Banging the Drum

This is a post by Pip Bennett, International Advocacy Intern at UNICEF NZ.

For over a month I have been interning at the UNICEF NZ office in Wellington. I have been working with Vicki, the Advocacy Manager – International.

Most of my time has been devoted to a new campaign called “Banging the Drum”. It is about raising awareness of the effects of the global economic crisis on children in the Pacific.

We have been working hard to get the message out. So far this has been working well, although it involves a huge amount of writing!

Last weekend we had a stall at the Newtown Fair. The advertised start time was 9.30am, however there were interested public walking among the stalls from around 9am. Although there were bad weather reports, Wellington managed a very warm fine day.

We couldn’t have done it without the volunteers, and we hope they had fun too! It was a good day, handing out information about the campaign, and enjoying the drumming from the Cook Island performance group, Atiu Mapu. There were even some excited passers-by who joined in by dancing, one woman with some Cook Island dancing, and a couple who did what seemed to be a kind of contemporary dance.

Throughout the day, we were lucky to get some beautiful pictures and videos of children enjoying the drummers, even of some giving it a go. These should be available on the UNICEF NZ website within the next week or so.

Vicki will be up at the Pasifika Festival on Saturday 13th March with a drummer. We would love some people to come bang the drum for children in the Pacific!

Categories: Interns, Pacific Islands | Leave a comment

Jeanne – a story from Haiti

© Diana Valcarcel/Haiti 2010

© Diana Valcarcel/Haiti 2010

This is a story by Diana Valcárcel, UNICEF communications specialist currently in Haiti.

Jeanne *(not her real name) sits on a mattress in her tent surrounded by another 45 families in the spontaneous settlement that has sprung up in Port au Prince. Through the plastic walls of the tent, the afternoon sun burns and she tells me her story.

Jeanne is 28 years old, HIV positive and six months pregnant. The day the earthquake struck she was walking home from the market. Her first thought was for her unborn baby, breaking her finger as she protected herself from a falling wall. Jeanne lost everything in the earthquake that day, her father, her partner, her livelihood and…her hope… she tells me. But she didn’t lose her baby, which is due to be born in the next two months.

“Have you thought about a name for your baby?” I ask her. “No, I can’t think. I haven’t had the capacity to think after the earthquake. I am disturbed, confused”.

Jeanne also lost vital anti-retroviral treatment when her house was destroyed. Fortunately, some days later, she managed to receive her medication in a clinic. Stopping treatment has been a concern for many pregnant women in Haiti after the earthquake.

Jeanne found out she was HIV positive in June 2006. The nurse who tested her told her she could not have children. However, through Serovie Association, supported by UNICEF, she was informed that following a retroviral treatment she could have babies. In those days, as she worked and had money, she started receiving a treatment in a private clinic where she was sure that the whole process would be confidential. As she has now lost her job, she can’t afford paying the treatment in the same place. She is worried about going to the Port-au-Prince General Hospital in case people find out she is HIV positive.

According to the Haiti Ministry of Health, there are 120,000 people living with HIV. 63,600 out of them are women, 7,000 pregnant women with HIV and approximately 8,500 children live with HIV In the last year, the incidents of HIV in the adolescent community is becoming alarming particularly in young girls, were the ratio of new infection is two to one, girls versus boys.

UNICEF has been supporting since 2006 a PMTCT (preventing mother to child transmission) programme in the Central Plateau (department in the centre of the country) through Partners in Health were they treated over 2000 women and benefited 400 pregnant women. Also it has been supporting infant diagnosis-pediatric aids services and HIV Aids adolescent programme at Gheskio’s clinic (major outpatient HIV aids clinic in Haiti).

UNICEF staff are working hard to ensure that HIV positive Haitians receive medical care. In order to achieve they will continue to support the Ministry of Health in expanding PMTCT services with a focus in rural areas. UNICEF also will be actively involved in HIV prevention activities targeting the adolescent community, partnering with several local NGOs.

We emerge from the heat of Jeanne’s tent and leave with the hope that in May, she will give birth to the only potential happiness she now owns and continues to receive the treatment that she so desperately needs.

Categories: Emergencies, HIV/AIDS | Leave a comment

Earthquake in Chile

UNICEF and its UN partners are monitoring events and stand ready to help in the aftermath of the major earthquake that shook Chile early Saturday.

Children are the most vulnerable in any natural disaster. We will keep you posted on UNICEF’s response to this emergency as news comes in.

In the meantime, if you would like to to support UNICEF’s relief efforts for children caught in emergencies like this one, please click here to donate now.

Categories: Emergencies, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“It was like the end of the world” – Haiti Blog

Blog story from Diana Valcárcel, UNICEF communications specialist currently in Haiti.

LEOGANE,  Haiti,  25  February  – Marie France Exilien lives in Léogâne, an hour’s  drive  southwest from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Seated next to a rustic wooden fence, in the town’s Gean Gean’s zone, Marie France wears a red dress as conspicuous as the crooked smile across her lips.

