XUNICEF News and Views

In our Quick Chat this week, Gladys Acosta Vargas, XUNICEF colleague and Chairperson of CEDAW Committee talks to Sree Gururaja on the inter-relatedness of women and children rights. She shares her apprehensions of the disturbing recent trend of more and more governments advancing rights of the family with the intention of diluting the distinct rights of women and children. Gladys , a national from Peru, is currently serving her second term in the CEDAW Committee and continues to be a ‘grass roots level” activist advocating for change in socially disadvantaged communities, invisible to politicians and policy makers. Gladys joined UNICEF in 1999 as Regional Adviser, Gender and Development, Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office, then from 2002-2006, was the UNICEF Reperentative in Guatemala, and from 2006-2008 was the UNICEF Representative in Argentina. In 2008, she moved to UN Women ( which replaced UNIFEM) as Chief, Latin America and the Caribbean Section and retired in 2011....

This week Gianni Murzi chats with Sree about his new occupation as a photographer and a passionate story teller. We have included several of  his photo features in our earlier editions. Nowadays Gianni is based in Rome, and he travels where the passion for photography takes him. He likes to work on stories that have social issues worth telling and he continues to compete in global photography competitions.  Gianni is a physician and from 1970 to 1985 worked as a medical doctor in Mozambique and Zanzibar. During his career of nearly two decades in UNICEF, he worked in several countries, including Burkina Faso, Iraq, and Senegal.  He also served in Brussels and Programme Division (NYHQ).   Gianni was the first UNICEF Representative in Moscow. After his retirement, he returned to UNICEF to serve as Acting Representative in India, Zimbabwe, Iran and Albania. Listen to Gianni narrate how he discovered photography. He concludes with a humorous story from his early da...

Maggie Black needs little introduction within the XUNICEF network. Maggie was the an in-house author of publications on UNICEF’s history, as well as on various themes as Water and Sanitation, Child Protection etc. In the run-up to UNICEF’s 40th birthday, she was asked by Deputy Executive Director Tarzie Vittachi to write a history of UNICEF. "The Children and the Nations" was published in December 1986. Soon after this, Maggie left UNICEF’s staff to return to the UK, but continued to work as a consultant on many different projects. Her main subject areas were Watsan, Child Health (especially the effect of the HIV/AIDS pandemic), the Urban Child, and Child Labour (especially Girl Workers, Domestic Workers, Child Protection, and Early Marriage). As an independent consultant, she also undertook writing and editing assignments for WHO, UNDP, ILO, UNRISD, SCF and Anti-Slavery International. She wrote a second history, " Oxfam: A Cause for Our Times " for its 50th bi...

Margherita Amodeo chats with us this week from Malta where she retired after a career with UNICEF and UN Peacekeeping. Margherita has been a frequent contributor to our newsletters and you can see some of her past articles by clicking here. In October 2020 she was our 'Artist of the Week'. Be sure to visit the gallery of paintings she contributed at that time. Today, Margherita continues to pursue her life-long passions for art, music, poetry and travel. After retirement, she pursued studies in Expressive Arts and Gestalt psychotherapy. Nowadays, she works professionally with patients as a psychotherapist, and, through a church group at the Millennium Chapel, where she coordinates a team of volunteer psychotherapists offering therapy to people with low-income. Recently, she has introduced art therapy workshops for Ukrainian mothers and children, where her golden retriever, Honey, provides much-needed canine affection and therapy. Summing up her life so far, she reads for u...

  Esther Guluma in her chat with Sree Gururaja, reminds former colleagues that there is “a life after UNICEF” and urges us to explore avenues for continued engagement with children and development issues. In her UNICEF career of over two decades, Esther worked in Liberia, in Kenya, in Programme Division NY Headquarters, and in Benin. She was the Deputy Regional Director for South Asia and retired as the UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. Immediately after her retirement Esther was invited to join Fairtrade International .  She describes her experience in Fairtrade after UNICEF as a 'new world' in terms of their approach to ethical trade and development.   As the Chair of the Board of Directors of Fairtrade  and later as the Chair of the Board of Directors of  FLOCERT   for nine years, Esther travelled to many developing countries.   Esther initially settled in Israel where she served for two years on the first Bo...

