UNICEF education staff share their stories

NEW YORK, 4 January 2012 – We asked UNICEF education staff around the globe to tell us about their most inspiring moment they experienced in 2011. Something that they would not forget and reminded them why they chose this profession. Here are some of their stories.

By Daisy Serem

TURKANA DISTRICT, Kenya, 11 November 2011- Lowa Lokopu, lost her husband four years ago after he fell ill. Forced to take up the responsibility of running a family alone, she struggles to provide for her five children.

Lowa’s eldest daughter, Sheila, a student at Napuu Primary School, was only 13 years old when her father died. Her educational pursuits became increasingly challenging as the family did not have enough money for food and school supplies. Sheila would walk almost five kilometers to school and back home every day as she could not afford boarding at the school. It was during this time that she conceived her first child at the age of 15.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2011-1345/Antony Njuguna
Kenya, 2011 - On 17 August, a boy drinks a high-nutrition porridge at Catholic Integrated School in the drought-affected district of Wajir, in North Eastern Province. Hundreds of children are receiving porridge at the school, part of a national policy to continue school lunches during the summer vacation to ensure children are fed.

Press release

NAIROBI, Kenya, 20 October 2011 – The massive international response to the child survival crisis in the Horn of Africa has already shown some positive results, but much more needs to be done to save hundreds of thousands of children at risk of dying from malnutrition and disease, UNICEF said today according to a progress report three months after famine was declared in parts of Somalia.

By Rob McBride

WAJIR, Kenya, 26 September – 2011 – In a futile attempt to save the last of the goats, Ali Yusef Omar, 16, and one of his younger sisters had no other option but to feed the ravenous animals handfuls of shredded-up cardboard boxes they had scavenged from the local town. Kept in a make-shift pen made of thorn bushes, only three remain out of a herd that had once numbered two hundred.

“Of course these goats are going to die,” said the boy with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. “You think they’re going to survive on boxes?”

By Manuel Moreno and Kyle O’Donoghue

DADAAB, Kenya, 9 September 2011 – For children around the world, the end of the school holidays usually comes with mixed feelings. That was surely the case as schools re-opened their doors this week in the Dadaab refugee camps in north-eastern Kenya.

The difference here is that many of the pupils are new arrivals who have travelled from Somalia with their families looking for safety from famine and violence. Most of them are not even familiar with formal schooling.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2011-0999/Kate Holt
Somali children waiting to register for food and other aid in the Dagahaley refugee camp in North Eastern Province, near the Kenya-Somalia border. The camp is among three that comprise the Dadaab camps, located on the outskirts of the town of Dadaab in Garissa District. In Kenya, 1.7 million children have been affected by the drought, including 220,000 Somali refugee children in the north-eastern town of Dadaab.

By Rudina Vojvoda

NEW YORK, USA, 12 September 2011 – As the emergency escalates throughout the Horn of Africa, the numbers of those in crisis continue to grow. Currently, 13.3 million people in the region are in need of humanitarian assistance. Somalia is the worst-affected country, with more than 750,000 people at risk of death.