Just over six weeks ago, she was living in downtown Port-au-Prince, in the popular  Delmas’  neighbourhood.  She  had  a  good job, working within the Secretariat  of  State  for the Literacy. On 12 January, everything changed when  the  Haitian  earthquake  struck  and  levelled  her home. Alive, but seeking  shelter for her, her husband and their four children, Marie-France sought  refuge  here,  in the rural area where her family originates. Today she  is  one  of  a  total of almost 500,000 Haitians displaced amongst the country’s rural zones in the aftermath of the earthquake.

The displacements of the population have provoked the lack of access to all manner  of  services, including health care, education, nutrition and first and  foremost in many cases drinkable water. According to UNICEF before the earthquake only 17 % of the population had access to safe water sources. It is  the  reason  why  UNICEF  is working to implement a system of drinkable water nationwide.

In  rural  zones,  however, the distribution of safe drinking water remains particularly  challenging.  Many  of  the  roads are impassable and in many cases,  the  families arriving or returning to rural areas set up temporary shelter in the hillside. With the sudden influx, existing services, already weak, are under tremendous strain.

Until  now,  UNICEF and its partners have managed to distribute 4,000 water buckets  of water in Léôganes community’s homes. The aim is to reach 15,000 buckets by the end of April.

Marie  France  and  her immediate family sleep in a tent they’ve built from sheets  and sticks. The initially built their tent under the coco-palms for maximum shade, until the coconuts came down tumbling. Today they are out in the  open where the sun is hot like an oven during the day. “In the tent we only sleep,” she says.

During  the  day  she  cooks small pies, which she sells locally in a small shop  she’s  established.  They sit amongst other products she’s managed to secure,  such  as  candies,  mandarin  oranges and the popular French cream cheese  wedges.  La  Vache qui Rit. The small pittance of gourdes she earns daily  helps  to  provide  for  the  daily  needs of the seven people she’s supporting.

There  is  a  risk  that  if these communities are not supported, displaced people  will  return  in  search  of  assistance,  thereby  putting renewed pressure  on  damaged infrastructure and scare resources in Port au Prince.

UNICEF highlights the importance of early recovery action beginning now, to help stabilize the situation,  prevent further deterioration of local capacity, and shorten the need for humanitarian assistance.

While coming back yesterday evening to the MINUSTAH base camp, where we are living, I asked Mimi Tribie, UNICEF HIV specialist from Haiti, where she was during the earthquake. “That day I was coming back from my Christmas holidays. I was in the office trying to read all the emails I had receive. You know how it can become a nightmare! …” Mimi is a great person. She is one of these people that you know they are special the first time you meet them. She lived in the United States for 30 years. She came back to Haiti a couple of years ago to take care of her parents, since her mother is sick and she is the only child.

At UNICEF’s office, located in Debussy´s neighborhood, there were 55 people working. Fortunately nobody died. But the building was severely damaged. The new office is now based at the MINUSTAH base camp, and is made of two big brown tents. The team has increased up to 74 people, and, since there is a lot of work to do, it will keep growing.

“I called my husband at 4.48 to ask him at what time he was leaving the office. He told me at 5”, explains Mimi. That day, at her office, there were building works taking place. “After calling my husband somebody knocked my door. It was Jean Robert (another UNICEF colleague who is now working with us at the Communication Department). He asked me if I could move the car to let him get out”. She turned off her computer. She was joking with him and, just when she was getting out from the office, she was violently shacked. “The first thing I thought was that it was due to a machine from the building works. And then the whole building started to shake. Jean Robert’s eyes were wide open. I told him: “I think this is what they call an earthquake”. And we went underneath a table. At that moment one of my office’s walls collapsed. I told Jean Robert “Let’s try to get out of here”. We opened a door in our way to the reception. The floor was still shaking. To get out you have to push a green button that opens the door automatically, but it wasn’t working. At that moment she heard someone screaming “Oh my God, oh my God”. It was somebody in a remote office. Mimi stood up to hear where the voice was coming from. “That person saved my life because she prevented me from getting out from the building”. Then, we heard a tremendous noise: one of the walls which were being built collapsed. “If I had left the building at that moment it would have fallen on me”.

After the earthquake, the first thing Mimi did was to look at her husband’s building, to make sure it was still standing. She can see it from her office since it’s very high. “I was brave enough to look”. Fortunately it was still there.

Although Mimi is a peaceful person with a big sense of humor, at the end of the conversation she has a serious look on her face. “It was like the end of the world. I hope I’ll never be in a situation like that again.” Shehzad Noorani, UNICEF’s photographer, says “But Mimi, you are a calm person.” “No, Shehzad, I am not the same one since the 12th of January”.

To support UNICEF’s disaster relief efforts for children, please donate online

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Sad Day for Human Rights in New Zealand

The age of criminality for children in New Zealand for crimes other that murder or manslaughter has been reduced from 14 to 12.

This means that 12 year olds will now face criminal prosecution whereas in the past, they were handled by the family court.

All the evidence shows that diverting children away from criminal processes has a far better result for preventing re-offending.

Full story here

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