Bird's Eye View of a Refugee's World

Google Earth's new mapping programme takes you on a virtual reality tour with the UN refugee agency of some of the world's major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.

The first use of this geospatial tool focuses on refugees and displaced people located in remote areas of Chad, Iraq, Colombia and Sudan's volatile Darfur region. Sit in front of your computer and, with a few clicks, see, hear and develop an emotional understanding of what it is like to be a refugee.

Highlighted are not only the physical area of the camp and surrounding country, but key parts of daily life such as education and health in photo, text and video format. Within seconds, Google Earth brings the daily life of a refugee camp into your home thousands of kilometres away.

To start your journey, click here.

World Refugee Day - 20 June 2008

From Australia through ancient Rome to the Americas, people around the globe will take part in the most ambitious and spectacular World Refugee Day (WRD) celebrations ever over the coming week.

With "Protection" as this year's global theme, UNHCR and its partners, including governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, Angelina Jolie and other Goodwill Ambassadors and refugees themselves, will stage a wide range of activities, including light shows, photography exhibitions, film festivals, lectures, panel discussions, food bazaars, fashion shows, concerts and sports competitions.

There will also be quizzes, drawing and essay-writing competitions, tree planting, seminars, workshops, speeches, public awareness campaigns and poetry recitals, while UNHCR will recreate refugee camp life in around 20 capitals around the world.

Aside from these showcase events aimed at raising money and awareness in major cities and donor nations, more modest but equally enthusiastic events are planned at refugee camps and settlements for internally displaced people in the run up to World Refugee Day and on the day itself, June 20.

High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres will start his celebrations on Tuesday in London's iconic Trafalgar Square, which will be turned into a refugee camp for a day to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. The world's largest packet delivery company, UPS, has generously transported for free the four tents that will nestle under Nelson's Column as well as those to be displayed in other cities.

Guterres will formally open "Experience Darfur" before releasing UNHCR's eagerly awaited annual statistics on the number of refugees, internally displaced people and other people of concern to the agency. The Trafalgar Square exhibit will include interactive games, recreated villages and refugee camps, and exhibits of relief items, including blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, soap, buckets and clean, safe and environmentally friendly stoves.

The High Commissioner will spend World Refugee Day itself attending a ceremony at the University of Nairobi after visiting Somali refugees in north-east Kenya on Wednesday and internally displaced Kenyans the following day.

Back in Europe, a colloquium of female refugees, politicians, civil activists and business leaders will gather on WRD at the Musée Galliera in Paris to discuss the state of refugee women in Syria, Burundi and France. Also on Friday, the results of an essay competition for journalism students will be announced on June 20 by the co-organizers, UNHCR and Le Monde, with the winner getting to spend a week in the field with the refugee agency.

Elsewhere in Europe, Rome's fabled Colosseum will be illuminated on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights with the UNHCR logo and the legend: "Protecting refugees is a duty. Being protected is a right." In keeping with annual tradition, the soaring Jet d'Eau (water jet) in Swiss city, Geneva, will be bathed in blue light to mark WRD.

In Spain, UNHCR will highlight the importance of education with the launch of the Spanish-language version of its interactive web-based game, "Against All Odds," on Friday at Madrid's Caixa Forum Museum. On Tuesday, meanwhile, a WRD-linked photography exhibition on Darfur and Chad will open in the city of Valencia. Work by UNHCR's Helen Caux will feature alongside images by photographers from the prestigious Magnum and VII agencies.

Another evocative photographic exhibition, "Do You See What I See," is scheduled to open at Geneva's Palais des Nations, the UN's European headquarters, as well as in Yemen and Namibia. Refugee children in Yemen's Kharaz camp and Osire camp in Namibia have documented their lives, hopes and dreams through text and image.

In the Middle East, an exciting WRD programme is lined up for Syria, kicking off at the Opera House in Damascus on Monday with a charity concert by acclaimed Iraqi oud (lute) player, Naseer Shamma, to raise money for UNHCR's Iraqi refugee programme, which faces a funding crisis.

In the Americas, meanwhile, the winners of the second World Refugee Day essay contest for high school students will be announced on June 20 in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle. Students taking part in the contest, co-organized by UNHCR, must write on the integration of urban refugees.

UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner L. Craig Johnstone will lead World Refugee Day celebrations in the United States, attending a public ceremony and a film screening at the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C. Johnstone will also present a Humanitarian of the Year Award to Sudan-born Chicago Bulls basketball star Luol Deng. The former refugee has in the past year become a key supporter of UNHCR's ninemillion.org campaign, which promotes education and sport for refugee children.

Other celebrity supporters of UNHCR in the United States will be helping to promote the theme of protection. A special message from UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie will be released on video-sharing website YouTube around the world next Wednesday, while Deng will invite YouTubers and Facebook users to join an online campaign to "Give Refugees a Hand."

The messages by Jolie and Deng are examples of how UNHCR is using social utilities and new media to reach out to the online community and to get people involved.

