XUNICEF News and Views

  In April 2021 I wrote a mini-series of four articles on UNICEF's early days in China. Rereading them recently, it seemed to me that I was missing a piece on Leo Eloesser who played such an important role in China but also in UNICEF's thinking on community medicine and primary health care. He only worked with UNICEF for a very short time—5 years—but they were momentous years for UNICEF and for him. In this article I write only about his history before and after UNICEF. The story of his brief period with UNICEF will come in the next article, The Shijiazhuang Strategy . One of the most interesting, colorful, and important characters in UNICEF's early history was Dr. Leo Eloesser. In what remains the best and most comprehensive book on UNICEF's history, The Children and the Nations , Maggie Black describes how the newly arrived first representative of UNICEF in China, Dr. Marcel Junod, recruited Eloesser from UNRRA to serve as his emissary to parts of China under...

This article tells the story of the Shijiazhuang Agreement of August 1948 and UNICEF's first attempt to switch from distribution of relief supplies to capacity building through training of community health workers and village midwives. The Idea Had History The idea was certainly not new.

In A Little History #8  I described the career of Dr. Marcel Junod before he joined UNICEF.  This article continues his story after arriving as UNICEF's first representative in China. Junod: February 1948 In February 1948, UNICEF's first Representative in China, Dr. Marcel Junod, arrived in the Nationalist capital, Nanjing. His wife and young son followed, arriving a couple of months later by ship via Manila.

Gertrud Frankhauser In 1948, Gertrud Lutz-Frankhauser became UNICEF's first woman to head a country office—in today's terms, the first woman Representative. She had already led a life of humanitarian service during the war and would now go on to new challenges with UNICEF.

I recently posted a list of staff who moved from UNRRA to UNICEF ( UNRRA's human contributions to UNICEF ). The names in the list reminded several of our readers of former colleagues, most prominently Newton Bowles. In the following interview, Newton tells his own story.

This article presents an overview of the early career of Dr. Marcel Junod in the ICRC and how his experiences in World War II led to his appointment as UNICEF's first representative in China. An earlier version of this article, "The Doctor from Neuchâtel," appeared in March 2021 as the first in a four-part series on UNICEF's early years in China.

The story of UNICEF's first Executive Director tells us much about the origins from which the organization was born and the atmosphere established by two terrible world wars.

  "The UNICEF statute was drawn up with great foresight. From the beginning the Charter's text contained not only the word 'aid' - essentially an emergency measure - but also 'development',

"We went into an improvised hospital somewhere in Italy where ill children were being treated. The stench was so terrible in the children's ward that we had to cover our mouths and noses while we filmed. We took turns going outside to vomit. (While we filmed) three children died. We found conditions like this in many countries. This was a heartbreaking film to make." — Captain David Miller As the war in Europe drew to a close in the spring of 1945, the U.S. Army produced one final documentary. Unlike earlier wartime productions designed to rally support for the troops, this film aimed to make the case for sustained U.S. engagement in war-ravaged nations and generate support for UNRRA. Like earlier propaganda, the film highlighted Axis tyranny, but unlike others, it turned its lens on the human aftermath of conflict—specifically the plight of millions of destitute children. Seeds of Destiny was released in July 1946 with a special screening at the Whit...

The sudden death of FDR on April 12, 1945 makes Truman an unexpected president In the last article in this series, A Little History #3, we explored the collapse of UNRRA. This came about both through the agency's internal failings and growing Republican opposition to continued U.S. foreign aid—in particular opposition to aid reaching former "enemy" nations and countries falling under communist influence. In this article, I focus on the efforts made to preserve relief by centering on one specific category of war victims: children. As WWII ended, three converging forces led to UNICEF's creation The collapse of UNRRA, paired with the determination of key relief figures to find new avenues for aid. President Truman's decision to establish a global famine commission led by former President Herbert Hoover, whose findings placed children at the absolute center of global recovery. A wave of grassroots support among the American and Canadian public, helped in ...

As UNRRA closed, many of its staff joined UNICEF, just as they had earlier shifted from work with NGOs or mission organizations to UNRRA.  For them it was not so much a career change as a continuation of the same humanitarian mission.  In UNICEF they often took up key positions.  One key figure who did not come directly, but returned later was Jim Grant who along with his first wife, Ethel, worked for UNRRA when she joined him in China after he left the army.  You can read more of their story in "Jim - Before We Met"  which I wrote for this series I wrote in June 2021.   The list below is in alphabetic order by surname.  Each made important contributions to UNICEF.  The stories of some of those listed will appear later in this series. If you spot missing names, please let me know.   UNRRA Staff Who Joined UNICEF Dr. Berislav Borcic Newton Bowles Alfred Davidson Helen Drummond Dr. Leo Eloesser Dr. Martha May Eliot Jim Grant...

This article continues the Little History series I am updating for UNICEF’s 80th anniversary and launches a three-part look into the events and personalities that led to UNICEF’s founding.

This is the second in the series of rewritten articles I am refreshing in the lead up to UNICEF@80. If the title misled you into expecting some juicy gossip about Maurice Pate and an actress, I am sorry to disappoint you. Instead, the article simply introduces one more key figure who played a significant role in the early days of UNICEF. The earlier version of this article appeared in News & Views on April 29, 2021. As always, I will appreciate any additions, corrections, or comments from readers. Tom An Actress Takes Maurice Fishing at Lake Success Tom McDermott Helenka Few people in UNICEF or XUNICEF today would recognize (or even pronounce) the name Helenka Adamowska Pantaleoni. Yet throughout UNICEF's turbulent early years, Helenka played crucial roles in shaping the organization's development and in managing often-rocky relations with the U.S. government, which remained skeptical of proposals for creation of a UN agency for children. While Helenka...

Dear Reader, Many of you will recall that in the lead-up to UNICEF's 75 Anniversary in 2021, News & Views published a series of quarterlies providing glimpses of UNICEF's first 25 year s, second 25 years , and the 25 years up to 2021 .