In her chat with Sree Gururaja Janet Nelson raises the conundrum, "human rights or development, which comes first?". Throughout her UNICEF career , over two decades in New York and Geneva, Janet was instrumental in building partnerships with NGOs and mobilizing their efforts for children. Starting with the World Summit for Children. Janet took the lead in establishing close collaboration and securing 'buy-in' by NGOs . This effort became the keystone of UNICEF’s advocacy strategy for influencing the World Conferences of the 1990's and beyond. After her stint in Headquarters, Janet served as Deputy Director in the Regional Office in Geneva. Upon retirement, Janet worked as a consultant to UNICEF and UN Country teams. She also served as Vice President of Arigatou International. (Viewers will recall that Rebeca Rios-Kohn in her recent Quick Chat talked about Arigatou and her own work as Director of Arigatou's US offices). Janet recently gave up her role with Ari...

  Steve Woodhouse chatted with us this week from his home in Penang, Malaysia. He had just returned from a visit to the UK. Steve told us about Penang and why he and his wife decided to settle there. We also talked about his work post-UNICEF, which included consultancies for various UN agencies, including UNICEF. He also worked for several years on a micro-credit initiative with Barclay's Bank. Steve told us also about the 'gift' he has received through his years with UNICEF, but looking back he also comments that it he had it to do all over again, he would take better note of the limitations in the power of governments in influencing social change.  Instead, he would pay more attention to the empowerment of families, including giving more importance to the role grandparents play.  Grandparents, he notes are often in closer touch with their grandchildren than with their own children.  Finally, he says we all should pay more attention to what we can accomplish with...

This week Rebeca Rios-Kohn chats with Sree Gururaja about her work with Arigatou International, a faith-based organization that works with diverse faith communities to promote children’s rights using an interfaith approach. After her career with UNICEF and UNDP, Rebeca continued her work in child rights and human rights as a consultant with UN organisations. Since 2015, Rebeca has served as Director of Arigatou’s New York Office. The organization also has offices in Geneva, Nairobi and its headquarters is in Tokyo. From its inception nearly 30 years ago, Arigatou has collaborated with UNICEF. Rebeca recollects the meeting of Jim Grant with Arigatou’s Rev. Keishi Miyamoto in the early nineties - a meeting that inspired his close collaboration with UNICEF in work in ensuring achievement of the CRC. Rebeca has contributed several articles to News and Views, including  an article on Faith and Children' s Rights which appeared in our December 2019 Quarterly.  Then in Januar...

  Yoshi and Mikiko Uramoto Tom McDermott chatted last week with Yoshi Uramoto about Yoshi's long career in UNICEF and later as Deputy to the Executive Director of UNIDO and then as Regional Director for Asia in ILO.   Yoshi has been a frequent contributor to News and Views, including his article in our June 2021 Quarterly, Off to War by Taxi .  He is also an active participant in our Academics Cluster.  In February this year we publlished a copy of his presentation to Academics Cluster,   2013 Rana Plaza Tragedy in Bangladesh . After retirement Yoshi taught for 7 years at Tokyo's Sofia University.  He continues to be a devoted jogger and tells us that he wants to "keep on running until he is 84." Among other updates, he tells us about how his grand-daughter drew the perfect cover for his book, Inequality and Dream (See our article in April 2021 ).   We are sure that you will enjoy this Quick Chat with Yoshi.  

