It was with great surprise and delight that, in June, I received an email from a former colleague of UNICEF Iran, now the Chair of the staff association, Mokhtar Hosseini, inviting me to attend a special staff recognition event. He specified that this event was organized in the spirit of recognizing Iranian retirees who had served, at some point during their career, at UNICEF in Iran. Although the event’s timing was not convenient when adjusted to my current location in Ottawa (3:30 a.m.), I didn’t hesitate to respond positively. I was so eager to see my former colleagues all in one place and share a celebratory moment. I also knew that the current Representative of UNICEF in Iran, Robin Nandy, who has been consistently welcoming of retirees and their contributions, would be soon leaving for his new posting.
In any case, as Reza Hosseini, who was also at the event, mentioned: “We leave UNICEF but UNICEF never leaves us”. He said this in reaction to another colleague, Koorosh Raffii, who joined the event from Bangkok and offered his support to the UNICEF team in Iran to apply an efficiency tool that he had used during his time with the UNICEF office of evaluation. Other retirees participating in this event reminisced over decades of contributions to advance child rights in Iran and beyond considering that many of them, like me, had started as national staff and moved on to international postings in management or technical roles. One, of the participants, Hamid Hosseini, spoke fondly of the visits of the former ED, James Grant to Iran and his own participation at the groundbreaking World Summit for Children. Laylee Moshiri paid tribute to the memory of Sharad Sapra, with whom she had worked when he was the Representative in Iran. She highlighted the inspiration that he infused in everyone with his innovative and engaging leadership.
Mojtaba Nikpendar who had served as a senior driver with the office for decades spoke, as though it was yesterday, of the excitement he had felt when he had been offered the post and the pride of serving an organization with such a mission. Elaheh Vaziri who sounded still as passionate about her work in Human Resources, as was the case during her decades of service, became emotional remembering one of her field visits meeting children impacted by the programme in the Baluchistan province. Farhad Ghamami who had ensured that UNICEF’s networks were fit for purpose until his retirement in 2012 shared a moment of reflection. As for me, I was overwhelmed by a sense of deep gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the girls and boys in Iran alongside such a dedicated and solution-oriented team building on the legacy of the generation that came before us. Other retirees who were invited and could not attend due to various reasons were Parvin Bahrami, Forough Foyouzad, Niloufar Pourzand, Shahnaz Sanami, Nooshin Sarlati, Seyed Enayatollah Asaei, Esfand Negahabn and Masood Mostofee.
In the photos of the event, the beaming faces of colleagues reminded me of the deep pleasure one feels in recognizing and being recognized, the virtuous circle of giving and receiving positive energy. Thank you UNICEF Iran!
So glad to learn of the positive developments from the GSA Week which have spawned meetings with UNICEF retirees, such as the one in Iran. This event and the report on it brought fond memories to mind. But first some historical background.
ReplyDeleteThe Basic Agreement was signed in 1951 and projects grew especially the anti-malaria campaign which was the largest one in the EMRO (now MENA) region. Teheran became the area office covering Iran and Iraq from 1954 to 1972. One of its first national officers was the late Manoucher Assadi who joined UNICEF in 1958. From 1973-1976 Teheran became a separate Country Office.
When I was Chief of the Middle East Section in HQ (one of my Programme Officers was Shahnaz Kianian Firouzgar) UNICEF received an official request from the Imperial Government stating that Iran no longer needed aid and was planning to join the rank of UNICEF donors. The Executive Director, Henry Labouisse, sent me to Teheran to ascertain the fact that UNICEF assistance would be stopped. During my mission I was accompanied by Hamid Hosseini ?and we visited the Plan Organization and most of the Ministries which dealt with UNICEF. I reported to NYHQ that the programme and the office should therefore be closed. Thus, from 1977 - 1982 there was no UNICEF presence in Iran. During that period the Shah left and the Revolution brought in a new government. Jim Grant was keen on restarting UNICEF relations in order to include Iran in the activities around CSDR, UCI etc. and UNICEF's presence was re-established as a country office in 1984.