Tagged: Water, sanitation and hygiene

A girl pushes two younger children in a wheelbarrow that also bears several jerrycans

Memories from Syria and Yemen

Children in emergencies

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Story also available in: العربية 中文
Being responsible for UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programme in the Middle East and North Africa region, I’ve served in many countries affected by conflict. These include Syria, Pakistan and Iraq and prolonged stints in countries like Yemen. I will never forget my time in beautiful Syria – a country very close… Read more →←
A young lady squatting on the ground as she uses a hose to fill water into two jerrycans.

Searching for clean water in Gaza

Children in emergencies

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Story also available in: العربية Español Français 中文
There is no simple narrative about water and sanitation in the State of Palestine. It’s one about Gaza, the West Bank, and multiple contexts within each. But for a child – or a family — it’s access to safe water and sanitation that ultimately matters. That’s why, after three years working in the State of Palestine, I wanted to… Read more →←
A smiling girl holding a red bucket filled with water stands at the doorway of a wooden walled toilet, with two other girls looking in.

When nature calls, where do you go?

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When you get that feeling … when you can’t hold it any longer and you just have to go … where do you do it? I grew up in Australia and remember spending summers in the outback. When nature called, I would have to use an outhouse — a long drop toilet in a tiny shed in the backyard. I would go as quickly as possible, terrified that… Read more →←
Top view of some young boys and girls using an outdoor water tap.

Revolutionizing toilets: China leads the way

Experts speak

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Story also available in: 中文
The future depends on what we do in the present. Mahatma Gandhi’s words floated through my mind as my flight landed in Beijing. I had a full schedule ahead of me, focused on initiatives that could make the current global sanitation crisis a thing of the past. There’s a toilet revolution in China and it’s not difficult to understand… Read more →←
School children line behind one another. The child at the head of the line washes his hands at a tap attached to a large black plastic container.

Clean hands: A recipe for good health

Experts speak

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Story also available in: 中文
One of my fondest memories from South Sudan was seeing an enormous queue of children fill a playground at a school in Yambio. Children, some as young as 4 or 5, were lining up to wash their hands before the midday meal. The really young ones were so hungry for lunch they were crying. But no one broke ranks in the queue to wash their… Read more →←
Two girls, carrying cans, walk away from the camera, down a dusty road.

Water is…a childhood

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Story also available in: Français
When a child has access to clean drinking water close to home, they have a chance to go to school, to learn, to play with their friends and to have a childhood. Yet today, around 2.1 billion people don’t have access to safe water. Many children spend hours every day walking to collect water, sometimes missing out on a chance to go to… Read more →←
A baby lies on colorful blankets with a hand patting.

Their lives in our hands

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Story also available in: Français
In the first few seconds of life, a newborn baby should be delivered and held in clean hands. As a baby enters the world, one of the simplest ways we can protect them is to make sure they are delivered in a clean environment. New mothers are also vulnerable, and require the same cleanliness to reduce the risk of disease and infection.… Read more →←
A girl in a yellow shirt stands in front of a pile of hurricane wreckage

No calm after the storm for the Caribbean’s poorest children

Children in emergencies

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In Grand Turk Island, the capital island of the Turks and Caicos, 14-year-old Danessa Estime writes rap lyrics in her notebook about the night Hurricane Irma battered the island: “Wake up, wake up! But 5:32? Why the hell am I waking up at 5:32? Ma, what’s going on? What do you want me to do? Did something happen to be up at 5:32? She… Read more →←
Five people gaze at a mudslide.

In Sierra Leone mudslides rip a community apart

Children in emergencies

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Story also available in: Español Français
If Ebola was an emergency based around a tiny virus that often killed before it was discovered, the deep brown gash on a Freetown hillside is a sign of a disaster of a very different nature. Like Rio de Janiero on the other side of the Atlantic, Sierra Leone’s capital is built on spectacular coastal hills, and is overshadowed by a… Read more →←

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