Meanwhile best-selling author Khaled Hosseini, a goodwill envoy to UNHCR in the United States, will take part in a discussion on his homeland of Afghanistan with a distinguished panel of experts and opinion leaders in San Francisco. The work of photographer Zalmaï, another former Afghan refugee who will soon publish a book on Iraqi refugees with UNHCR support, will be featured in a special New York exhibition.

Join UNHCR and celebrate World Refugee Day around the globe.

To learn more please visit:
UNHCR Home page
World Refugee Day - UNHCR
UNHCR Shelter Campaign
UNHCR's YouTube Channel

The World Bank's International Essay Competition 2008

Shape the city of your dreams by entering the International Essay Competition 2008!

Have you ever thought about the city you live in and the opportunities and challenges that lay in wait? Have you ever voiced the needs for action and agenda to transform your city into the city of your dreams? Have you ever taken action, to make this happen? Would you like $5,000 dollars?

If you have ever given thought to any of these questions. If you have ever wanted an opportunity to voice your views on these topics to the public - now is your chance to be heard! Share your experiences with your community development projects, or impart your plans on what can be done. There is no better way to work towards a better world without the visionary ideals from you, the youth, the public - the citizens and future of these communities!

Organized by the World Bank, the Cities Alliance and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in partnership with a great number of outstanding academic and civil society institutions, local governments, and UN-agencies including UN-HABITAT, the International Essay Competition will be judged by a jury of renowned professors and leaders from around the world. You have the opportunity to reach not only the academic bigwigs of society, but the leaders of incredible international development agencies as well!

Give yourself the possibility to transform your ideas into action and WIN $5,000 for it! there is less than two weeks until the deadline for submission!

For more information please visit www.EssayCompetition.org.

Say NO to Violence against Women

Please join UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman in support of UNIFEM's campaign to Say No to Violence against Women! Add your name to an ever-growing movement of people who speak out to put a halt to this shameful human rights violation.

Related links:
www.saynotoviolence.org
www.unifem.org
UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman

Drew Barrymore gives one million dollars to WFP

Ambassador Against Hunger, Drew Barrymore announced a personal donation of US$1 million on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to help the World Food Programme (WFP) feed thousands of school children in Kenya.

"I have seen with my own eyes what a difference a simple cup of nutritious porridge can make in a child’s life," said Drew Barrymore. "It helps them learn, stay healthy and sets them on track for a bright future. I urge everyone -- everywhere -- to help WFP ‘Fill the Cup’ for hungry children, and make hunger history," she said.

She explained that for just 25 US cents a day, WFP can provide a school meal which feeds bodies, minds and transforms children’s lives.

As part of the “Fill the Cup” campaign, WFP is seeking US$3 billion -- just 25 US cents a day -- to feed 59 million hungry school children in developing countries worldwide for a year. People can donate by clicking on “Fill the Cup” at www.WFP.org.

Related links:
www.WFP.org
www.DrewBarrymore.com

Investing in Women and Girls. March 8 - International Women’s Day

International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women.

The day celebrated internationally on 8 March every year, will be observed at the United Nations this year on 6 March. The theme for 2008 is "Investing in Women and Girls." The celebration will have an intense focus on financing for gender equality at the country level.

The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on 28 February 1909. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating 8 March as International Women's Day. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. For the United Nations, International Women's Day has been observed on 8 March since 1975. The Day is traditionally marked with a message from the Secretary-General.

Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point to build support for women's rights and participation in the political and economic arenas. Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

To learn more please visit this sites:
UN.ORG - International Women's Day 2008
UNIFEM.ORG - International Women's Day 2008
www.InternationalWomensDay.com
WomenWatch.org
United Nations Cyberschoolbus
IWD @ Wikipedia

Hunger Bytes: WFP and YouTube viral video competition

Make a video about hunger and you and a friend could find yourselves on a fast track to one of the world’s Hunger Hotspots to witness firsthand a WFP relief programme.

The World Food Programme calls on students, would-be filmmakers and any other interested folks in the web universe to put their creativity towards raising awareness about hunger through a unique, international competition - the best short video about ‘byting’ global hunger.

"For those of us doing the day-in, day-out backbreaking work of getting food to hungry people, it’s sometimes discouraging how few people understand that hunger stalks and kills a child every five seconds," said Nancy Roman, WFP Director Communications and Public Policy Strategy, admitting that this competition, called Hunger Bytes , is a bold attempt to raise urgent attention about an often ignored crisis.

To enter the contest, videos are submitted to WFP. The five most compelling clips, between 30 to 60 seconds in length, will then be let loose on the web through YouTube.

Competitors can increase their chances of winning by sharing the link with friends and online communities such as Facebook, MySpace and through blogs. The video that gets the most views by World Food Day - October 16, 2008 - will win.

Already students in universities are showing interest, including Universities Fighting World Hunger - a coalition of 63 universities and colleges working to raise awareness and engage students in the war against hunger.

