EVERY CHILD

IRELAND

HOW YOUR DONATIONS ARE HELPING CHILDREN

70TH

ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

SHELTERING ORPHANED CHILDREN IN SYRIA

DELIVERING CLEAN WATER TO ETHIOPIA

SAVING LIVES IN SOMALIA

70 YEARS OF DEFENDING CHILDREN

Did you know that UNICEF celebrated its 70th birthday in December 2016?

Thanks to you, whenever the world’s most vulnerable children have needed a champion in the face of conflict, disease or exclusion, we’ve been there.

UNICEF was first established to help children in Europe in the aftermath of World War II over 70 years ago. Since then, Irish people have helped to grow UNICEF into what it is today – the world’s biggest children’s organisation.

You reach more children and save more lives than any other.

We depend on Irish donations to support:

Thank you Ireland!

70TH

ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

This supporter magazine was made especially for you. We want you to know just how important you are to children around the world. We hope you enjoy reading their stories and getting to know the children you have helped.

WELCOME

We’ve got lots to celebrate!

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Front cover: Sarah, 4, stands in front of a tent in Tinah Camp, Iraq. When this picture was taken, 108 families were struggling to get by with few basic services. UNICEF provided safe water to the camp to help children cope with the harsh environment. Credit: Anmar, Iraq, 2016.

SYRIA

Zakariya, 6 and Doha, 5, smile as they sit outside the orphanage you help support where they live in Aleppo.

In November 2016, violence escalated in the city. As families fled, we identified children who were unaccompanied – some of them too young to speak. Whilst efforts continued to trace their families, you helped to welcome 74 orphaned and separated children into our temporary home, offering them a protective environment and a sense of normality. Every morning the children have breakfast together. Then, after school, they receive extra classes covering different subjects to help them catch up with their peers.

Zakariya and Doha were withdrawn when they first arrived at the shelter. Having witnessed so many horrors in their few years of life, many of the children were traumatised, prompting UNICEF to include them in psychological support activities. Now, as you can see, Zakariya and Doha are happy. They interact with other children and the “Aunties” – the nickname the children have given to the 12 governesses who care for them.

“On weekends, we all go out to parks to play and have fun like one big family!” Mohammad, a staff member at the orphanage.

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HAITIMylove (right) who is 8, sits with her friends near her home in Jérémie, one of two cities that received the full force of Hurricane Matthew on October 4, 2016.

“I thought I was going to die. I thought my family would all die.” said Mylove.

Within days, UNICEF had delivered water to Jérémie and purification tablets, water bladders and plastic

sheeting to the westernmost tip of Haiti. By October 10, we had delivered blankets, buckets, water purifying equipment and cholera diagnostic kits to many of the worst hit communities. We also vaccinated against cholera and were able to prevent an outbreak.

Your quick response during this emergency protected children in Haiti, like Mylove.

Credit: LeMoyne, Haiti, 2016

Genet, 10, and her two-year-old brother Samuel travel home on their donkey after filling up their jerry cans at a newly built water point provided by you.

The children live in Lode Lemofo Kebele in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia. It is a low-land area where high temperatures are common. Access to water is one of the key problems for the community. During the annual dry seasons, people are forced to walk for many hours through the long stretches of bare fields under the baking hot sun.

“It is very tiring and takes up to three hours to and from the river back to the village,” explains the children’s mother, Yesunesh. “Sometimes hyenas attack us or our donkeys. All of these problems are a thing of the past as we have clean water flowing in our community now.”

ETHIOPIA

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DAWN FLIES HIGH FOR CHILDREN“My name is Dawn O’Hare and I’m a Cabin Service Manager for Aer Lingus. In 2016, I had the opportunity to become a UNICEF Aer Lingus Ambassador and to visit Zambia to see a UNICEF vaccination programme for babies and young children.

I had the chance to deliver polio drops to two babies which was such an amazing thing to be able to do.

Just a few short weeks before in Dublin, we had held a special on board collection for a child immunisation programme for Zambia to ensure no child is left without a simple vaccination, and there I was delivering the vaccine to babies! As a mother, it made me realise how very lucky we are in

Ireland to have the maternity care we take for granted.

I thought I knew what UNICEF was about, but it has made me see them in quite a different way, how they respond when aid is needed quickly but also how long-term, community based projects really do work. I know in my heart I will always champion the cause for UNICEF.”

In the 20 years since the Change For Good on-board collections began, Aer Lingus passengers and staff have raised an incredible $20.5 million for children!”

Aer Lingus UNICEF Ambassadors Louise Barry, Eamon McKenna and Dawn O’Hare entertain the children of Green Acres Basic School in Kalomo.

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Education in Iraq

Noor, 9, smiles for the camera in a classroom at a recently reopened school in eastern Mosul in Iraq.

In February, we appealed for funds to help get children in Iraq back to school. So far, your support has helped reopen 230 schools, and you have donated enough to provide school supplies for 1,000 children.

Thank you for giving children a chance to achieve a better future.

Nyaduop Gijor feeds Plumpy’Nut (a peanut-based paste) to her 10-month-old grandson Goanar Subet, who has severe malnutrition.

In 2017, ongoing insecurity in South Sudan, combined with an economic crisis that has pushed inflation above 800 percent, has caused widespread malnutrition among children to reach emergency levels in most parts of the country. In 2016, UNICEF and partners admitted 184,000 children for treatment of severe malnutrition – 50 percent higher than the year before.

