goal
Goal 2022/2023
Building Blocks for the Future
- Ivory Coast
288 tonnes of plastic waste is produces everyday polluting low income areas. This project aims to collect plastic waste and create plastic blocks with which classrooms will be built. This not only will improve children's access to a better education environment but it decreases plastic waste pollution and increases incomes of vulnerable families.
GOAL 2021/2022
A SAFE HOME FAR FROM HOME - UGANDA
As of 31 August 2021, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Uganda is home to 1,503,601 refugees and asylum-seekers, over 58 percent of whom are vulnerable children.1 During the month of August, the population rose by 4,039 individuals (0.3%). The increase is linked to registration activities (backlog registration) where the top four locations of registration are: Nakivale, Kyangwali, Rwamwanja, and Kyaka. Borders are still closed to refugees and asylum seekers, but the Government exceptionally allowed entry to new arrivals through Bubukwanga and Lamwo. The new entrants are screened for COVID-19 and other diseases. There are continued reports of pendular refugee movements and inter-community conflict in Kyaka II. UNHCR and OPM urged partners to increase sensitization for peaceful co-existence. Reports from a UNHCR survey show increased stunting and anemia cases in the southwest region. Development of the 2022/2023 Refugee Response Plan (RRP) is ongoing. A national-level multi-stakeholder workshop took place to enable joint understanding of risks, gaps, priorities and assumptions that will guide planning for 2022-2023 and beyond.
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Situation in numbers
• As of 26 August, 98,814 polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 cases (male 57 percent; female 43 percent) were recorded, including 2,985 deaths (case fatality rate 3.0 percent), with a cumulative total of 119,915 cases that include 21,101 positive rapid diagnostic tests.
• 222,930 people were affected by drought, floods, landslides, heavy storms, and fire outbreaks from January to August 2021.
• 630,964 children and women received essential health care services,
including immunization and prenatal, postnatal, HIV and gender-based
violence care.
• 27,057 (12,230 male, 14,827 female) individuals have benefitted from
community-based mental health and psychosocial support as part of the
COVID-19 response.
• Cumulatively, 100,356 people accessed safe water of appropriate quality for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene.
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Funding overview
UNICEF is appealing for US$24.9 million to sustain life-saving services for women and children in Uganda. As of 31 August 2021, Japan, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands Committee for UNICEF, Global Thematic Humanitarian Response Fund, UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund, US Bureau of Population-Refugees (BPRM), the Japan Committee for UNICEF (Saraya) and British Government Building Resilience and an Effective Emergency Refugee Response (BRAER) have generously contributed US$11.1 million to UNICEF Uganda’s humanitarian response. This is in addition to carry-over funds from 2020, totaling US$7.7 million. UNICEF expresses its sincere gratitude to all donors for the contributions received. However, the 2021 Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) still has a funding gap of 46 percent. Without sufficient funding, over 1.9 million women and children will not have access to essential health care and education.
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WHAT DOES UNICEF DO?
UNICEF continued to play a key role as a technical member of the National Oxygen Task Force, providing an additional 100 filled oxygen cylinders, each with respective accessories including 100 medical regulators, 100 non-rebreather masks, and 100 spindle keys, and delivered them to NMS for distribution to regional and general hospitals, based on MoH recommendation. Oxygen demand across the country remains a huge challenge though there has been a marked improvement in production capacity, storage, and transportation.
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UNICEF, in partnership with its implementing partners, provided preventive and curative nutrition services for children and women in Uganda. A total of 14,908 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) were treated in inpatient and outpatient therapeutic programs from January 2021 to date. The Karamoja sub-region, having recently been affected by a severe drought, accounts for 63 percent of these admissions. The number of SAM admissions across the country is facing the lowest decline this year due to limited community screening and referral that has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF is planning to roll out family-led mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) to support timely screening and referral. A total of 942,936 pregnant women and caregivers of children aged 0-23 months received counselling services from January 2021 to date.
