UNICEF at BYU: An Introduction
UNICEF at BYU, the university's resident children's-issues club, was
founded in summer 2001. We host guest speakers, work as a link between
campus groups and external fund-raising organizations, and perform service
projects (six or more per month). Our goal structure is fourfold:
1) Provide educational opportunities that promote a greater understanding
of both local and global children's issues.
2) Provide meaningful service to children and youth within the community,
so we can each see the impact that our individual efforts have on others.
3) When possible, organize events to raise money for children in less-developed
countries that we are unable to reach out to physically.
4) Through a combination of education and service learning, create a
sense of political will and activism for our most vulnerable and important
natural resource—children.
In other words, we're all about learning what kids' needs are, then finding
ways to help.
This statement by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF discusses their movement to
establish UNICEF campus groups around the nation (there are currently
twenty-three other UNICEF university groups):
"Thirty-thousand children die every day as a result of preventable
diseases. This shame is the root of our hope: that college and university
students will take a few simple actions that will have an enormous impact
on the well being of the world's children. We support UNICEF (The United
Nations Children's Fund) in its endeavor to give the world's children
a brighter future by funding sustainable, field-based programs that prevent
death and disease among children under five.
"We affirm the power of youth to make a measurable difference in
the world around us. We also recognize the tremendous influence we have
over children in the United States who are younger than us; through our
local outreach, we will ensure that members of the next generation grow
to become empathetic, engaged citizens of the world."
UNICEF Worldwide
What is UNICEF?
UNICEF, the United Nations Children's
Fund, was founded in 1946 to meet the emergency needs of children in war-torn
Europe, China, and the Middle East. By 1950, UNICEF's mandate was extended
to address the problems of children in the developing world. UNICEF now
works in more than 160 countries and territories throughout Asia, Africa,
Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Through
its field offices, UNICEF cooperates with governments and community organizations
to meet the needs of children according to the situation in a given country.
In 1965, UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, linking its lifesaving
work for children with world peace. More recently, UNICEF helped organize
the World Summit for Children in September 1990, in which seventy-one
heads of state reached agreement on major child health and education goals
for the year 2000.
UNICEF, which has its own executive board, is an integral but semi-autonomous
agency of the United Nations. Financial support for its work is derived
entirely from voluntary contributions made by governments, foundations,
corporations, and individuals around the world. UNICEF's budget is not
part of the assessed dues paid by member governments of the United Nations.
What is the U.S. Fund for UNICEF?
Our campus group is affiliated with the U.S.
Fund for UNICEF, which works for the survival, protection, and development
of children worldwide through education, advocacy, and fundraising. Created
in 1947, it is the oldest of thirty-seven national committees in industrialized
countries that support UNICEF's mission. In the last fifty-two years,
the U.S. Fund has raised approximately $788 million to support numerous
UNICEF-assisted projects and programs. The funds raised by our group go
directly to these projects and programs around the world.
Headquartered in New York, the U.S. Fund has developed an extensive network
of volunteers in cities around the country. The U.S. Fund also creates
and distributes educational materials for teachers and students, promotes
the sale and distribution of UNICEF greeting cards, helps organize hundreds
of fund-raising events, organizes advocacy projects and letter-writing
campaigns, and sponsors the "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF."
Service
Past Projects
Fall 2001 was UNICEF at BYU's first semester as a campus group. All
in all, it was a successful beginning. Between our Trick-or-Treat campaign
with local elementary schools and our "Welcome Christmas" concert,
we earned a total of $1,380 for UNICEF. In addition, we conducted service
projects with Slate Canyons, a crisis nursery, local elementary schools,
and the Sub-for-Santa program in Provo. We also hosted several guest speakers,
who discussed the situation of children in Utah County. Our club advisor,
Dr. Christopher Layne, also shared his findings about the post-traumatic
effects of the Bosnian war on children.
Over the course of the 2002 winter semester, we conducted hands-on service
projects with Slate Canyon, Kids on the Move, Habitat for Humanity, The
Food
& Care Coalition, local rest homes, and other local agencies. Our
service
projects over the course of our first year reached out to many different
populations, from autistic children to homeless individuals, and from
youth
with substance abuse problems to children from low-income families.
Future Projects
Every week members of UNICEF at BYU go to Slate Canyon, a youth detention
center, to spend time with teenage boys in the center. Past activities
with
them have included playing sports, making care kits for residents of local
rest homes, having ice cream parties, making sack lunches for the Food
and
Care Coalition, playing games, and learning how to breakdance.
In addition to weekly activities at Slate Canyon, UNICEF at BYU generally
conducts two, structured group service activities per month. We have several
activities planned, including working with children in crisis at the Family
Support and Treatment Center and serving meals to needy families at the
Food and Care Coalition. One of our main goals for fall 2003 is school
outreach. We will be presenting information to schoolchildren (as well
as the community) about the lives of children in other parts of the world.
We hope to teach local kids more about the world around us and, as a result
of these educative efforts, inspire them to reach
out to people around them in compassionate service and activism.
For information about the dates of these service projects and activities,
please see our calendar. If you would like to participate in any of them,
contact us at byu.unicef@gmail.com.
Also, if you're trying to find service to do by yourself on a regular
basis, please contact us. We have lists of organizations who are looking
for committed volunteers to give their time regularly and make a significant
difference. We would love to help you find a service opportunity that
fits your interests.
Announcements
If you are interested in working with UNICEF in the Philippines, BYU's
International Study Programs has a unique opportunity for you to live
in
Manila for a semester doing an internship with UNICEF. For more information
about this great opportunity, contact Ryan Horne at 422-1488 or rjh55@email.byu.edu,
or to learn more about UNICEF in the Philippines, go to
http://www.unicef.org/philippines.
Southern Africa is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that has put
almost
13 million people, half of them children, at risk of starvation. Read
about
it at http://www.unicef.org/noteworthy/safricacrisis.
Even though the war has subsided, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan
is
far from over. Millions of Afghans, at least half of them children, remain
at high risk. See information about UNICEF's efforts to assist in health
and education in Afghanistan at
http://www.unicef.org/noteworthy/afghanistan.
About 26 percent of Bangladeshis—some 35 million people—are
drinking
arsenic-contaminated, poisonous water from tube wells despite an arsenic
mitigation campaign launched in the mid-1990s, the New York Times reported
on 14 July. See at
http://www.unicefusa.org/alert/emergency/bangladesh/bangladesh.html.
According to a report issued at a global meeting on child health convened
12–13 March by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, 60 percent
of North Korean children under age five suffer from malnutrition—the
worst rate
among 110 developing countries surveyed. Learn about what UNICEF is doing
to help at http://www.unicefusa.org/alert/emergency/nk/nk.html.
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