XUNICEF News and Views

#Ethiopia has expelled seven senior United Nations officials after they were deemed to be "meddling in the internal affairs of the country." The officials, some of whom are senior country staff at @UNICEF and @UNOCHA , have 72 hours to leave the country. pic.twitter.com/xdapYJGrqx — Sifan Abdii🇪🇹 (@SifanAbdi1) September 30, 2021 "news (...) came a day after the UNOCHA reported “there is still a denial of access into #Tigray for trucks with fuel and medical supplies, with trucks waiting in Semera to move to Mekelle,” and amidst growing concerns as famine gripped Tigray region." Ethiopia orders expulsion of 7 top UN officials over ‘meddling’ Adele Kodr UNICEF Grant Leaity OCHA By Al Jazeera English 1 min View Original The seven, including individuals from UNICEF and OCHA, have been declared ‘persona non grata’ and given 72 hours to leave the country, foreign ministry says. Ethiopia’s government has ordered the expulsion of seven senior Unit...

  I stepped out of the Cinnamon Grand hotel in my UNICEF T-shirt, 2 Jan 2006. I flew through the night of 31 st December 2005 from Washington D.C.––with a brief transit via Paris to join UNICEF- Sri Lanka. I was happy to be in Colombo! I inhaled the salty-ocean air along with the pulsating sunshine. Sri Lanka doesn’t have a winter. A country of eternal summer, but pleasant in December-January. Reminded me of Uganda. I have been here several times in the past to provide advisory assistance while I was with UNICEF-ROSA, Kathmandu. On one occasion, I ran a workshop on innovative strategies to engage young people on their rights––I trained one LTTE leader/educationist as well! At the time, International Agencies were brokering some semblance of unity for peace between the Government and the rebels. The civil conflict was raging for decades. Battles between the warring forces claimed many lives, displaced thousands––suicide bombing became almost an everyday affair. fter the workshop, I...

There's No End in Sight for COVID-19. What Do We Tell Our Kids Now? By Nicole Chung Time 8 min View Original Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have used the phrase when this is over quite so often when talking about the pandemic with my kids. It wasn’t that I thought everything would return to the status quo, or that the status quo was anything to be content with. And it wasn’t that I believed we would remain unaltered after COVID-19 upended our routines and sense of safety, and prevented us from seeing loved ones before they died . But part of what kept us going through the first year of pandemic—through cascading losses and disappointments, grief and loneliness , remote work and learning—was the hope of life after. Even when it became clear that millions of Americans were unwilling to wear masks and take other basic precautions to limit the spread of the virus, I still believed that most would get vaccinated as soon as they were able—to protect themselves, if the collective good co...

COVID-19 in India: Young People Get Creative to Protect Communities By unicefusa.org 5 min Making lives better When UNICEF India and India's national public service program for young people launched the Blue Brigade, 25,000 young people signed up to advocate for child and maternal health. So far, they have reached 1 million people across the central state of Chhattisgarh, promoting essential immunizations for children under 5 and safe deliveries and antenatal care for all pregnant women at health facilities near their homes. The Blue Brigade also lobbies for proper nutrition for children, teens and women and asserts children's right to education, safety and protection as schools remain closed due to COVID-19. The power of youth and community radio Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Ashwathy Murali, a community radio producer from the tribal Paniyar community, has made it her job to overcome her listeners' COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Ashwathy lives in Wayanad, a rural distri...

How Shahnaz became Mohammed Saleem so she could study By unicef.org 2 min View Original Initially, the community in Shahnaz’s village demanded an ALP only for boys saying that in their culture, girls do not study. The ALP ( alternative learning programme ) was established in a temporary one-room structure made of bricks and clay. Sadly, Shahnaz’ excitement did not last for long as she found out that the center would enroll only boys. She was still resolute to go and study. “When I learnt that the school would only be for boys, that’s when I decided to become a boy,” Shahnaz explains. Equally resolute that she should learn, Mira Khan bought his daughter a boy’s outfit she could wear at school. “Shahnaz was only nine years old but her desire to go to school was the strongest,” he narrates, “so I enrolled her as a boy under a name she had chosen herself -- Muhammad Saleem.” This was made easier by the fact that Mira Khan himself was the teacher at the centre. For two months, Shahnaz prete...

Mystic Mansion We  live in Ossining NY, which is about 30 miles north of New York City. Our house is a semi-detached unit of a condominium that is perched on a rise directly next to the Hudson River.

  Many of our readers will recall that we used to publish the Quarterly in a magazine format that allowed you to flip the pages.  We stopped because of concerns that our articles could then be found on the open web.  We now have discovered another service that allows the materials we post to remain 'unlisted' for search engines. Note that it may prove difficult to read this version on a smartphone or on some tablets.  It works best on a laptop or computer screen. Be sure to click the little 'two-arrows' icon - second from the right at the bottom to expand the screen to 'full screen' for easy reading.   If you have any problems opening the main image below, you can also find the document b y clicking here or entering this web address in your browser: https://designrr.page/?id=131629&token=2263318174&type=FP&h=3834 Let us know what you think of the magazine format. Click the 2nd icon from the right for full screen.  