The winner of the contest will have a chance to visit and film one of WFP’s relief operations. On the frontlines of hunger, WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency. Last year WFP gave food to 88 million people – mostly women and children – in 78 of the world’s poorest countries.

For more information please visit: www.WFP.org/HungerBytes

Related links:
www.WFP.org/
www.YouTube.com/HungerBytes

Google, OLPC and UNICEF launch initiative to preserve and share stories around the world.

UNICEF, One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and Google announced the launch of "Our Stories", a joint initiative to preserve and share the histories and identities of cultures around the world by making personal stories available online in many languages.

The "Our Stories" project helps people share the stories of their lives, no matter where they live or how their stories unfold. Using laptops, mobile phones and other recording devices, children will record, in their native languages, the stories of elders, family members and friends. These stories will be shared globally through the Our Stories website, where they can be found on a Google Map.

By making these stories accessible around the world, the Our Stories project hopes to contribute to a better understanding of our shared humanity across countries and cultures, across religious traditions, across languages, and across generations.

Low-cost XO laptops by One Laptop per Child will serve as a foundation to help build this digital archive of personal stories by providing children in developing countries with easy-to-use technology to record their stories and interviews.

The Our Stories website will initially include stories collected by Brazil’s Museum of the Person and stories recorded for UNICEF by young people in Ghana, Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda.

More stories from more countries will be added to the site every month in an effort to preserve an oral history of humanity in the 21st Century.

Leading figures have already lent their voices to the project: Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan and UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, and Ishmael Beah, UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War and best-selling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, have all recorded messages welcoming users to the site and encouraging them to share their stories.

To listen to a story visit www.OurStories.org

Related links:
UNICEF
One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
Official Google Blog: Voices without borders

December 10 - Human Rights Day

Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. The commemoration was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all states and interested organisations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.

Use UDHR widget to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in your language.

Related links:
OHCHR
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UN - Human Rights
www.un.org/events/humanrights/2007/

Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise. December 1 - World Aids Day

World AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1st. The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988. World AIDS Day provides governments, national AIDS programs, faith organizations, community organizations, and individuals with an opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic.

World AIDS Day is an opportunity to raise awareness and fight prejudice about HIV/AIDS and express global solidarity with people living with the disease. Commemorated on 1 December every year since 1988, the Day provides an occasion to remind Governments and world leaders of their commitments to fight AIDS.

There are an estimated 40 million people living with HIV today, 2.3 million of them children. In 2006 alone, about 4.3 million were newly infected with the virus and around 95 per cent of people with AIDS are in developing countries. These figures show how HIV/AIDS remains a global threat as the world’s most serious development crisis.

In designating “leadership” as the World AIDS Day theme for 2007/2008, the World AIDS Campaign highlights the political leadership needed to fulfil commitments made in response to AIDS, particularly the promise of universal access to treatment, prevention, care and support. The Campaign, organized by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) as a loose partnership of UN agencies, Governments and civil society, is a now non-governmental organization responsible for bringing together efforts and resources to the global AIDS response.

On 1 December, people around the world celebrate World AIDS Day. This year, World AIDS Day focuses on 'Leadership', the theme set by the World AIDS Campaign under the five-year slogan "Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise".

Related links:
UNAIDS.org
AIDS.gov
World AIDS Campaign

Teen Second Life videos promote child rights

To mark the 18th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), a group of teenage videographers has given an online screening of their short videos made in the virtual world of Teen Second Life.

The children – from Finland, the United Kingdom and the United States – each made a one-minute video about child rights during a summer camp led by the New York-based non-profit Global Kids, with support from UNICEF.

The five-week-long project, which all took place in Teen Second Life, began with two weeks of workshops on the CRC using information provided by UNICEF.

The Global Kids campers chose a theme raised by the CRC and, during the final three weeks of the project, learned the art of ‘machinima’, or video-making in a virtual environment.

The online public screening was a red-carpet affair on Global Kids Island in Teen Second Life. Each camper introduced his or her own machinima video and answered questions on the camp experience.

The videos covered topics such as drugs, health care, the media, play, disabilities and children in armed conflict. They were shown alongside a selection of real-world short videos made by teenagers taking part in the ‘One Minute Jrs’ project run by UNICEF and the Sandberg Institute. Watching the shorts had been a part of the campers’ training during the summer.

Outside the online screening room stood a large virtual birthday card commemorating the 18th anniversary of the CRC. Visitors could click on it and be sent directly to the UNICEF website for more information on child rights, and to view the videos.

Almost 100 visitors sent their online identities, or avatars, to the screening. Global Kids handed out free virtual popcorn and child rights t-shirts, and threw a virtual dance party to celebrate the successful project.

