This Sunday is Mother’s Day. But sadly, for many women around the world, the joy of motherhood is engulfed by tragedy.
Maternal mortality is a major preventable cause of death, and UNICEF and partners are using simple, low-cost interventions to save pregnant women’s lives. One of the most effective tools is a birthing kit. This Mother’s Day, you can honor a mother by giving an Inspired Gift of a Safe Birthing Kit, which helps safely deliver 50 babies. And through Sunday, every purchase you make of an Inspired Gift online will be matched dollar for dollar.

On Friday, March 1, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF held the second annual UNICEF Experience at The Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas, Texas.
A truly unique evening, the UNICEF Experience showcased UNICEF’s lifesaving work through interactive exhibits on Survival, Development, Protection, and Emergencies, allowing guests to experience what vulnerable children in developing countries have to face just to survive. With 300-plus guests, the event raised even more than last year’s Experience!

UNICEF and children around the world thank you for your purchase last year of Inspired Gifts! These gifts are actual lifesaving items that you can buy in someone’s honor and that go where they are needed most. They include things like bicycles to help transport vaccines, mosquito nets that protect families against malaria, school supplies, and oral rehydration salts that save children from deadly dehydration.

Last weekend I thought of a sentiment that sums up Valentine’s Day perfectly for me: “Love grows with sharing.” As you think about getting the perfect gift for your Valentine, what better way to share your love than to give a UNICEF Inspired Gift. Inspired Gifts are real items like therapeutic milk, books or soccer balls, that go to help children around the world. Once you’ve selected your Inspired Gift, you can choose an eCard or a printable card to announce the gift made in honor of your Valentine and how it will be shared to help kids around the world.

It’s back-to-school time, and many parents are busy buying school supplies, backpacks and new clothes. But sadly, not all parents can afford to buy pen and paper for their children, or even send them to school. In post-quake Haiti, rebuilding education is a major priority, and UNICEF is working closely with the government to get children back to school. Supplies like school-in-a-box kits, notebooks, pens and pencils are essential tools in supporting children’s learning. Three children and their school director at a UNICEF-supported school in Port-au-Prince share their story.

Inspired Gifts have hit the big time! We are very happy to share with you that UNICEF Inspired Gifts are included in an exhibition about design for children that is currently on view at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The MoMA show, called “Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000,” looks at how modernist thinking has influenced designing for children in the 20th Century, and it features three Inspired Gifts