Tag: Unicef

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South Sudan, World Bank and UNICEF launch communication campaign

UNICEF

The communication campaign will run through the month of March and across multiple media platforms and messaging on the joint health services will be featured on billboards…reports Asian Lite News

South Sudan’s Ministry of Health, World Bank, and UNICEF launched a communication campaign to highlight the ongoing joint health programme and increase awareness among a broad coalition of partners to increase investment in the health sector.

The communication campaign will run through the month of March and across multiple media platforms and messaging on the joint health services will be featured on billboards, videos and public service announcements, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The communication campaign will highlight the importance of various health interventions, including immunisation campaigns and the vaccination against Covid-19,” UNICEF said in a joint statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

It said the national communication campaign will highlight the joint project of the Ministry of Health, the World Bank and UNICEF supporting Covid vaccine deployment in the country as well as the provision of essential health services for the most vulnerable populations in two of the most hard-to-reach areas — the States of Jonglei and Upper Nile.

It also said that the messages of the national communication campaign will be aired on radio channels and promoted on billboards and the media platforms of the three sides from Tuesday, highlighting the work done to support access to essential health services to the most vulnerable populations in South Sudan.

It warned that preventable diseases like malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia continue to exact a heavy toll on children and women nationwide.

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Since 2018, the three sides have been working together to implement a World Bank-financed health sector project that provides essential maternal and child health services in Jonglei and Upper Nile States.

According to the UN Children’s Fund, the project has so far contributed to immunising 156,991 children with the penta 3 vaccines and 153,394 children with the measles vaccines and provided 67,956 pregnant women with antenatal care services.

It also ensured that 26,358 newborns were delivered with the help of skilled health personnel. In 2021, the project facilitated the delivery of 587 metric tons of medical supplies and medicines and supplied soap, buckets, and water purification tablets for 685,000 people in both states.

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-Top News Afghanistan Asia News

Unicef offers support to Afghan teachers

The Unicef’s plan is for a period of two months but it is expected to expand, according to Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Riyan….reports Asian Lite News

The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has announced that the Unicef is considering paying an amount of $100 per month for nearly 200,000 public school teachers.

In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Education (MoE) said that more than 40,000 public school teachers have received two months’ worth of salaries provided by the UN, and the remaining will be paid within the next two weeks, reports TOLO News.

The Unicef’s plan is for a period of two months but it is expected to expand, according to Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Riyan.

“Indeed, the salary of the teachers is $100 which is being paid by Unicef. Those teachers whose salary is more than $100, the Ministry will pay the rest of the money,” Riyan added.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan last August, many workers, including teachers, remained unpaid for a long time as the country faced a sudden economic meltdown following the freezing of nearly $9 billion of the central bank’s assets.

To avert a humanitarian disaster, the UN agencies sought to pay the salaries of the employees without putting funds through government departments.

Meanwhile, teachers who were receiving a low salary even during the time of former Afghan governments, said that they were suffering from a deteriorated economic condition.

Hamira, 48, who has been working as a teacher for 28 years, said that she is ill but unable to make appointments with the doctors due to economic challenges.

“I have a lot of problems. I had only my income from teaching to pay the rent and the family’s expenses. This is a residence of one of my relatives. I live in their kitchen,” she told TOLO News.

Another teacher said: “I borrowed about 150,000 Afs for family expenses. My child was injured in an accident I didn’t have money to treat him.”

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-Top News World News

US’s Catherine Russell to head UNICEF

Russell succeeds Henrietta Fore of the US, who resigned in July 2021 to attend to a family health issue but offered to stay on until her successor is appointed…reports Asian Lite News

Catherine Russell of the US has took office as the new executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), becoming the fourth woman to lead the organisation.

“It is an honor and a privilege to join UNICEF and help lead its remarkable work for children at such a crucial moment,” Russell was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

“At a time when millions of children globally are still reeling from the impact of the Covid pandemic and other crises, UNICEF is leading the call to protect their rights and their futures. I look forward to the work ahead.”