Related links:
Teen Second Life
Child rights in Second Life
UNICEF - CRC @ 18
www.UNICEF.org

Play and Feed Hungry People: FreeRice

FreeRice is a creative web-based vocabulary game that ties every correct answer to the donation of rice to WFP. For every correct answer to FreeRice’s online vocabulary game, the site donates 10 grains of rice to its official humanitarian partner, WFP . When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

Just 830 grains of rice were donated on FreeRice’s October 7 launch date. Since then, bloggers and social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook have helped spread the word and, on November 8 alone, over 70 million grains were donated – equivalent to more than seven million clicks on the site.

FreeRice is the latest brainchild of US online fundraising pioneer John Breen, who first tied funds to clicks on the Web in 1999 with the Hunger Site, at the time, a WFP partner. Breen runs the Poverty.com website, a portal for information and facts about hunger and related diseases.

FreeRice relies on private companies’ ad space payments to underwrite donations to WFP. The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, homemakers, doctors, truck drivers, retired people… everyone!

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place. There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

Related links:
www.FreeRice.com
World Food Program - WFP

Planet's Tougher Problems Persist, UN Report Warns

The United Nations Environment Programme says that major threats to the planet such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the many that remain unresolved, and all of them put humanity at risk.

The warning comes in UNEP's Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) report published 20 years after the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) produced its seminal report, Our Common Future.

GEO-4, the latest in UNEP's series of flagship reports, assesses the current state of the global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity, describes the changes since 1987, and identifies priorities for action. GEO-4 is the most comprehensive UN report on the environment, prepared by about 390 experts and reviewed by more than 1 000 others across the world.

It salutes the world's progress in tackling some relatively straightforward problems, with the environment now much closer to mainstream politics everywhere. But despite these advances, there remain the harder-to-manage issues, the "persistent" problems. Here, GEO-4 says: "There are no major issues raised in Our Common Future for which the foreseeable trends are favourable."

Failure to address these persistent problems, UNEP says, may undo all the achievements so far on the simpler issues, and may threaten humanity's survival. But it insists: "The objective is not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call for action."

On climate change the report says the threat is now so urgent that large cuts in greenhouse gases by mid-century are needed. Negotiations are due to start in December on a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate agreement which

obligates countries to control anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Although it exempts all developing countries from emission reduction commitments, there is growing pressure for some rapidly-industrializing countries, now substantial emitters themselves, to agree to emission reductions.

GEO-4 also warns that we are living far beyond our means. The human population is now so large that "the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available... humanity's footprint [its environmental demand] is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth's biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person...".

And it says the well-being of billions of people in the developing world is at risk, because of a failure to remedy the relatively simple problems which have been successfully tackled elsewhere.

GEO-4 recalls the Brundtland Commission's statement that the world does not face separate crises - the "environmental crisis", "development crisis", and "energy crisis" are all one. This crisis includes not just climate change, extinction rates and hunger, but other problems driven by growing human numbers, the rising consumption of the rich and the desperation of the poor.

For more information please visit: Here or www.UNEP.org/GEO

Reports of significant progress in fight against malaria

Significant gains in the fight against malaria in sub-Saharan Africa are being made, according to a new report released on October 17. The report, Malaria and Children, prepared by UNICEF on behalf of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM), contains a comprehensive assessment of the progress that has been made in malaria control.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa, Malaria kills at least 800,000 children under the age of five each year,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “Controlling malaria is vital to improving child health and economic development in affected countries. Studies show that malaria disproportionately affects the poorest people in these countries, and so contributes to their further impoverishment.”

The report shows that, from 2004 to 2006, there has been a rapid increase in the supply of insecticide-treated nets, with annual production of nets more than doubling from 30 to 63 million. Another large increase in production is expected by the end of 2007.

The number of these nets procured by UNICEF more than tripled in the two years to 2006 to nearly 25 million and is more than 20 times greater today than in 2000. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private partnership that provides health funding, has also increased its distribution of insecticide treated nets from 1.35 million in 2004 to 18 million in 2006, and other major donors have scaled up their activities.

Along with this increase in supply have come improvements in the distribution of nets to those communities in greatest need. Distribution of the nets and other malaria interventions have been successfully incorporated into existing maternal and child health, immunization and antenatal care programmes.

The 20 Sub-Saharan African countries for which trend data are available have made major progress in expanding the use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) for children. Sixteen of the 20 have at least tripled their coverage since 2000. Coverage in Gambia has reached around half of all children, and coverage in Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and Togo is now about 40 per cent. Some other countries have very recently completed mass distributions of ITNs, and these distribution efforts are expected to be reflected in the next round of data. Some 18 million nets have been distributed in Ethiopia since that country’s last household survey in 2005.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, 34 per cent of children with fever receive antimalarial medicines, although few countries have increased their coverage since 2000 and many of the children being treated are receiving less effective medicines.

The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership was launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and The World Bank to provide a coordinated global approach to fighting malaria. It now includes a wide range of partners—including malaria-endemic countries, the private sector, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, and research institutions.

