What Children Taught Me : Christine Norton

by Christine Norton

It must have been sometime between 1967 and 1970, at the time of the Biafran War when I decided on working internationally. I was motivated by the images I saw on television of frail and unhappy children and wondered about the suffering in the world. That imagery stayed with me and combined with my love for travel and languages to propel me towards the United Nations and development work. I entered the United Nations to find a way to make a difference in development. I first joined the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Trinidad around 1974 and moving from there to Geneva where I worked at the World Intellectual Property Office and the WHO Global Programme in AIDS (now UNAIDS). It would take me another 10 years before I finally joined UNICEF in 1985 and remained there for the many years that followed until 2015 when I retired. I had always considered UNICEF my goal. After all, it was the children of Biafra that had put me on this circuitous journey. I never regretted the choice I made. In other words, my dedication to development work, to human rights and to influencing change in the lives of children and young people was totally satisfied as a UNICEF staff member.

The perspectives of children and young people and their unique experiences remained a constant motivating factor, helping me to ground my way of thinking even as I worked on strategy and policy guidance. About 2001 in the Philippines, a 9-year-old boy with smiling eyes living on a rubbish dump looked at me and said: “The best day of my life was coming to this Project”. It was a small UNICEF-supported education project. I recall considering his circumstances, knowing that he had been through so much, including abuse but could see that he was indeed very happy. On the plane back to New York, I thought, it takes so little to change a life, keep it simple and put children at the centre.

Another experience, around 2002 at a child-friendly school in Chaing Mai, Thailand with an amazing Principal demonstrated what happens when adults show humility. The Principal shared his Office with the Head of the Student Council who was the de facto leader at the school. This Principal understood that nothing involving the student body was possible without their consultation and involvement. My entire monitoring visit was orchestrated by the students. The bell rang, the entire school came out with a toothbrush and a cup, brushed their teeth and back into class. “We manage the school”, the young lady said. “You really do”, I acknowledged.

At another child friendly school in the Carribean, in 2004, visiting UNICEF Board Members were escorted by the Minister of Interior Affairs, a colleague and myself deep into the interior of Guyana by boat. The Minister rolled up her pants, took off her shoes and jumped into the water to steer the boat to the jetty. I looked at the surprised faces of the Board Members who immediately realized that this trip was going to be different. No protocol. This Minister was born in the interior and she understood what the children expected and how to equalize the playing field.

In 2007, in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, where violence was the norm, Afro Reggae, a non-governmental organization led by young men, demonstrated how music and education combine to build confidence and motivate learning among adolescents. Keep it simple. Young people there were motivated to attend school as it became a prerequisite to joining the afro reggae band. “Here, we are all stars”, the young man told me. Invest in positive development instead of trying to stop violence. All the young men and women in Afro Reggae became social entrepreneurs.

I learned over the years that my job was more about removing the obstacles that stand in the way to development of children and adolescents and less about dictating development. I also learned that it was possible to be evidence-based, results-oriented, rights-based and gender-sensitive if I could take the time to observe, listen to voices of boys and girls and make it fun. A starving child in any country is about adults lacking humility, not being child-centred and disrespecting equality. It is about the obstacles of poor allocation of resources and misguided politics. Every child has a right to full development and in my time at UNICEF I learned that children too, have solutions and they sometimes even know how to get to the goal. “The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.” [Charles Caleb Colton].

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