Being there for the world’s children is UNICEF’s mission — and the mission of workers everywhere who have dedicated themselves to making the world a better place for children.
On Thanksgiving — and every day — we salute career professionals like Razaqah Ahmed Ahmed Haroon Haban, below, a community health worker who goes door-to-door in rural Yemen to provide children with basic health services and nutrition support.
And Luis Carlos Anchico, a teacher in Santo Domingo, Ecuador who, concerned for the mental well-being of his students when COVID-19 kept them out of the classroom, began visiting them at home to check in.
In Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, Sivajini Jeyaraj adapted her teaching methods to reach out-of-school children without access to cellphone service or the internet, enlisting the help of state-run educational TV and local volunteers to keep kids learning.
In Cao Lanh, Vietnam, Le Thi Phien is one of many UNICEF-supported social workers playing an important role in preventing and responding to violence against children, so they can grow up safe and healthy.
And since the earliest days of the pandemic, frontline health workers — like Jeanne Dusungu, a nurse in North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo — have put aside their own fears and bravely risked their lives to care for others.
“I’m very proud of my mother’s work,” says Dusungu’s son Kasereka, “because she is doing everything to help the whole world to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.” His brother Achile chimes in: “She is like a superhero who saves lives.”
From all of us at UNICEF USA, a heartfelt thank-you to the hero workers who are making a difference in the lives and futures of the world’s children.
Top photo: A UNICEF staffer helps a child try on a warm coat from a new winter clothing kit distributed by UNICEF and partners to families living in Roj IDP camp, northeastern Syria. © UNICEF/UN0497215/Souleiman