As I write this, I am inside the Iboko Health Zone, south of the Équateur Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Almost two months ago, the Health Minister declared an Ebola epidemic in the country. Iboko is one of the three health zones affected. The past weeks have been particularly stressful and demanding for all of us… Read more →←
Topic: Insider
UNICEF responds to a wide variety of humanitarian crises around the world, and life-saving supplies are an important part of providing urgent assistance. These include medical, nutrition, shelter, and water and sanitation products that bring relief amid violent conflict and natural disasters. In 2017, the emergency supply response… Read more →←
I look a mess. Sweat falls from my nose and wrist, dripping into my cameras. They slip in my palms and threaten to fall onto the mud floor of her orderly, if stifling, shelter. A shaft of light shines through a hole in the plastic tarp and strikes her head scarf, framing her face in a golden glow as the call to prayer begins to echo from… Read more →←
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 →←
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 →←