More Humanity for Children: Marilena Viviani

Reflections from the Middle East, by Marilena Viviani

As the Deputy Regional Director for MENA, in March 2009, I went to the Gaza Strip on a mission. This came soon after the Gaza Conflict, or First Gaza War. On my way back, I asked myself what had changed in the past years, after the commitments, the peace process efforts, and what more should be done to build a better future for them. How could children still be going through such a conflict?

I tried not to think about the previous crises, the conflicting points of view, or about the chilling images I had seen. Instead, I wanted merely to understand how a boy or a girl affected by a conflict could imagine their future. I also wondered how UNICEF and the international community could help preserve their rights and humanity.  I wondered how the children could, amid the conflict, just be ‘children’.

I wrote the following notes:

“Conflicts have directly touched the lives of generations of children, causing death, injuries, severe psychological distress or trauma and leaving children as orphans. Wounds that are still open, visible and invisible, deep. I have the impression that this conflict keeps evolving like a cancer that cannot be cured, affecting the peace process and the lives of children.”

Despite the will and the commitment of so many people on the ground and at the international level, we still need new tools, strong will and resources. We need to promote a different form of communication in order to sensitize political leaders. We need to convince parents, teachers - in fact, everybody, that children are always innocent, that they are the most vulnerable victims. We need everyone to understand that these children are not different, but are like all children in the world. They are like our children, they want to live, grow, learn and think about the future.

There are no unlucky children, or guilty children, or children born in the wrong place or on the wrong side. Part of our own humanity lies in the responsibility to protect the humanity of every child everywhere.

We must reject fatalism, indifference, and shortcuts. Indifference is a terrible condemnation for children who are victims of conflict.”

I think back to my student years studying Arabic in Tunisia and Egypt. I saw then, and still see today, a region so rich in human potential and hope, in culture, in knowledge, skills and wealth, despite the conflicts.

I worked for the UN and UNICEF in Palestine and in MENA for several years. I worked in Gaza in the 1990s, during the first Intifada, and later during the peace process. I later worked in the MENA Regional Office.

The faces of many children I met while working with UNICEF in MENA and in other areas of the world help me reflect on my nearly 40 years of work. The notes I wrote back in 2009 helped me to look back on what has changed since I wrote them.

Currently, I am in Tunisia, a country enjoying an important democratic transition. Fortunately, here children are still safe from conflict.

Tireless efforts have been made in the past years by UNICEF at the global level to protect children’s rights. We have renewed goals to protect the most vulnerable, to ensure access to education, and to fulfill the SDGs. We promote the five Ps “People, Prosperity, Planet, Partnership and PEACE”, We have taken on new commitments, including new international standards for Education in Emergencies and psycho-social support for children.

I am glad I was able to contribute and support some of these strategic changes, sometimes against all odds. We took up pioneering education and child protection initiatives in humanitarian crises in the Middle East and Africa and fostered new global partnerships in HQs.

But - if indeed we wish to 'Leave No One Behind' - we need to do more. Schools are one of the best possibilities we have to build a better future. They are the means by which we can build understanding, dialogue, and commitment. They are the best way we can lessen inequalities in society. We can do all this both with and for children.

Thanks also to the efforts of our partners, UNICEF for many years has prioritized education in Gaza. There, as elsewhere in conflict zones, "saving lives" is not just about "surviving”.

The difficult questions remain the same: how will children learn peace especially those affected by conflict? How can we teach empathy, cooperation, and respect? How can we teach for ‘peace’? We need to build new educational competencies and life skills including building values among students for collaborative action, global solidarity, conflict prevention and peaceful conflict resolution. Schools are one of the few institutions that can do that.

Covid-19 has once more taught us that we are extremely interconnected and interdependent. With millions of children still out of school and many others in school but not achieving minimum foundational skills, surely now is the time for us not just to invest in education, but also to do so with a sense of urgency.

Some final thoughts, again, taken from my notes of 2009. They are still with me today after this long journey with the UN.

“…and If hope is the last piece left in Pandora's box, we can at least give it to all children affected by conflict and to every person in the world by investing in Education and above all by investing in Peace Education”.

I am extremely grateful to so many extraordinary people who guided my work or travelled along, wishing that this UNICEF 75th Anniversary could be an opportunity to create a child-friendly world, which should be our collective and interconnected world, wherever we are - and wherever they are.

Marilena Viviani and President Arafat February 2001

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