About two years ago, I was meeting a group of adolescent girls and boys in Aravan, a rural area in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, to talk about their lives, their plans and visions for the future. Something that struck me was that girls were very keen on continuing education, learning new skills and building a professional career. They… Read more →←
My lovely baby, I haven’t met you yet but I already know how beautiful you are — with your dark eyes, smiling face, soft, brown hair and golden heart. I have dreamed of having you my entire life. I count the days and nights until I will finally hold you in my arms and love you as much as I can. Now you are only seven months and I… Read more →←
It is August in Nigeria, the rainy season. The Borno camp has pools of water scattered around and children are kicking at the water. Their laughter ripples through the air. Community volunteers and mobilizers are seated under a tent next to the camp clinic. Their phones are out as they wait to voice their experiences using short… Read more →←
Twenty-five tiny newborns were crammed three and four to a bed. The only sink was filled with dirty water with no soap in sight. An empty bottle of hand sanitizer hung from a string on the door. The scene before me in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a major hospital in Ethiopia wasn’t the worst I had seen, but it was no less… Read more →←
Cookbooks and sanitary pads are not the first things that come to mind when thinking about ways to support women and girls who have survived violence. But for a group of female innovators in Ecuador, these low-tech, yet innovative, “secret women’s codes” could combat the COVID-19 pandemic’s hidden crisis – increasing rates of… Read more →←
When Pakistan’s polio vaccination campaigns were suspended in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my work researching vaccine acceptance in the country was also suspended. Lockdowns made it difficult to continue working with local communities about their vaccine beliefs, misconceptions and concerns. Soon after, Deepa Pokharel,… Read more →←
The COVID-19 lockdown spelled disaster for Emiliya*, a refugee and married mother of two living in Bulgaria. She was already struggling to assimilate to a new life with lower paying jobs, fewer social opportunities, and a language she still hadn’t mastered. Then the pandemic hit. Schools closed and her son and daughter were learning… Read more →←
I never expected Malaysia or the world to be thrown into such a unique and stressful situation as the COVID-19 pandemic. What a shock for us all both professionally and personally. The standard programming for UNICEF Malaysia is mostly: upstream work with the government, advocacy with civil society and research with academic institutes.… Read more →←
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Afghan women and girls were hard to reach. With no or limited access to telephones, radio, television and the internet, the most common way to spread information was through women going door-to-door or attending women’s groups. When lockdowns started, traditional forms of communication were further… Read more →←
I want to talk about an area that is little known, often misunderstood, yet promising – what we know about the links between gender-based violence and social protection. We know that the period of history we are living through has surfaced severe challenges for girls and women. Alongside the health pandemic and lockdown measures… Read more →←
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