Update for 21 November to 1 December 2019

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For the Period

21 November to 1 December 2019

From Your Editors

We Need Your Photo Contributions for Instagram and the Galleries- Join us and share your best

Many thanks to our five photographers (Luzma Montano, Nuzhat Shahzadi, Richard Bridle, Luis Oliveros, and Gautam Banerji) who have recently contributed to our XUNICEF photo galleries and featured on the XUNICEF Instagram account. See their work and the work of all our contributors. Join them and join us by sending in your best photos.

Coming Soon - Our 4th Quarter Newsletter

Featuring

* 30 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Children.

* The Music and Musicians of XUNICEF

Plus our regular sections: Life After UNICEF, Readers' Corner, Life with Gramps, Bits & Pieces

Read here how you can contribute.

Deadline for articles is 10 December

Honours

Gerson da Cunha Reflects on Brazil's Breastfeeding Campaign and Brazil's Recent Award "Order of Rio Branco"

View Gerson's video interview.

"Like a bolt from the Milky Way, a telephone call from the Brazilian Consulate General of Mumbai asked me to be sure to attend the observance of Brazil's National Day on November 17, 2018. The CG herself, Ms. Rosimar da Silva Suzano, was on the telephone."

Reunions and Get-Togethers

Shahida Azfar: Reunion of UNICEF Retirees in Pakistan

Shahida Azfar Dear Friends,

You might find a few familiar faces amongst the UNICEF retirees in Pakistan at our regular reunion today at my place. (sorrowfully without Farid and a few others) We think , talk and dream UNICEF despite being busy with other activities Warmest regards Shahida Kunio Waki

Steve Woodhouse: Recent meetings with Four of our Senior Giants

Recent meetings with Nyi Nyi, Richard Jolly, Steve Umemoto, Jim Mayrides

"Having been away from my home in Penang for a nigh on 3 month visit to children and grandchildren in uk and usa i was able to meet 4 of my UNICEF seniors...

Jim Mohan: Report of the 2019 XUNICEF Reunion in Armenia and Georgia

CRC@30

THANK YOU to ALL who Supported Global World Children's Day

Global World Children's Day Team: Here is a big THANK YOU video for the thousands of people in UNICEF teams plus amazing partners that helped to put the voices of children and young people at the center of World Children’s Day on November 20 in more than 180 countries."

Editors: "Our congratulations and many thanks for all the sweat and tears (as well hopefully a few smiles) you invested in making CRC@30 such a success. It was a success for the whole child rights community and particularly for those of us in the UNICEF family.Indeed, while it was a good opportunity to take pride in the progress of the past 30 years, it was even more an opportunity to consider how far we still have to go."

Let's Not forget the World Summit for Children

Kul Gautam - Important as it is to remember CRC@30, let's not forget next year's 30th Anniversary of the World Summit for Children.

" Most UNICEF staff and leaders today do not remember or appreciate the monumental importance of the Summit for Children. This interview seeks to remind us all of the links between the CRC and WSC - and Jim Grant's pivotal role in orchestrating both. " Included is an easier to view Youtube version of Kul's interview which we circulated last week..

Leila Bisharat / UNHCR USA: Refugee Chorus from Maine Releases Song on World Children's Day

News Follow Up: CRC@30 events and articles

Quick links to articles in international and local press following the CRC@30 celebrations.

GSA

Fouad Kronfol: Welcome to the New GSA Leadership Team

Dear Noma, We have just learned of your election to chair the Unicef Global Staff Association for the two year period 2020-2021 as well as the election of your team-mates June and Vridhagiri.

GSA: Exchange of letters between the new GSA Leadership Team and the Editors at News & Views

Dear colleagues and senior friends, Thank you so much for this mail, detailing the excellent work you do for and with UNICEF retirees and current staff. It is amazing how you could do so much, as volunteers! Well done! We sincerely appreciate all of you and salute your years of sacrifice for the realization of the rights of children.

News Shared by Our Members

Anis Salem / Washington Post: Gulf Beligerents Try Something New - Diplomacy

"The trend is toward diplomacy and de-escalation, for sure," said one senior UAE official. But he cautioned that his country wants a clearer statement from Iran that it will stop meddling in the region. "Saudi and UAE cynicism about Iran hasn't changed, but their calculus of the U.S.

