COVID-19 has jolted a South African education sector that has not seen a mass disruption of learning on this scale. An immediate, coordinated response was required. The strategic relationships we had built with key influencers in government and quasi-government bodies came in handy. Through a phone call with the CEO of the National… Read more →←
Topic: Insider
“Tell my wife I love her.” The last words spoken by an Italian pensioner isolated in the ICU early in the COVID-19 pandemic echo the anguish and loss of families and children the world over. With global fatalities surpassing the one million mark and total cases nearing 36 million, we are living through the biggest shared… Read more →←
“I remember clearly one day when I was small, two men drilled a well near my brother’s house. They installed a hand water pump with the word UNICEF on it. I remember this vividly; it made a deep impression on my mind. I was so impressed because I could now use water from the pump and didn’t have to go to the river bank to take a… Read more →←
“Please, can I have a small plastic basin for my baby to bathe her?” A shy, middle-aged woman whispered these words into my ear. In June 2018, as the conflict in Yemen escalated, this woman, like other displaced families living in this school, had fled her home in Hodeida. I looked at the month-old baby girl in her arms – so weak,… Read more →←
When I signed up to be part of UNICEF’s Emergency Response Team, I felt a wave of excitement and euphoria to dedicate myself to a mandate I genuinely believe in: supporting women and children in conflict areas and emergencies. Some of my close family and friends questioned such a career direction as it involved taking risks and putting… Read more →←
Sand, sun, wind … and plastic. Lots of plastic. The small peninsula of La Guajira looks more like a remote part of Sub-Saharan Africa than the Caribbean. This place, known as the indigenous capital of Colombia, is the land of the Wayuú. It is an inhospitable region where pastoralism and tradition mix with small-time retail and… Read more →←
Indiscernible from afar, the seemingly disconnected homesteads scattered across the vast open landscape of Northern Namibia belie an advanced intelligence network. In this hard landscape, people have taken on roles and responsibilities, centred on Indunas (village chiefs in the Zambezi Region), to help them cope. People share the news… Read more →←
Over the past ten years, two things have played a constant in my life— music, and the issue of child marriage. So, when I got the opportunity to help raise awareness about the practice in Niger it was a no brainer: I had to lend my support. Together with UNICEF Niger and Rooftop Productions, I wanted to create a music video that would… Read more →←
Marshalina John, 13 I remember the night before I got my first period. I was sleeping next to my mother when I suddenly developed severe stomach pain. I didn’t know what it was. I thought I was sick. My mother put a cold cloth on my stomach to relieve the pain, but it was unbearable. I could hardly sleep. In the morning, I felt a… Read more →←
The dreaded day had finally come. I woke up with an excruciating stomach pain and my back felt so hot that it could easily work as a stovetop. I wasn’t sure which was worse: the stomach pain or the back pain. I was not sure what the problem was until I got up from my bed. My next dilemma was how to tell my mother, as we had never… Read more →←