Related links:
www.unicef.org
www.undp.org
www.who.int
www.RollBackMalaria.org

The Right to Food - October 16 World Food Day

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day on which the Organization was founded in 1945. The World Food Day and TeleFood theme for 2007 is "The Right to Food". The right to food is the inherent human right of every woman, man, girl and boy, wherever they live on this planet.

World Food Day highlights the situation of the world's hungry and undernourished.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 first recognized the right to food as a human right. It was then incorporated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11) adopted in 1966 and ratified by 156 states, which are today legally bound by its provisions. The expert interpretation and more refined definition of this right are contained in General Comment 12 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999). The Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security – the Right to Food Guidelines – were adopted by the FAO Council in 2004 and provide practical recommendations on concrete steps for the implementation of the right to food.

The right to food is a universal right. It means that every person – woman, man and child – must have access at all times to food, or to means for the procurement of food, that is sufficient in quality, quantity and variety to meet their needs, is free from harmful substances and is acceptable to their culture. Only when individuals do not have the capacity to meet their food needs by their own means for reasons beyond their control, such as age, handicap, economic downturn, famine, disaster, or discrimination, will they be entitled to receive food directly from the state, according to General Comment 12.

Almost sixty years after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights declared that everyone has a right to food, it is unacceptable that under-nutrition is still linked to nearly half of all deaths of children under the age of five, UNICEF stated on the occasion of World Food Day 2007.

Ensuring that every girl, boy, woman and man enjoys adequate food on a permanent basis is not only a moral imperative and an investment with high economic returns: it is the realization of a fundamental human right.

Saving the World Is Within Our Grasp

"Some lifesaving solutions can be extremely simple—iodized salt to prevent stunted growth, for example, or oral rehydration solutions to fight diarrhea. Consider that one of the easiest ways to cut down on infant mortality is to keep babies warm and dry. Earlier this year, Save the Children recruited knitters through the Internet to knit and crochet 280,000 caps for infants" Bill Gates

In the Oct. 1 issue of Newsweek, Bill Gates discusses his belief that global health solutions are within our reach. Visit Newsweek's Web site to read more.

Related links:
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge

Bloggers big and small, including top sites such as Engadget and TechCrunch, challenged their readers today to fund classroom projects in high-need public schools. Google, Yahoo!, Six Apart, and Federated Media will give awards to the bloggers who inspire the most generosity between now and the end of the October.

Powering this "Blogger Challenge" is DonorsChoose.org, an acclaimed nonprofit website where teachers post projects to fulfill student needs, and donors from all walks of life can choose the projects they want to support.

Google will give an award to the bloggers who generate the most financial support for public school classrooms in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. Yahoo! will award the bloggers who engage the greatest number of readers, and Jerry Yang, the company's co-founder and CEO, will take the winning blogger out to lunch.

"We think this is a cool idea, so we want to help it succeed. We’re going to reward the winning bloggers with exactly what they gave to DonorsChoose, students, and teachers: traffic. The competition will remain open until the end of October, we'll then take a look to see who has helped raise the most money in each of the eight DonorsChoose challenge categories. We’ll post links to the winners’ blogs here, and we’ll also throw in a $500 gift certificate for each winner to spend on DonorsChoose." Official Google Blog

DonorsChoose.org liberates every public school teacher to be a change maker, and enables every citizen to be a philanthropist. At this not-for-profit website, public school teachers submit their best ideas for materials and experiences that their students need to learn -- everything from a classroom library, to basketballs, to a field trip to the zoo.

Any individual can search by area of interest, learn about classroom needs, and choose to fund the project that she/he finds most compelling. Every donor hears back from the classroom they chose to help. At DonorsChoose.org, someone giving $10 enjoys the same choice, impact, and vivid feedback that - until now - have been reserved for millionaire benefactors.

For more information please visit www.BloggersChoose.org .

Related links:

Official Google Blog: Got a blog? Help a student.
Yodel Anecdotal (Yahoo): You know, for the kids

Health and Education For All

Every day, 80 million children don’t go to school, and most of them are girls, 8000 people die of HIV and AIDS, many because they can’t afford the drugs they need.

Yet millions of the world’s poorest people suffer and die each day because they don’t have access to safe water, sanitation, health care and education. Millions of people in the developing world are denied their right to schools and health care. This situation is increasing poverty and causing suffering on an unimaginable scale.

Classrooms with teachers, clinics with nurses, and affordable medicines. For millions of people, these things are still a distant dream. How can we make this dream a reality? Running taps, working toilets, classrooms with teachers and clinics with nurses, these public services save lives and help people escape poverty. They are basic human rights .

Oxfam launches a global call for “Health and Education For All”. calling for investment for six million more teachers, nurses and doctors around the world. Oxfam is urging developing country governments to allocate an increased proportion of their annual budgets into providing these essential services, and demanding that rich countries support poorer nations with an increased and long-term aid commitment targeting the health and education sectors.