We faced technical problems in connecting with Tony Kennedy by video, so instead we asked him to phone us. Thus the Quick Chat this week is audio-only and similar to the UNICEF@75 series DOC produced with us last year. For much of the year Tony and his wife, Wendy, live on Salt Spring Island off the western coast of Canada. But each summer Tony and Wendy travel east to enjoy life on an island in Lake of the Woods, Ontario. He phoned us from there.    In this chat with Fouad Kronfol and Tom McDermott, Tony talks about:  -  the importance of change and adaptation in UNICEF.    "If we tried not to change, we'd be past history.  The biggest and most abrupt change came with Jim Grant who saw the need 'to shift gears', and Jim took us to new heights" .   - field experience which is what makes UNICEF staff relevant. "If you aren't relevant in the field, you aren't relevant. "   - the importance of national officers who are the main...

Niloufar retired to Toronto after a long career in international development. Shortly after the Iranian Revolution she joined UNDP in Tehran. She later moved to UNICEF where she worked for thirty plus years in various countries, including Afghanistan, Indonesia, the Caribbean, Tajikistan and India. Today Niloufar continues to be actively engaged with teaching at York University, her work with NGOs and with the Canadian Natcom. She is a frequent contributor to News & Views, as well as leading the XUNICEF cluster on gender and playing a major role in the Academics cluster.   In her conversation with Sree Gururaja in this week’s Quick Chat, Niloufar shares her experience of working in Afghanistan during the first period of Taliban-rule. Niloufar tells us about the remarkable Afghan women and men she came to know there and the extraordinary work they did for girls’ education and women's development. Their efforts paved the way for UNICEF’s programs in the new government af...

We chat this week with Bilge Bassani who tells us about her life after retirement in Florida and in Italy, about her husband, Dr. Fabrizio Bassani (former UNICEF Chief of Emergency Operations and later ADG and head of the WHO Office in NY), and about her current work with the François-Xavier Bagnoud Foundation (FXB). Following a long career in SCF and UNICEF, Bilge worked with the UN Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP) and the UN Foundation established by Ted Turner. She now serves as the President of FXB USA and as a Vice President of the Advisory Board of the FXB Health and Human Rights Center at Harvard. She chats with us about her work leading FXB USA and its work in equipping young people as advocates for action on climate change. Bilge also reflects on what is going well and not so well these days with the UN, UNICEF, and NGOs.

This week's chat is a bit different from our usual format. We were not able to establish a two-way video call, so instead Jim asked a friend to record his recollections of two encounters in his life with UNICEF - a visit to a school destroyed by US bombing in Cambodia, and his meeting with Mullah Omar in which he successfully pleaded for a ceasefire to allow a UNICEF immunization campaign to proceed. Jim also answered a few questions that he would like to have included in the recording:  Where do you live and why did you choose to live there? I live near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Why Cambridge? I have a close extended family nearby, as I had studied at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Kennedy School. The area is lively with a young academic community and a stimulating environment, I love Morning Prayers at Harvard Chapel. Also, Cambridge is close my to favorite island of Nantucket my favorite place. Finally, Cambridge is a great place for receiving vi...

  Thomas talked to us about his recent retirement, which followed a long career that included the US Air Force, Peace Corps, Africare, UNICEF, and IAEA.  We then chatted about his family, his home improvement, projects, and his trips around scenic spots in Europe in the family's camper van.   Looking back on his many emergency assignments, Thomas gave us his thoughts on how UNICEF is doing with the crises of today.  In reply he reiterated one of the comments he gave earlier to the 10 Questions - 'that when it comes to emergencies, UNICEF has the attention span of a 4 year old' - i.e. that our focus is always on the immediate emergency, while little attention goes to preparing for the next.   Finally, he said that he has been inspired by the commitment to social service expressed by those who contributed earlier chats.  Like them, Thomas believes that we all have an obligation ´to give something back' to our communities.  In his own case Thoma...

Mahendra tells us about his life after retiring from UNICEF.  In fact, he never really retired and has continued to take up many assignments for UNICEF and WHO.  In particular, he has stayed busy with training sessions with WHO EMRO in Yemen, Sudan and Pakistan. We chatted about the current health situation in Yemen and Sudan.  Mahendra also offered his thoughts on UNICEF of today and asks whether we are still the 'world's foremost agency for children'. Mahendra was interviewed by the New Humanitarian in 2003 during the period when he headed UNICEF's Health Programme in Ethiopia - click here for the interview .  

