Blog

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

-Elizabeth Chinery, Junior Community Outreach Coordinator

UNICEF

From its founding in 1946, UNICEF has always believed that:

“All children have a right to survive, thrive, and fulfill their potential – to the benefit of a better world.”

It has indiscriminately defended children from all around the world in over 190 countries and territories for over 70 years through programmes and National Committees using a life-cycle based approach. UNICEF uses this approach to recognize “the particular importance of early childhood development and adolescence,” focusing it’s programmes on “the most disadvantaged children, including those living in fragile contexts, those with disabilities, those who are affected by rapid urbanization and those affected by environmental degradation.”

“UNICEF was created with a distinct purpose in mind: to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path.” Through actions such as promoting girls’ education, immunizing children against common childhood diseases, advocating for and assisting in well-balanced nutrition, and mobilizing anti-HIV/AIDS efforts among young people, UNICEF is working hard to ensure that its purpose is met. In fact, according the UNICEF’s 2017 Annual Report, the organization “responded to 337 emergencies in 102 countries (8.8 million of whom where children), reached nearly 33 million people with safe water in humanitarian settings, supported the vaccination of 141 million children against polio in Africa, delivered health services to 15.2 million children and women in humanitarian emergencies, and helped bring the number of new HIV infections in children averted since 2010 to at least 1.6 million,” and many more achievements.

To take a look at UNICEF’s 2017 annual report:

https://www.unicef.org/publications/index_102899.html

For more information on or more news regarding UNICEF and its work:

https://www.unicef.org/

Post a comment