According to Oxfam’s Global “For All” campaign briefing, universal education and health is possible in even the poorest countries, if the investments are made. The brief reveals how Uganda and Brazil have doubled the number of children in school, halved AIDS deaths and extended safe drinking water and sanitation to millions of people. In Sri Lanka, where even though one-third of the population lives below the poverty line, public clinics with free medical treatment and qualified nurses are within walking distance.

To learn more about "Health and Education for All" please visit: www.oxfam.org/en/programs/campaigns/health_and_education.

September 21 - International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the United Nations as an annual observance of global non-violence and ceasefire. Every year, people in all parts of the world honour peace in various ways on 21 September.

This year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will ring the Peace Bell at United Nations Headquarters in New York in the company of the UN Messengers of Peace. He has called for a 24-hour cessation of hostilities on 21 September, and for a minute of silence to be observed around the world at noon local time.

Related links:

un.org/events/peaceday
peaceoneday.org
cyberschoolbus.un.org/peaceday/2007
www.internationaldayofpeace.org
Japanese Peace Bell

September 16 - International Global Day for Darfur

People in 30 countries around the world are marking what is being called the Global Day for Darfur. In Italy, refugees from Darfur joined others in a march calling for an end to the genocide and protesting the government of Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome the Sudanese leader has just ended a controversial visit to Italy.

Wearing T-shirts that read "Stop the Blood in Darfur" and holding up banners calling for an end to genocide, dozens of refugees from Darfur marched through central Rome with human rights activists, journalists, and ordinary people supporting their cause.

The demonstration was held to mark the Global Day for Darfur. It followed a three-day visit to Rome by the Sudanese head of state, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

While in Rome, President Bashir said he would declare a ceasefire to coincide with the start of peace talks in Libya on October 27. Organizers of the march said the Italian government, which received the Sudanese president, must do more to help the suffering people of Darfur.

Refugee Youssef Ishag said these demonstrations are needed to raise public awareness about the situation in Darfur because the Sudanese government does not allow journalists to see what is going on. Ishag who belongs to the Sudanese Liberation Movement says he does not believe the president's offer of a ceasefire.

Human-rights groups present at the demonstration said they do not agree with statements made by President Bashir in Rome that the situation in Darfur is improving. The spokesman of Amnesty International in Italy, Riccardo Noury, said there are satellite pictures that witness that villages continue to be destroyed in Darfur, and that Russia and China are responsible for heavy armaments that are still arriving to arm the conflict.

In the four years of conflict in Darfur, more than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million have fled their homes.

Related links:

www.SaveDarfur.org

Source: VOAnews.com

Cricket stars will support the Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS campaign

The world’s top cricket stars will support the Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS campaign at the ICC World Twenty 20 tournament in South Africa from 11-24 September.

Building on a successful partnership at the ICC Cricket World Cup in the West Indies earlier this year, this global initiative sees the International Cricket Council (ICC), UNAIDS and UNICEF teaming up again to highlight the situation of children and young people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith and players Makhaya Ntini and AB de Villiers are among the host-nation cricket heroes who have put their weight behind the AIDS campaign. Other football icons involved are Australian batsman Michael Hussey, Sri Lankan wicket-keeper and batsman Kumar Sangakkara and Indian all rounder Yuvrai Singh.

Two new public service announcements – produced by UNICEF for broadcast throughout the competition – feature five top cricketers, including Mr. Smith, talking about the impact of HIV and AIDS on children. The African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS will broadcast the campaign’s messages in more than 100 countries.

Throughout the tournament, cricket stars will draw the world’s attention to the impact of AIDS on the lives of the young people at the matches and beyond. Reports on their activities will appear on a special cricket partnership website, www.uniteforchildren.org/cricket

UNICEF and Lovelife, a South African organization that aims to reduce HIV infection, have organized opportunities for the players to meet children and young people affected by HIV and AIDS in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. UNAIDS and Lovelife have also recruited more than 500 volunteers to serve as health trainers at the tournament events.

Cricket is a popular sport in many of the countries that are most affected by AIDS, including India and South Africa. Together, these two countries are home to around 11 million of the 40 million people estimated to be living with HIV.

The Unite for Children, Unite Against Aids campaign, started by UNICEF and UNAIDS in 2005, promotes four key areas: prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV; increased access to antiretroviral therapy for children and young people who need treatment; education programmes to help prevent HIV transmission; and increased support for children who are orphaned and left vulnerable by AIDS.

Related links:

uniteforchildren.org/cricket
www.icc-cricket.com
www.unicef.org
www.unaids.org

WFP uses video games to educate Youths about Hunger and Aid Work

Food Force is an educational video game presented by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).The project has been developed specifically to help children learn about the fight against world hunger.

Food Force is available as a free Internet download from its dedicated website www.food-force.com . It is the first humanitarian educational video game on the subject of world hunger and the work that goes into feeding people. The game is designed for children between 8 and 13 years of age.

WFP has teamed up with the “Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger” website to provide downloadable lesson plans for teachers, available in multiple languages.

The lesson plans contain structured information, developed for different school levels, for teaching children exactly what hunger is, why it exists and how it can be ended.