Robert Cohen / Oxfam Blogs: Why so Many Uprisings? Why Now

"So why now? So many simultaneous protests could of course be mere coincidence, especially as people are protesting over so many different issues - corruption, fuel or transport prices, inept governance, civil rights, demographics, and often a cocktail of all of them. But the sheer number suggests it is at least worth looking for common causes.

Anis Salem / Egytian Streets: Biblioteca Alexandrina Lights Up Orange, Kicks off 16 Day Campaign Against Violence towards Women and Girls

The orange lights, used to signify a world free from violence against women and girls, according to a Facebook post by UN Women, were previously cast onto other historic buildings and monuments around the world to support the initiative, such as Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

From UNICEF

UNICEF: Our History Uncovered - box by box

UNICEF's history uncovered - box by box Anna Baldursdottir Communication Specialist 25 November 2019 -- A delicate handwritten letter, dated 10 December 1946, emerges from a frayed box in New Jersey. In only a few words, it describes the fundamental principle that still underpins all our work to this day - that UNICEF is For Every Child.

Gunilla Olsson Appointed as Director, Offie of Research at Innocenti

Gunilla was previously on secondment from UNICEF in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General where she was serving as Head of the Transition Team for the repositioning of the UN development system.

Prior to this role, Gunilla served as the UNICEF Representative in Indonesia from 2014 to 2017 and as UNICEF Director of Governance, United Nations and Multilateral Affairs from 2010 to 2014. She will start in her new duties early next year.

UNICEF: Children, HIV and AIDS: Global Snapshot 2019 July 2019

See the webpage and access the interactive dashboard.

UNICEF: Over 300 children and adolescents die each day from AIDS-related causes

Some 320 children and adolescents died every day from AIDS-related causes in 2018, or 13 every hour, according to a global snapshot on children, HIV and AIDS released by UNICEF today.

Yemen / Fran Equiza: As World Marks CRC@30, Children in Yemen Have Little to Celebrate

"With more than 5 million children in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria, including 2.6 million internally displaced children: the scale, severity and complexity of the crisis is staggering.

See also:

Yemen faces new outbreak of dengue fever

Other News of Interest to Members

DRC: WHO and UNICEF evacuate 76 staff

WHO and UNICEF evacuated 76 of their staff from Ebola teams working in the Beni area of the Congo due to rising insecurity in the area. Another 71 remain. 'Rebels believed to belong to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed eight people in an overnight raid on Sunday.

Read also:

Rebels kill 4 Ebola response workers in overnight ambush

DRC: Measles Major Outbreak -- Nearly 5,000 So Far Have Died

Close to a quarter of a million people have been infected this year alone. The World Health Organization (WHO) says this is the world's largest and fastest-moving epidemic. Measles in DR Congo has now killed more than twice the number who have died of Ebola there in the last 15 months.

for DRC continue>>

See also:

Measles Epidemic in Somalia continue »>

Measles Kills 24 Children in Samoa continue »

How a wrongly prepared MMR vaccine in Samoa contributed to Samoa's vaccination crisis

continue >>

Burkina Faso - UN Warns Could Become Another Syria

"A dramatic human crisis is unfolding in Burkina Faso that has disrupted the lives of millions," said the World Food Programme's (WFP) executive director, David Beasley. "Close to half a million people have been forced from their homes and a third of the country is now a conflict zone.

Syria: UK to take back children from former ISIS territory

"These innocent, orphaned, children should never have been subjected to the horrors of war," Mr. Raab said in a statement. "Now they must be allowed the privacy and given the support to return to a normal life."

The Guardian: Is UNHCR Trying to Force Migrants out of Libyan Camp by Cutting Off Food?

"An aid worker with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "They are starving the population inside. They're just trying to starve them to motivate them to leave. It's deliberately withholding aid to put people under pressure."

Climate Change: UN Says Drastic Action is the Only Way

"Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions," Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in a statement announcing the findings. "We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated."

See also:

Sudan one of 10 most affected by climate change continue »

Bosnia: Government Dismisses Managers of Children's Home after Abuse Photos

"Police on Friday raided the home, which had been under scrutiny for months over suspected historic financial misconduct, a day after the Sarajevo cantonal prosecutor's office opened a case relating to the alleged abuses."

Yemen: Momentum Grows towards Settlement

"We have seen the parties work together", said Martin Griffiths, including on the situation in southern governorates, the de-escalation of hostilities and economic crisis facing the war-torn nation, where a Saudi-led coalition backing the Government has been trying to defeat Houthi rebel forces during more than four years of brutal fighting.

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