Famine crisis in South Sudan

MEET THE CHILDREN YOUR DONATIONS HAVE HELPED!

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Winter clothes for Syrian Children

Rafi, 3, sits on a box of winter clothing that his family has just received at a Syrian refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In our winter appeal, we asked if you could help us provide warm clothes for Syrian children struggling to survive in the freezing cold. Your response was wonderful with Irish supporters donating enough to provide winter clothes for 6,403 children.

Thank you for protecting children from the cold.

Thank you so much! You were there for children when they needed you most.

Credit: Khuzaie, Iraq, 2016

Credit: Anmar, Iraq, 2016

Credit: GonzalesFarran, South Sudan, 2017

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SOMALIAUNICEF Ireland’s Executive Director Peter Power has just returned from a field visit to Somalia where the famine that was declared in parts of South Sudan earlier this year is threatening to spread. In Somalia, millions of children are at risk of death.

We have been here before. We know this crisis. In 2011, 130,000 children died in Somalia because the world did not act quickly enough.

We have the skills to prevent that from happening again. These thoughts tormented me, as I met children on the frontline of hunger.

One of those children was eight-month-old Hassan. I met him and his mother, Ugaso, at the UNICEF Stabilisation Centre in Hargeisa. Hassan, who was already weak, had been vomiting since being brought in five days earlier. His poor mum was very shaken by her infant’s brush with death. But now, thanks to the kindness of people like you, Hassan is getting the treatment he needs and has an excellent chance of making a full recovery.

Hassan is one of 92,000 children that you have helped us to treat since January of this year. But

there are many more children who still need our help. If they are to live, they need food and clean water, vaccinations and medicine. 275,000 children currently have, or will suffer with life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, but 1.4 million children are already not getting enough food to eat.

Our teams are on the ground working tirelessly to prevent this crisis from becoming a full-scale famine. If we can treat children in time, they have an almost 93% recovery rate. Already, you have helped UNICEF establish 500

outpatient feeding centres, give 1.2 million people access to safe water, vaccinate 280,000 children against measles and give 900,000 people oral cholera vaccines to prevent an outbreak.

There is no doubt in my mind that your support has helped to save the lives of countless children in Somalia. But no one knows what lies ahead, it could be that the worst is yet to come. There is, however, another possible outcome.

Famine is preventable. Let’s prevent it.

Thanks to the treatment you’re helping to give him, eight-month-old baby boy, Hassan has every chance of making a full recovery.Ho

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If you would like to donate to help children in Somalia please send your donation by Freepost to UNICEF Ireland, 33 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1. Alternatively, you can give over the phone on 01 878 3000 or online at www.unicef.ie

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In May, UNICEF Youth Advocate, Brigid O’Sullivan was invited to speak on Climate Change and Children’s Rights at the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Here’s some of what she had to say.

“My name is Brigid O’Sullivan and I’m 16 years old. Across the globe every single person is being affected by climate change. Children are in the worst position; we will continue to be affected by it for our entire future. The action the world takes now will decide how detrimental an effect climate change will have on our futures.

I am not suggesting we leave this grave responsibility solely on the shoulders of the policy makers, the governments, the NGOs; in basic words the grown-ups. We children have innovation, creativity and

out of the box thinking at our fingertips. We are an almost untapped resource in the fight against climate change, and we have the greatest inspiration: our future.”

“We children are some of the most passionate, the most motivated, the most dedicated, just like you.”

“Glacaim leis nach dtarlóidh sé seo thar oíche ach “de réir a chéile a thógtar na cáisleáin. Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghábháil libh as éisteacht shibhialta a thabhairt dom.”

UNICEF Youth Advocate, Brigid O’Sullivan, went on a plane for the first time, travelling 1500 kilometres

to speak up for children at the Climate Change Conference in Bonn.

WE NEED MORE SUPPORT TO BE CHANGE MAKERS

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For 70 years, UNICEF has depended on supporters like you to be the global champion of children. Together, we’re there for every child, regardless of gender, religion, race or economic background.

You’ve achieved amazing things for children, including:

l You’ve helped us get 99% of the way to fully eradicating polio

l You’ve helped to halve under five child deaths by half since 1990

l You vaccinate 40% of the world’s children

l You supply 80% of the world’s therapeutic food.

For a better future

Thanks to you, we’ve come a long way for children in 70 years. Make sure the good work you’ve started during your lifetime lives on. Please consider a gift in your Will to UNICEF Ireland. Please tick the box opposite for more information.

WHAT’S YOUR MESSAGE TO THE NEXT GENERATION?

We’d love to hear it! Simply complete your details below, write your message overleaf, then detach this section along the perforation and return it in the prepaid envelope provided to:

UNICEF Ireland 33 Lower Ormond Quay Freepost F407 Dublin 1

Name

Address

Postcode

Tel no

Email

Please send me information about including a gift in my Will to UNICEF Ireland

A STUNNING LEGACY

70years of

defending children

IRELAND

MY MESSAGE TO THE NEXT GENERATION FOR THE NEXT 70 YEARS

Genet and Misra collect water from a newly built water point provided by UNICEF in Lode Lemofo Kebele, which is in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Credit: Sewunet, Ethiopia, 2016