Russell succeeds Henrietta Fore of the US, who resigned in July 2021 to attend to a family health issue but offered to stay on until her successor is appointed.

Before her new position at the UN, Russell served in the US government as assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel under President Joe Biden.

From 2013 to 2017, she served as ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues in the US Department of State. Previously, she served as deputy assistant to the president at the White House under President Barack Obama.

Russell holds a Bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington University Law School.

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Arab News News World

Lebanon’s crisis forces more youth to drop out of school Unicef

Lebanon's crisis forces more youth to drop out of school Unicef

Lebanon’s crisis is increasingly forcing young people to drop out of school and engage in ill-paid, irregular and informal work to survive and help feed their families…reports Asian Lite News

Dubbed “Searching for Hope”, the report released on Friday states that more than four in 10 youths in Lebanon reduced spending on education to buy basic food, medicine and other essential items, and three in 10 stopped their education altogether, reports Xinhua news agency.

It added that the enrolment in Lebanese educational institutions dropped from 60 per cent in 2020-2021 to 43 per cent in the current academic year.

Ettie Higgins, Unicef Deputy Representative in Lebanon, urged for much-needed support for young people in Lebanon.

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“Investments are needed to ensure financial concerns do not prevent them from getting the education and skills they need to eventually find decent work and contribute to the stability and prosperity of Lebanon,” he said.

While more and more young people are forced to drop out of education, they often find themselves ill-equipped to compete for increasingly scarce jobs and frequently end up taking up low-paid jobs in the informal sector, according to the report.

It also noted that working youth have an average monthly income of about 1,600,000 Lebanese pounds, equivalent to about $64 at the black-market rate.

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-Top News World News

SPECIAL 2022: Unicef Concerns over children’s safety

The number of confirmed cases of abduction and sexual violence increased at alarming rates during the first three months of 2021 — by more than 50 and 10 per cent, respectively…reports Asian Lite News.

Armed conflict, intercommunal violence and insecurity continued to take a toll on thousands of children throughout 2021, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.

As a result of protracted and new conflicts, UNICEF has documented grave violations against young people in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and northern Ethiopia.

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s Executive Director, on Friday said conflict parties continue to show a dreadful disregard for children’s rights year after year, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Children are suffering, and children are dying because of this callousness. Every effort should be made to keep these children safe from harm,” she added.

In 2020, the UN verified 26,425 grave violations against children, but data is not yet available for 2021.

The number of confirmed cases of abduction and sexual violence increased at alarming rates during the first three months of 2021 — by more than 50 and 10 per cent, respectively.

Somalia had the highest number of verified abductions, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and countries in the Lake Chad Basin (Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger).

Verified cases of sexual violence were the highest in the DRC, Somalia and the Central African Republic.

This year marked a quarter of a century since the publication of Graca Machel’s seminal impact of war on children report, which urged the UN and international community to take action.

There have been 266,000 documented cases of grave violations committed against children across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America in the 16 years since the UN began verifying such cases.

UNICEF estimates that the actual numbers are much higher, according to the 2005 UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism.

Afghanistan has the highest number of verified child casualties since 2005. Globally, the country accounts for 27 per cent of all verified child casualties with more than 28,500 incidents.

The Middle East and North Africa are home to the highest number of confirmed attacks on schools and hospitals, with 22 in the first six months of this year.

UNICEF stressed conflict-affected girls and boys are subjected to unspeakable horrors on a daily basis that no human should have to endure.

The first is the persistent and growing threat of explosive weapons, especially in populated areas.

Over 3,900 children were killed and maimed as a result of explosive weapons and remnants of war in 2020.

Children are often subjected to grave human rights violations.

Among the UN-verified cases of abductions in 2020, 37 per cent led to the recruitment and use of children in war.

UNICEF is urging all conflict parties to establish formal action plans.

Only 37 such plans have been signed since 2005 by parties to conflict, which UNICEF called “a shockingly low number, given the stakes.”

“Ultimately, children living through war will only be safe when parties to conflict take concrete action to protect them and stop committing grave violations,” Fore said.

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