Isabel and Horst at home, toasting his sister on her 80th birthday. Isabel tells the story of her life, including the fun and challenges of raising a family in multiple countries in  Donkey Years Ago , available on Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle.  Here is the article we published when the book came out earlier this year.  The book is now being translated in Spanish and should become available soon. Horst tells his story in  Journeying to Paradise  (German edition  -  Auf Suche Nach Einer Neuen Heimat )  - both editions  are available on Amazon as paperbacks or on Kindle.  Here is the article we published when the book came out in 2019,   Both the books by Isabel and Horst are included in the bibliography of works by UNICEF and XUNICEF authors . Want to write the story of your life?   How do you move from wish to reality?  We came to two experts to find out. Horst and Isabel Cerni are the first and so f...

We originally planned this week's Quick Chat as our 'pilot' episode for the Quick Chat series. As we chatted with our co-editor, Doreen however, we were convinced that this was more than just a 'pilot' and that Doreen's  dynamic interview should be shared with our readers..  Doreen kicked off this chat by telling us how she went on working after retirement - until the moment when she asked herself, "why am I doing this and what else can I do?"  That moment set her off on voluntary work in her community where her experience and interests came together. On the fun side, Doreen told us how she moved to weekly Zumba sessions, a book club, (in her case, an all-women's book club), and, of course, her work as an editor at News & Views. We were inspired by Doreen's advice "To get there, just do it" and "There is no better time than now to take up both new interests and resume old hobbies. She sent us the quote on her po...

Sree Gururaja recently chatted with R.Padmini. Padmini tells us about her continued engagement with child rights in India contributing to studies, analytical reports, including India’s Alternate Report to CRC and the National Policy for Children 2013. Upon retirement, some 28 years ago, Padmini returned to Bangalore, her home town. She co-founded the Child Rights Trust which in turn set up a network of NGOs in the state of Karnataka with initial support from UNICEF called the Karnataka Child Rights Observatory. Get inspired as Padmini speaks about the crucial role NGOs can play in monitoring the situation of children and presenting their studies and reports to the government. CRT’s success with the formation of a Legislators Forum in Karnataka was an important step in advocacy and this concept was later emulated in other states of India. with UNICEF support. Sustained efforts for bringing children’s issues to the forefront through dynamic children’s participation at different lev...

This week Steve Umemoto chatted with Sree Gururaja and Tom McDermott.   Steve tells us about the joys of life in London. On the plus side is its easy access to travel in throughout the UK and Europe, and as a place for meeting former colleagues who frequently pass through the city.  The one possible downside is winter.  Steve takes advantage of winter of to travel further afield. In fact, he has just returned from two weeks in Thailand. Steve counts himself fortunate to have started out in UNICEF among so many of the giants of UNICEF's first generation .  He calls on all of us who spent more than a few years with UNICEF to look back and ask ourselves, "What was that - what made that experience so special?  What really is UNICEF, and how did it change us, and in return how did we perpetuate the best of UNICEF and add on something?"  Would you like to suggest an interview with another XUNICEF member? Would you yourself like to volunteer ? Let us know. Ju...

A Quick Chat with Paula Claycomb This week Fouad Kronfol and Tom McDermott chat with Paula Claycomb in the second edition of our new series, A Quick Chat. Paula tells us about life in Taos, New Mexico where she and her family settled after retirement.  Anyone who knows Paula, knows that she is active and passionate about important issues facing society.  In her UNICEF years as an international civil servant, she like many of us, was frustrated in not being able to speak out on issues.  Now she is free to work on issues that concern her deeply - gun control, helping elders in the community to stay in their homes and climate change.  She notes that, "Our governments remain incredibly short-sighted in putting profits over people in their continued support for fossil fuels."   Paula inspires many of us to work as activists in our local communities.  But she also says that it is equally important that former UNICEF staff continue to produce beautiful works ...