Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field
Entries from Fieldnotes tagged with 'School-in-a-Box'
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.
Jazz musicians use their talents to make a difference
Local jazz musicians raise $3,718 for Iraqi children
Philip Crawford of Monterey, California recently coordinated his third fundraising effort for UNICEF. He recruited musicians from Monterey and San Francisco to play a concert devoted to Duke Ellington, an influential jazz musician who performed from 1923 until 1974. Eleven musicians donated their talents for the evening, including Andy Weiss, the drummer who played with Ellington’s orchestra, and Kenny Stahl, a flautist who previously toured with Stevie Wonder.
On a Wednesday night in May, 65 people attended a benefit jazz concert at Monterey Live, a music venue in the downtown area. Attendees paid a $25 cover for the show and all proceeds were donated to UNICEF. Throughout the concert Philip spoke of the conditions Iraqi children are faced with and how extra donations would benefit them. The largest donation was $1000, given by an Iraqi attendee, while a $300 donation was made by the local Rotary Club.
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| © UNICEF/ HQ03-0486/Shehzad Noorani |
| IRAQ: Three boys hold up slates with slogans and pictures, in a class in the Medina Al-Mudon primary school in Baghdad. The text reads “Long live our country. Long live Iraq. Long live the people.” The slate and other materials being used by the children are from a UNICEF-supplied School-in-a-Box kit. The kits, each of which contains sufficient basic materials for one teacher and 80 students, were distributed for use by up to 100,000 children in Baghdad. |
Currently in Iraq, only 40 percent of children have access to clean drinking water on a daily basis, and only half of all school-aged children attend school regularly.
In 2007, UNICEF delivered school supplies to 4.7 million Iraqi children, as well as 150 million gallons of drinking water and 4.5 million vaccinations.
Clay Aiken calls for Kenya's kids to return to school
UNICEF Ambassador Clay Aiken recently visited the East African countries of Somalia and Kenya, where UNICEF provides children with health care, education, nutrition, clean water and sanitation. This is the last in a series of blog posts he has written about his experience in the field.
In early July, after visiting Somalia, I traveled to Eldoret, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, to visit camps for internally displaced people. This is where some of the worst violence took place following the Kenya elections in early 2008. Thousands of children were made homeless by the unrest.
Everywhere we went, there were the charcoaled remains of homes, schools and shops. We drove for hours and everywhere we went, we saw people trying to get their lives restored.
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| © US Fund for UNICEF / 2008 / Nick Ysenburg |
Although many schools were re-opened, far fewer children are turning up for class than before. And classes are taking place in schools that have been completely destroyed. I saw children sitting on rocks and bricks—which used to make up the foundations and roofs of their schools—using them now as desks and chairs.
Copenhagen: It’s not just about supplies
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| © Elizabeth de Velasco, 2008 |
U.S. Fund for UNICEF staff member Elizabeth de Velasco recently traveled to UNICEF's main supply division warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, and filed this report.
Sure, there’s a warehouse the size of three football fields. But more than that, the UNICEF staff at the supply division in Copenhagen have an expertise in the procurement, shipment and use of international development supplies.
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| © Elizabeth de Velasco, 2008 |
For example, the government of Sudan requested that UNICEF manage the supplies needed for its census. UNICEF dispatched Omar, a warehouse employee. He spent five weeks there making sure that there were enough pencils, paper, boxes and trucks for the census to function throughout Sudan—which is roughly the size of western Europe, but insecure and with weak infrastructure.
Another warehouse staff member, John, develops innovative ways to pack and distribute supplies in conflict and post-conflict situations. In a Back-to-School campaign in Afghanistan a few years ago, John figured out how to get the education supplies to all of the new schoolchildren from an Aghanistan supply center. But women and men could not work side-by-side, so John just rigged up a bedsheet to partition the room, and work was able to commence.
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| © Elizabeth de Velasco, 2008 |
While the Copenhagen warehouse stores less than ten percent of UNICEF’s supplies—the rest get shipped directly from producers to the UNICEF country offices—it does have the items that are most essential to have on hand for emergencies: buckets, blankets, protein biscuits, School-in-a-Box kits, recreation kits, health kits and more. And then UNICEF gets them anywhere in the world in fewer than 48 hours.
Somalia: Keep spreading the word
UNICEF Ambassador Clay Aiken recently returned from Somalia, where UNICEF provides children in the war-torn nation with health care, education, nutrition, clean water and sanitation. This is the second in a series of blog posts he will write about his experience in the field.
For children in Somalia, the situation is dire. But, it's just amazing to me that UNICEF is still able to make a difference in children’s lives in one of the most dangerous places on earth.
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| © US Fund for UNICEF / 2008 / Nick Ysenburg |
For instance, while I was in northwest Somalia—where 45 percent of the population are children and women—I observed how UNICEF improves water, sanitation and hygiene conditions for everyone in the region. One of the ways they do this is by drilling "borewells" so that clean drinking water is easily accessible and readily available. Without these borewells, children would have to walk hours to fetch water instead of going to school and getting an education.
Back to school despite all obstacles in Myanmar
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| © © UNICEF/HQ08-0563/Win Naing |
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| © © UNICEF/HQ08-0559/Win Naing |
[Holiday Giving] A School-in-a-Box is a gift of education
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 wellbeing--is easily neglected. With our Inspired Gifts program, you can help protect these rights.
[On TV] Idol Gives Back: Will Simon Sing for $50 million?
Yesterday Fieldnotes reader Sheila asked if we could give advance notice when UNICEF is going to be featured on TV. We do our best, but sometimes we’re also taken by surprise! Last night during American Idol there was a great...
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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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