The game itself consists of six missions. Each mission begins with a briefing by one of the Food Force characters, who explains the challenge ahead.

The player then has to complete the task - in which points are awarded for fast and accurate play and good decision making.

Each mission uses a different style of gameplay to appeal to children of all abilities. Each mission represents a key step of the food delivery process - from emergency response through to building long-term food security for a community.

Following each mission a Food Force character returns to present an educational video showing the reality of WFP’s work in the field. This allows children to learn and understand how WFP responds to actual food emergencies: Where food originates, the nutritional importance of meals, how food is delivered and how food is used to encourage development.

The game is also available in Chinese, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian and Polish.

Related links:

www.food-force.com

www.WFP.org

Angelina Jolie highlights humanitarian crisis during Syria and Iraq visits

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie has visited Iraq and Syria to see first-hand the plight of hundreds of thousands of families uprooted by the conflict in Iraq.

The UN refugee agency estimates more than 4. 2 million Iraqis have left their homes – 2 million to neighbouring states and another 2.2 million displaced inside Iraq.

Yesterday in Damascus, Jolie visited a UNHCR registration centre and spent hours talking to Iraqi refugees in their homes. Today, she crossed into Iraq to visit 1,200 refugees trapped in a makeshift camp at the border, unable to flee Iraq, and later watched scores of Iraqis crossing into Syria at a border checkpoint.

As a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie said she would leave politics to others while focusing on the region's huge humanitarian needs.

"I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to this humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for UNHCR and its partners," Jolie said. "My sole purpose in both countries is to highlight the humanitarian plight of those uprooted by the war in Iraq." Read Full Article...

Related links:
UNHCR: Iraq
UNICEF: Iraq

Earthquake in Peru leaves hundreds killed and thousands injured

At 6:41 Wednesday night, an earthquake of a 8.0-magnitude on the Richter scale shook Peru, 60 kilometers from the city of Pisco, in the province of Ica. The region’s capital, located 300 kilometers south of Lima, was the worst affected and was declared an emergency.

Road communication between Ica and the capital has partly collapsed, limiting access to the affected areas and preventing an exact estimate of the damage. According to early reports from the Civil Defense Institute, 336 people were killed in the province of Ica, but it is still unknown how many of them are children. In the evening hours, the possibility of a tsunami was overruled.

Classes were suspended for safety reasons. Public hospitals and health centres are offering medical attention, free of charge, to the injured.

Early data reveal that Cañete, Chincha and Pisco are the cities most damaged in the Inca province. However, the situation remains unknown in other parts of the province, like Nazca and Palpa, which have so far been inaccessible.

It is estimated that 200 people are trapped under the rubble of a church and, according to eye-witness reports, most of the houses in Pisco were destroyed, forcing families and their children to sleep in the streets, despite the cold weather of winter.

The Government of Peru has declared a state of emergency in Ica and is requesting international support to handle the situation. Peru's Ministry of Health has deployed medical teams to support the influx of injured individuals at local hospitals. UNICEF and other UN agencies are also already on the ground providing logistical support and supplies.

UNICEF’s Representative in Peru, Dr. Guido Cornale, expressed concern at the increasing number of casualties, among whom there could be many children. “The United Nations’ organizations in Peru are coordinating their response. UNICEF will be distributing water-purification tablets, water containers, oral rehydration salts and water tanks with a 10,000-liter capacity,” he said.

Related links:

DONATE NOW to support UNICEF's emergency relief efforts in Peru.
Support American Red Cross
Reuters AlertNet - Peru earthquake 2007
UNICEF Perú website

The Fight Against Malaria

Malaria kills a child somewhere in the world every 30 seconds. It infects 350-500 million people each year, killing 1 million, mostly children in Africa. Ninety per cent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, where malaria accounts for about one in five of all childhood deaths. The disease also contributes greatly to anaemia among children — a major cause of poor growth and development. Malaria infection during pregnancy is associated with severe anaemia and other illness in the mother and contributes to low birth weight among newborn infants — one of the leading risk factors for infant mortality and sub-optimal growth and development.

Malaria has serious economic impacts in Africa, slowing economic growth and development and perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty. Malaria is truly a disease of poverty — afflicting primarily the poor who tend to live in malaria-prone rural areas in poorly-constructed dwellings that offer few, if any, barriers against mosquitoes.

Malaria is both preventable and treatable, and effective preventive and curative tools have been developed.

Sleeping under insecticide treated nets can reduce overall child mortality by 20 per cent. There is evidence that ITNs, when consistently and correctly used, can save six child lives per year for every one thousand children sleeping under them.

Prompt access to effective treatment can further reduce deaths. Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy can significantly reduce the proportion of low birth weight infants and maternal anaemia.

