastation left in Katrina’s wake.
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| © UNICEF/ HQ05-1112/Radhika Chalasani |
| On September 10, 2005, a woman carries her one-month-old grandson, Devon, in a shelter for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina in the city of Houma, Louisiana. The family, who stayed in their home for nine days after the storm, was forcibly evacuated to the shelter. About half of the displaced in the shelter were children. |
Did you know Hurricane Katrina was so catastrophic, in fact, that it marked the first time in history UNICEF was asked to assist in an emergency on American soil? Immediately, UNICEF set out to build an international task force with assistance from partner organizations including the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization and three UN interagency teams.
Funds raised by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF added crucial support to the recovery effort. Within two weeks, 935 School-in-a-Box kits and 740 recreation kits were flown in from UNICEF's central warehouse in Copenhagen.
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Welcome to Fieldnotes. Blogging gives us the ability to quickly report from the field, alert you to media coverage of interest, and share the success of UNICEF's lifesaving work around the globe.
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