My name is Ridwan Gustiana, but do call me Doc Jack. I’m a Health Specialist with UNICEF Pacific, on mission in Sulawesi. I’m the team leader for UNICEF’s response in Central Sulawesi and I am also the Emergency Health Specialist supporting health initiatives. In the wake of this disaster, and thanks to the efforts of the… Read more →←
Topic: Children in emergencies
When I first met him, he was standing on the roof of his house. It was the second day of my assignment for UNICEF in Bangladesh. I was in Kutupalong Refugee Camp seeking stories about the impending monsoon that was set to wreak havoc on the camp’s 600,000 inhabitants. But, watching Rashed’s 13-year-old frame tugging a tarpaulin like… Read more →←
After an arduous nine-hour journey, I finally reach Kozhikode (Calicut) after an arduous journey of nine hours. The journey has been heart-wrenching. About 2000 children are cramped into relief camps along with their parents and caregivers who have lost their valuables to incessant rain and floods. Tomorrow — day two — should be even… Read more →←
“The children ask me a lot of questions about the disease and the reason why they are here”, explains Sylvie Waridi, a psychologist at the Ebola treatment centre in Beni, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sylvie is one of 150 psychosocial workers trained by UNICEF to support people affected by the Ebola virus. She is… Read more →←
I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, a place where violence occurs every day, to the point that it is classified as one of the most violent countries in the world, with a mortality rate like that of countries at war. We shape our lives depending on who or what we have around us; we grow up without… Read more →←
“I feel good about finishing my exams, a feeling of success that a difficult time has passed,” Mohammad tells me in the schoolyard. The 18-year old from Gaza City just walked out of his final Tawjihi exam and with it, the end of his school years. Mohammad’s results will help determine his future but just reaching this point is a… Read more →←
“Many young people dream of making it to Europe. In some places migration is completely idealized,” a 17-year-old Moroccan states, checking the reaction of the other young people around the table. “It’s true,” an 18-year-old migrant from West Africa responds, “But migration is not always a choice.” He clears his throat,… Read more →←
It is noon when I arrive at the polio vaccination site in Manono, Tanganyika Province in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A folk singing group entertains the assembled crowd. In front of the crowd are men, women, young people, older people and children from the area. A young man begins to speak about his… Read more →←
Dr. Rivah and her colleagues at Al-Quds Primary Health Care Center (PHCC) in West Mosul, Iraq have their hands full trying to keep two-year-old Mohammed still long enough to administer a polio vaccine. Eventually, they calm him enough to give him two vaccines in a row. By the time Mohammed realizes what has happened and the tears start… Read more →←
100 unopened texts. I turned to my friend who was reading the conversation, and that’s when I realized something wasn’t right. I slammed my laptop shut and asked what was going on while simultaneously reading through the missed messages. There were texts asking us to send Jaime Guttenberg’s number to anyone we knew in the… Read more →←