Ensuring children sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) is the most effective way to prevent malaria. These bed nets have been shown to reduce malaria transmission by up to 50 per cent. As many as 500,000 children could be saved every year if all children under the age of five in Africa slept under treated bed nets. Not only do ITNs provide a physical barrier to prevent mosquitoes from biting children, they can actually kill mosquitoes and other insects. In a Kenyan study, women who slept under ITNs at night gave birth to 25 per cent fewer premature or low birth weight babies than women who did not use ITNs.

To learn more about recent and current efforts to fight malaria, visit:

Malaria No More: Donate Bed Nets
Malaria No More
The President's Malaria Initiative.
UNICEF: Facts for Life - Malaria
CDC: Malaria

An on-line game to teach children how to save lives and livelihoods

The secretariat of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) launches an on-line game aimed at teaching children how to build safer villages and cities against disasters. This initiative comes within the 2006-2007 World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Disaster Risk Reduction Begins at School”.

To access the game please visit: www.StopDisastersGame.org

Related links:

www.UNISDR.org

2006-2007 World Disaster Reduction Campaign

Norway Cup gives girls from Harare a chance to triumph

HARARE, Zimbabwe - With all the confidence of a world-class soccer star, Omega Mpini, 13, shrugs off the compliments of her teammates and runs back into position. All eyes are on the young girl leaping several feet in the air, volleying the ball across the pitch. As they say in these parts: Goal!

Omega’s nickname is ‘Mboma’, in honour of Patrick Mboma, the all-time top goal-scorer for the Cameroonian national team. She is the star player on the Glenview Queens, a local girl’s soccer team which has won the right to represent Zimbabwe at the 35th annual Norway Cup in Oslo.

The Norway Cup is a week-long football tournament made up of 1,500 youth teams from around the world. The Glenview Queens will not only battle for the title and make new friends but they'll also learn about HIV prevention.

“The day we qualified for the Norway Cup was the greatest,” Omega says. “We had proven that we played good football, but winning also meant we had learned about life, including HIV and AIDS.”

This is a rare opportunity for Omega and her teammates who come from a poor suburb of Harare. Like many of her teammates, Omega lost her parents to AIDS at a very early age.

Harare's girls football team is part of the UNICEF-supported YES (Youth Education through Sport) ‘Kick AIDS Out’ programme. UNICEF has provided supply kits for the team, so the girls will have everything they need when they showcase their football talent in Norway. The Glenview Queens is one of 20-30 teams from underpriviledged areas whose trips are being supported by the Norway Olympics Committee and the Confederation of Sport.

An estimated 1.7 million people are living with HIV in Zimbabwe with 1.1 million children having been orphaned by the disease. In response to this, the YES programme in Zimbabwe as well as several other countries decided to add an extra challenge to their already skilled players. The Glenview Queens are going to the Norway Cup not only because they excel at football, but also because of the work they do in their community to encourage HIV/AIDS education and prevention.Read Full Article...

Related links:

www.Norway-Cup.no

www.UNICEF.org

Young voices crucial to fighting AIDS, says MTV Networks International and UNICEF

Today UNICEF and MTV Networks International’s Staying Alive launched a series of online video blogs, called vlogs, as the first phase of Vlogit, a global video project encouraging young people to share through new media how they experience and perceive HIV and AIDS. Globally, 10 million young people aged 15 to 24 are living with HIV and children and young people account for half of all new HIV infections.

Young voices are a strong force for HIV prevention, fighting stigma and discrimination, and working towards and AIDS-free generation. “Poverty is one of the strongest single factors to explain the epidemic of HIV in the developing world,” says Emishaw Tegegneowrk Yimenu, one ofthe youth winners from Ethiopia, whose vlog details the difficult decisions his family must make that bring HIV and AIDS to his doorstep. Mariel Garcia Montes, a teenager from Mexico, uses her vlog to show how a “non-infected teenager realizes how AIDS affects even people who are not infected.”

By encouraging young people to communicate about HIV and AIDS, Vlogit seeks to show how young people are living with and responding to the epidemic around the world. The Vlogit partnership between MTV Networks International’s Staying Alive and UNICEF is part of Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS, a global campaign to provide children and young people with HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. With the launch of the Vlogit site, young people from around the world are invited to upload their own vlogs. The Vlogit website will remain a new media tool to engage young people in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Staying Alive is a multimedia global HIV and AIDS prevention campaign that challenges stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS as well as empowers young people to protect themselves from infection. The Emmy award-winning campaign consists of documentaries, public service announcements, youth forums and multi-lingual Web content. Staying Alive provides all of its material rights-free and at no cost to 3rd party broadcasters and content distributors globally to get crucial prevention messages out to the widest possible audience. The Staying Alive campaign is a partnership between MTV Networks International, Family Health International’s YouthNet, the Kaiser Family Foundation, UNAIDS, UNFPA, Sida, and Creative Review. More information about Staying Alive can be found at www.staying-alive.org. MTV Networks International is also an active member of the United Nations-supported Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI). Read Full Article...

Related links:

www.UNICEF.org

www.Staying-Alive.org

www.MTV.com