©UNICEF/2013/Vasquez
Arch of Jupiter in Damascus, Syria.

By Carlos Vasquez

AMMAN, JORDAN, 8 May 2013 – When I arrived in Jordan for my third mission on April 5th, Za’atari camp had more than 100,000 refugees; five times the amount since my first visit 8 months ago in September 2012. The total number of refugees spread over 4 countries is more than 1.4 million Syrian people today (Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey). The needs are great and it’s hard to keep up. UNICEF uses a 20 per cent factor to plan for education service delivery; that is an estimate of 280,000 displaced school age children in the region. In Za’atari alone we are delivering 3.5 million litres of water every day to meet the demand of refugees.

By Carlos Vasquez

AMMAN, JORDAN, 28 September 2012 – As I fill my bags to prepare for my departure back home, I have an overwhelming feeling of emptiness. I want to bring with me the family that crossed the Syrian-Jordanian border overnight, the mother holding her new born child under the Bedouin tent, the child that sells cigarettes to help his family, the child in a wheel chair with no place to go and all those frustrated by the inability of the international community to end the 18 month armed conflict.

©UNICEF/Jordan/2012/ Carlos Vasquez
Boy in Za’atari Camp, Jordan.

© 2010 Carlos Vasquez
Mr. Haji Sohrab is the elder leader of a village in northern Sindh, Pakistan where 90 per cent was destroyed by the floods in August 2010.

Carlos Vasquez

27 November 2010, Sukkur district, Sindh Province, Pakistan

N 27d 58.89”
E 67d 54.62”

These numbers may not mean much to people here in Pakistan or elsewhere in this ever shrinking world. To information technology people these are clearly the coordinates for a geographical location, also known as Global Positioning System, or GPS.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2008-1288/Josh Estey
An elementary school in Banda Aceh. The entire city was devastated by the tsunami. The school is one of 160 quake-resistant, child-friendly schools built with UNICEF assistance in Aceh and Nias.

Current externalities affecting the environment – such as deforestation, climate change, migration, poverty and food insecurity – will have a great impact on communities across the globe. People everywhere, especially children, will face monumental, interconnected challenges that will alter their ways of life at the most basic level.

School design and construction

©2010 Carlos VasquezVictor and Father Louis, Montagne Jaquot-Merlin, Haiti.

23 Feb 2010 – Victor Vincent Kinyanjui, from Kenya and WASH specialist for UNICEF Sierra Leone, and I set out early in morning to visit a rural school on top of mountain Jaquot-Merlin. The school is run by Father Louis Marrie from France. In order to get there we had to cross a dry river that shows clear signs of bank erosion due to heavy water flow during the rainy season.

© 2010 Carlos Vasquez
Port-au-Prince. Water bladder.

By Carlos Vasquez

March 2010 – Water and sanitation seem to be the one of the top priorities in cases of emergencies. Health and nutrition are also part of the core services that people require most urgently.