I felt a shiver run down my spine as I watched around 200 children lay down their weapons in a ceremony to mark their release from armed groups. The children, some as young as 10 years old, have been fighting with two different armed groups in South Sudan. Among those released were 112 boys and 95 girls. While they are no longer… Read more →←
Topic: Insider
On 1 March 2018, I lost a dear friend and colleague, Dr. Onyedikachi Izuogu (Kachi), a doctor who was killed on duty with two other aid workers in a tragic incident in Rann, Borno State in north-east Nigeria. Dr. Kachi was a friend and a colleague whose values of dedication, service and sacrifice were shining lights in the dark alleys of… Read more →←
Sarah and Makene were wearing the same clothes. The same red gloves. The same little socks. They are bright, friendly seven-year old, girls. Makene is from Cote d’Ivoire and Sarah from Guinea. “We are new friends,” they said in unison. Yet what brought them together, here in the detention center of Tarik al-Matar in Tripoli, is a… Read more →←
As the car pulled into Adra industrial zone on the outskirts of Damascus, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. In four collective shelters, over 5,400 people were crowded together in three abandoned schools, while an estimated 13,000 people sought shelter nearby in a former institute for electrical studies. The… Read more →←
There’s a buzz of excitement as hundreds of Congolese refugees look for seats on the minibuses that will take them further inside Zambia. As the 246 refugees take their places, conversations with friends and family continue through open bus windows – the Congolese hold hands and chat, while staff from UNHCR count numbers. The people… Read more →←
Solutions should always be grounded in the people who use them. This is the value of “human-centred design”, an approach UNICEF is using to complement traditional expert- and research-based thinking. By understanding the people who will use the solutions — their wants and needs — UNICEF is developing creative, sustainable… Read more →←
A New Dawn A poem for International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) The sun cuts through the morning sky. It’s a new day tainted with old ways. She sits, quiet, pensive, trying to be brave. She thought she was ready but her beating heart betrays her. The chants grow louder and louder. Drowning her cries.… Read more →←
When travelling around Kabala city in Koinadugu district of Sierra Leone, there are times it feels like a corner of paradise on earth. The little guest house is surrounded by verdant mountains, capped by cotton-wool clouds above wooded slopes. There’s a slight nip in the air, which you don’t get back in the capital. Shortly after… Read more →←
Violence has been raging for the past several months in the Provinces of Tanganyika and South Kivu, which are in the south east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These provinces are plagued by inter-ethnic violence and clashes between the regular army, militia and armed groups. Children are the first victims of the clashes.… Read more →←
The holiday season is a mixed bag of thoughts, emotions, and reflections especially when working abroad. 2017 has been a difficult year in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violent conflict defined much of the first half of the year. Political instability and fallout unbalanced the second half. As an international… Read more →←
