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 →←
Topic: Insider
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 →←
The view from the helicopter gave me the first inkling of how conflict and violence had impacted the town I was moving to. I saw destroyed and abandoned buildings and homes, I saw a huge camp for displaced people in the middle of a forest. The town is Banki, in northeast Nigeria, 2.5km from the Cameroonian border and 135km from… Read more →←
On World Children’s Day, Khyati Chauhan came to New York City to celebrate the rights of girls around the world and to share her work — fighting to be sure they have a fair chance to an education. My cousin was in 11th grade when she moved from a typical Indian village to my place in New Delhi. We were polar opposites yet the… Read more →←
“I have lost a child; he was six months old. I know the grief of a mother who loses her child. My husband had HIV/AIDS but he never told me about it. I would never have thought that a child born with HIV could die before his first birthday.” With a warm handshake, Oremta comes to greet us. She is in a hurry. I follow her through a… Read more →←
In 2015, the migrant and refugee crisis shook the world. Public discourse on the topic has remained charged ever since. Refugee host countries seem divided. Discussions remain emotional and binary – two camps, two stances on the issue: #RefugeesWelcome or #RefugeesGoHome. There is little room for constructive debate – everyone talks,… Read more →←
Atheer leans back in his chair to gather his thoughts. We’re sitting in the anonymity of a crowded lunch room on the UN compound in Erbil — as UNICEF Iraq’s Emergency Coordinator for the Mosul crisis, Atheer makes every minute of his day count. He is a man with a lot on his mind. Military operations to retake Mosul and the… Read more →←
Going to the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak is not easy – you need to mentally prepare. In fact, when I informed my colleagues in Kinshasa that I was going to the epicenter of the outbreak, I could see the apprehension on their faces. Fortunately, we have a clear office protocol in place, and we make sure that staff who go to an active… Read more →←