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UNICEF is co-leading three sectors and one area of responsibility (AoR). UNICEF co-leads both the child protection AoR and the education sector with Save the Children, the nutrition sector with Concern, Action Against Hunger (ACF) and the World Food Program (WFP) and the WASH sector with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Memorandums of Understanding have been signed between UNICEF and each co-lead agency at the country level to guide effective and efficient coordination and ensure clear roles and responsibilities of each party. UNICEF co-led clusters and AoR are all part of the Inter-Cluster Working Group (ICWG) led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at the national and sub-national levels. UNICEF participates in the in-country interagency Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Task Force.
GOAL 2020/2021
MAMAN LUMIÈRE
Burundi is a very fertile African country: almost every tropical fruit that you can think of grows there. Burundi, however, is also characterized by a contradiction: the country has the highest percentage of chronically malnourished children in the world. This problem greatly hinders the development of these children. Via the Maman Lumière-program, UNICEF aims to tackle malnutrition in Burundi and give children the opportunity to grow up healthy.
Still to accomplish
200 Maman Lumières will be educated in good nutrition and will be trained in transferring this knowledge to other mothers in their community. They will also learn how to screen children for malnutrition.
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The trained Maman Lumières will organise over 1.300 cooking classes on good nutrition and over 1.300 sessions in which children will be screened for malnutrition.
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The trained Maman Lumières will be provided with seeds for vegetable gardens via which they can grow healthy crops.
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With the Maman Lumière programme, UNICEF will be able to reach more than 46.000 children, between the age of 0 to 5, with good nutrition. This will give these children the opportunity to grow up healthy.
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The problem
In Burundi, 1,2 million children, under five years, old are chronically malnourished. These children do not get the nutrients they need and the consequences are severe and (often) irreversible. Chronically malnourished children are more prone to illness, stay behind in their growth, and their brains develop insufficiently. This negatively influences their school performance, and makes it more difficult for them to find a job later in life.
The majority of the Burundian population lives on the countryside, where the people are selfsufficient and cultivate pieces of land where almost any crop can grow. Nevertheless, the daily meal of many Burundian families often solely consists of beans. Many mothers have never learned of the importance of vitamins and minerals for their own health and their children’s health.
What does UNICEF do?
Maman Lumières are mothers of children who are well-nourished, while they live in the same circumstances as mothers of malnourished children. Many Maman Lumières got the opportunity to go to school a bit longer than other mothers which increased their knowledge on good nutrition. With this programme, UNICEF will use Mamans Lumières to tackle malnutrition in Burundi.
UNICEF will do so by increasing the knowledge of Maman Lumières on good nutrition, by providing them with seeds that enable them to set up nutritious gardens and by teaching them the skills which will allow them to share their gained knowledge with mothers from their neighbourhood. Mamans Lumières will also learn how to show mothers – via cooking classes – how to prepare foods from local produce that will provide young children with the nutrients they need. Next to this, UNICEF trains Mamans Lumières in screening children for malnutrition and teaches them when they should refer a child to the nearest health clinic for treatment.
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GOAL 2019
THE LEADERS OF THE FUTURE
Imagine, there is a war in your country and you have to find refuge in a different country. You live in a tent, but you expect to go back to your country soon. However, the war still continues. The refugee camp grows and grows until it becomes a small town. You, a child, full of hopes and life plans, grow up to become an adolescent with little prospects.
Jordan is a beacon of stability in the Middle East. The country has been is a safe haven for refugees for ages. Currently, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees settled in camps and host communities in Jordan. Za’atari is the biggest most well-known refugee camp in Jordan, hosting around 80.000 people.
One of the biggest problems in Jordan is youth unemployment. Young people lack the knowledge and skills that are crucial for a fast changing labour market. That’s why UNICEF wants to reach adolescents in Jordan with innovative education so that they can learn the following 21st century skills:
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Tech skills - adolescents will soon learn technical, creative and innovative skills that are important for future jobs. Examples are programming, making productions for creative and social media, and designing interactive (computer) games. The goal: to better prepare children for the future labour market.
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Soft skills - Potential employers also look for characteristics such as self-confidence, creativity and the knowledge of the English language. That is why UNICEF also pays attention to teach young adolescents soft skills.
Both tech skills and soft skills are desperately needed to raise the future leaders of the Tech industry in the region. UNICEF Jordan has close partnerships with a number of companies and organisations: these partners lead the tech trainings, and offer internships and starter positions to the young people participating in the program.
