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Disheartened by the lack of attention the situation in the horn of Africa is receiving in the mainstream media, Elizabeth Yale and Emily Griset, Co-Chairs of Next Gen's Program and Emergency Response Committee, invited Lisa Szarkowski, Vice President of Public Relations for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, for an informal discussion about the crisis. Lisa relayed her first-hand experiences in the field at the stabilization centers in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, and spoke candidly about her assessments, often stopping to take questions from the group. She noted that even as the rest of the world is finally beginning to recognize the severity of the situation, conditions are getting worse; she estimates that in the last three to six months, thirteen to fourteen hundred people a day seek refuge in the camps, which were originally structured to accommodate 90,000 people and now hold over 400,000.

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With two million children at risk of dying from malnutrition, disease and dehydration in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and other Horn of Africa countries from the worst drought in 60 years, many of us struggle with how to make a difference in such a massive crisis. We can wrap our arms around a donation to provide shelter, food or medicine for one child, but the enormity of this current situation often results in no one doing anything. We become overwhelmed.

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At a press conference this morning, Mark Bowden, a UN humanitarian coordinator, said that famine conditions now exist in the Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions of Somalia. He warned: "If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks... Every day of delay in assistance is literally a matter of life or death for children and their families in the famine-affected areas."

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UNICEF Ambassador Clay Aiken originally wrote this blog post for The Huffington Post on December 29, 2009. Please consider making a donation today to support UNICEF's lifesaving work for children in Somalia.

The post Clay Aiken: progress in Somalia appeared first on UNICEF FieldNotes.

We've been reporting about the child malnutrition crisis quite a bit recently -- in places as varied as Somalia, Yemen and the Philippines.

It's a global crisis, but because it doesn't get much coverage in mainstream media, it's essentially a "silent emergency" for children.

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Last week we reported that funding shortfalls could threaten humanitarian assistance activities that are so desperately needed in Somalia. One of UNICEF's key areas of concern is preventing and treating malnutrition in children, so I thought I'd share this photo taken at a UNICEF-supported nutrition program in Jamalaaye, a camp for displaced people in the north-western city of Berbera.

The post Monday UNICEF pic: Somalia appeared first on UNICEF FieldNotes.