In the  art quiz we posted on 10 September  we presented 15 of George McBean's extensive gallery of recent portraits. We asked our readers to choose the faces that were familiar from our times at UNICEF.  Below are the seven correct choices and their names. Sorry to report that we had no winner of the contest.  Stay tuned for the next in our series of quizes.    1 - Mike Corbett 5 George McBean 8 Heida Larson 9 Peter Piot (UNAIDS) 11 David Nabarro (WHO) 12 Sara Cameron 14  Tanya Dhakwa

Just found out about this. Anis UNICEF appoints Ahmed Helmy as Regional Ambassador for the Middle East, North Africa By Angy Essam egypttoday.com 4 min View Original Ahmed Helmy. CAIRO - 7 June 2021: UNICEF chose Egyptian megastar Ahmed Helmy to serve as Regional Ambassador for the Middle East and North Africa. “I am truly excited about this new role, I am delighted to continue to work with UNICEF to advocate for children’s rights across the region” said Helmy during the ceremony tailor made to announce his appointment as regional ambassador which was held through online video on June 6. In 2017 Helmy was chosen to serve as UNICEF Ambassador in Egypt and has participated in multiple events to advocate for child protection and empowerment. Ahmed Helmy, a one of a kind artistic phenomenon and an Egyptian multi-talented artist, he is an actor, film producer, television presenter, writer, jury member at a talent show, UN ambassador and an engineer. Helmy was born in Banha, Egypt in 1969. A...

Opinion: I am an educator of Afghan girls. My life’s work is the Taliban’s greatest need. Young Afghan girls attending class in Kandahar on Sept. 26. The Taliban has announced that boys, but not girls, in grades seven to 12 may return to school. (Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images) In the photo, shared on Twitter, the Afghan boy faces the camera, his expression calm, his eyes upon us. He holds a hand-lettered sign written in Dari, one of the national languages of Afghanistan. It reads : “I am not going to school without my sister. I support my sister. #WeAreEqual.” Other boys , other families , and the pictures circulate: Afghan brothers making their stand on social media, affirming their sisters’ right to attend school now that the Taliban has announced that boys in grades seven to 12 — boys, but not girls — may return to their classes. Saturday will mark two weeks since the reopening of those boys’ schools. To my knowledge, during that time, not a single girl has openly ...

Dr. Arjan De Wagt Chief Nutrition UNICEF India ‘High levels of maternal and child under nutrition continue to plague India’ By Bindu Shajan Perappadan The Hindu 7 min View Original COVID-19 is interacting with under nutrition and exacerbating nutritional insecurities, says Arjan De Wagt, Head, Nutrition, UNICEF India Arjan De Wagt, Head, Nutrition, UNICEF India speaks to The Hindu’s Bindu Shajan Perappadan on how high levels of maternal and child under nutrition continue to plague the country, and the impact COVID-19 has had on the gains India has made in economic and human development in recent decades. He notes that for the future of children in India, controlling COVID-19 and ending malnutrition are equally important and urgent. How has India fared on child and maternal nutrition in recent times? Overall, India has made impressive gains in economic and human development in recent decades. It has transitioned from being a food-deficit nation to a self-sufficient food-producing countr...

Joint Statement by the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and the Heads of ICRC, OCHA, UNICEF, and WHO in Afghanistan By reliefweb.int 1 min View Original On 27 September 2021, we met in Kabul for an urgent meeting on the alarming situation facing people requiring healthcare in Afghanistan and the dire human consequences if the healthcare system is allowed to collapse. In the meeting, we agreed to collaborate closely together and have committed our organizations to spare no effort in our joint objective to support the existing health system in Afghanistan to ensure all people have access to the healthcare they need and depend on. Our organizations are now taking the necessary steps to scale up this collaboration and stand ready to work with donors and UN member states to establish mechanisms that would allow funding to directly support health facilities and life-saving health responses across Afghanistan. This statement is endorsed by: Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, United Nations Resident...

Ya Fatemah aziz, Great document and a wonderful declaration of support very much mirroring our effort to promote corridors for co-peace. Only it is one step ahead. Power to the group Sima Bahous is indeed very blessed to have such great and committed friends to help her on the road to success Thanks again for sharing Baquer Sima Bahous 27 September, 2021 Dear Dr. Sima Sami Bahous, Strategic Action for Gender Equality: An Agenda for the First Year Congratulations on your appointment to Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women). This Open Letter is an expression of support and a set of suggestions for your first 100 days and beyond, from a group of former UNIFEM and UN Women staff. We are writing to offer our support. We understand the UN, its constraints, and UN Women’s potential. We are feminists who have worked inside and outside of the UN system for decades. Many of us advocated for the creation of the entity ...

Gaza's children ravaged by third wave of COVID-19 pandemic By al-monitor.com 4 min View Original GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Iman Naim was admitted to the intensive care unit of a hospital in the Gaza Strip suffering from severe coronavirus symptoms. She contracted the virus from her granddaughter Heba, 13, in early September. Since the start of the school year, the infection rate among students has sharply increased during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Naim told Al-Monitor, “My granddaughter caught the virus at school, but she only showed mild symptoms including a fever. Then I also started feeling sick with coronavirus symptoms. My condition worsened and I stayed in the hospital for about two weeks.” During the third wave, the government has not taken any restrictive measures in public places. Naim said, "The government should take stricter measures such as closing schools and markets and halting gatherings." She added, “The symptoms that people during this th...