What do we want to achieve?
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In refugee camps, such as Za’atari, innovation labs are being set up where 20.000 children, adolescents and young people can develop their creative skills and innovative ideas. UNICEF’s network of ‘Makani centers’ is used for this project. These are child-friendly places in refugee camps and host communities where both Syrian children and vulnerable Jordanian children can go to play and learn.
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80.000 adolescents and young people in Jordan get technical training to increase their opportunities on the labour market. These young people learn: to program through coding bootcamps, to make productions for creative and social media, to design websites and computer games, to conduct research and scientific experiments.
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50.000 young people are accompanied in taking their first steps on the labour market. In the Za’atari camps, together with start-ups, UNICEF has set up a textile production line. Young people can follow a training in making textiles. Their creations are sold in and outside the camps so that they can earn their own income.
With this program, UNICEF reaches both Syrian and vulnerable Jordanian adolescents. By bringing these two groups together, tensions are taken away and mutual understanding and respect grows.
Since 2019, all money raised by all UNICEF student team in the Netherlands is going towards that goal.
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GOAL 2018
SYRIA BACK
TO SCHOOL
The conflict in Syria has been going on for the past eight years, years of violence and uncertainty. Many children have only known war in their lives. There is a serious lack of basics such as food, water and health care in Syria as well as in countries in the region that take in many refugees. Often, children miss out on education for years and run the risk of having to work or being married off. For the ones that can go to school there are many dangers on the way to school and even in the classroom children are not always safe. One out of every three school buildings has been destroyed, damaged or used by warring parties or displaced families.
School is no longer a possibility for more than 1.7 million children in Syria. This is excluding more than half a million Syrian refugee children living in neighbouring countries without any access to school. These children are at risk of having to work or being recruited by armed groups. Girls are often married off at young age, because parents hope that their daughter is safe with their (often older) husband. Yet there is also hope: in Syria more and more children are returning to school!
What do we want to achieve?
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UNICEF sets up emergency classrooms and ensures that damaged school buildings are renovated. Classrooms are provided with school furniture. The costs for one class room are about €10.000 and 80 children can be educated in such a classroom.
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We ensure that teachers are trained, for example in the field of psychosocial care or inclusive education.
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Children receive learning materials, such as books, exercise books, pens and pencils.
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In emergency situations, we provide ‘School-in-a-Box’. A large box containing materials to teach a class of children for several months.
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Alternative educational opportunities are provided for children who cannot go to school because, for example, they live in hard-to-reach or besieged areas (e.g. self-study package, education via radio, TV or internet).
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An accelerated learning program should ensure that children who have missed out on education for years or who have never been to school at all, still learn basic academic skills.
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Psychosocial care programs are provided to help children process their experiences.
What have we achieved?
In 2018, all money raised by the student teams in the Netherlands went towards that goal. Together we achieved
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In Syria, more than 1.9 million children and adolescents received access to formal education and almost 415,000 children and adolescents received access to non-formal education. Non-formal education includes alternative programs for children who have not been to school for a long period of time, or self-study programs for children living in hard-to-reach areas.
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376,000 Syrian children and parents (in Syria) were reached with programs on child protection and psychosocial care. In Lebanon and Jordan, 126,000 children were reached with psychosocial care programs.
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1.6 million Syrian children and their parents received information about unexploded war material / mines.
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More than 154,000 teachers were trained in Turkey. 12,994 Syrian teachers received a monthly contribution to teach Syrian children in refugee camps and host communities.
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UNICEF provided fuel to schools in Lebanon covering areas that are situated higher than 500 meters.
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In Syria, thousands of school children travelled through battle lines to do exams
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UNICEF repaired 274 schools and made sure they were better protected against bomb attacks and shelling. For example, the windows were replaced by thicker glass that will not shatter during a bomb attack and many schools were given solar panels to generate solar energy. As a result of these repairs, 255,000 children could receive courses in their school building again.
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In addition, emergency classrooms were set up in various areas. Aleppo is one of the areas. Here, children were able to continue their education in 67 emergency classrooms.
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