UNICEF
MTV doesn’t need to create The Real World: Lusaka or Tanzania Shore to effectively reach African audiences. Instead the network known for its reality TV shows has found a hit in the recent docu-drama Shuga.
Set in Nairobi, Kenya, MTV’s three-part miniseries tells the story of six college friends chasing after sex, money, and love. The story focuses on Ayira – a girl who can’t choose between her soul mate and a wealthy older man. But the drama is more than a narrative of the hopes and fears of its cast – it is a poignant commentary on the effects of a dangerous lifestyle in a society plagued by the threat of HIV and AIDS.
MTV’s Georgia Arnold calls the show’s underlying educational messages about HIV “almost subliminal,” but partners UNICEF and PEPFAR (the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) confirm the well-concealed communication. The partners hoped Ayira’s story would educate African youth about the need to be tested for HIV, the effects of having multiple sexual partners and the importance of openly talking about HIV in order to combat the stigma associated with the virus.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore say the messaging worked. Results of the researchers’ survey found that 60 percent of Kenyan youths identified the main lessons of the show. Nearly half of the interviewed groups reported talking about the show’s characters and its messaging with family and friends. An estimated 90 percent of Kenyan viewers and 60 percent of Zambian viewers reported the show impacted their thinking.
Although researchers cannot measure the number of actions prevented after viewing Shuga, UNICEF and PEPFAR agree people are already overcoming one of the biggest obstacles – talking openly about HIV. The more they talk, the more likely they are to practice safe sex.
Talk of Shuga grew so much in fact, that the partnering organizations barely needed to promote the series. African youth themselves used social networks to publicize the show.
Considering Shuga’s success, MTV, UNICEF and PEPFAR are already planning a sequel.
Via UN Dispatch, the UNICEF “Authentic Voices” blog has been running a fascinating series tracking real World Cup match-ups and then measuring how they’d be doing based on their performance in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
For instance, today the UK squared off against Slovenia and went on to win. But how do they compete in meeting Millennium Development Goal 3, which promises to promote gender equality and empower women?
Both the UK and Slovenia are doing well on ensuring girls’ access to education, however when it comes to transferring this commitment to equality into adulthood both countries show real weaknesses.
The need for more women MPs in parliament was highlighted during this year’s UK elections. There has been some progress over the years, in 1990 women only made up 6.3% of MPs in parliament. Today they make up 22%, a marked improvement but still shockingly low when you consider they make up more than 50% of the population.
Slovenia has been making progress on women’s participation in politics too. In 1997 only 7.8% of their parliament was made up of women, by 2007 this had risen to 12.2%.
Globally, the picture is not that encouraging and progress in increasing the number of seats held by women in national parliaments is slow. As of September 2008, women held just over 18% of the seats in single and lower houses of national parliaments worldwide.
UNICEF has done similar analysis for match-ups between South Africa and Mexico, Brazil and Ivory Coast, and Chile and Honduras among others.
It’s a really smart, compelling, and fun way to bring light to the MDG’s and our progress (or lack thereof) in meeting them. Check it out when you have a minute.
This entry in our series on “Vaccines: The Next 10 Years” comes from Caryl Stern, President and CEO of the United States Fund for UNICEF:
Like others in the global health arena, I was amazed and thrilled at the Gates Foundation’s $10 billion pledge to help research, develop and deliver vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.
UNICEF recognizes the incredible importance of vaccines (as well as the importance of insuring the cold chain and logistics systems necessary to actually get the vaccines into the people who need them) to basic child survival. Every year, UNICEF purchases vaccines and other immunization supplies reaching 56 per cent of children around the world, making it the leading global agency procuring vaccines for children. Over the last thirty years, immunization coverage of children for six killer diseases went from five percent to over 80 percent – that’s a major reason why annual under-five deaths have been cut in half since the 1960s.
That progress should not blind us to the fact that still nearly 9 million children under five die every year from largely preventable causes. We believe that number should, can – and must – be zero.
To respond to ongoing challenges in child survival and global immunization, in 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF developed the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy (GIVS), a global ten-year framework to fight vaccine-preventable diseases through 2015. GIVS sets a number of ambitious immunization goals, including cutting deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases by at least two thirds from 2000 levels, and reaching national vaccination coverage levels of at least 90 percent worldwide.
One critical element of GIVS is to integrate other critical health interventions with immunization, in order to accelerate reduction in child mortality. UNICEF views vaccines as a means to an end – not the end itself. Immunization programs and delivery systems provide platforms to deliver other critically important preventive and curative health services, such as vitamin A supplements to prevent malnutrition, insecticide-treated nets for protection against malaria, and de-worming medicine for intestinal worms.
For example, new vaccines can only prevent a proportion of all cases of pneumonia and diarrhea. Parents worldwide need to understand that these new vaccines must be reinforced with other prevention strategies, such as breast-feeding, hand-washing, and better sanitation practices, along with knowledge of danger signs of illness.
Vaccines are incredibly important tools for saving children lives. By combining vaccines with other high-impact interventions into comprehensive, coordinated health care packages delivered to families who need them, we are building the health systems needed to ensure that we reach the day when no children, anywhere, die from preventable causes.
One subject that doesn’t get a ton of press in the coverage of the Haiti earthquake’s aftermath, are the women and young girls who have been left increasingly vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation and violence. So it was heartening to see UNICEF’s piece about some of the gender-based violence taking place and what’s being done to prevent it, and offer resources to the victims.
UNICEF outlines what they’ve been doing on this front, and provides some background in the full piece:
In the aftermath of earthquake, UNICEF staff members have met with nearly a dozen groups in south–eastern Haiti, working to create an effective referral system for survivors of violence. Small plastic–coated referral cards, printed in Haitian Creole, instruct victims on where to go for medical care and support. The cards were developed by UNICEF, in collaboration with the Haitian Government, the International Rescue Committee, and UNFPA.
A girl braids a woman’s hair outside rows of makeshift shelters for Haitians displaced by the earthquake. Overcrowded conditions in homes and camps are increasing the danger of gender-based violence.
“Information is key,” says Ms. Maternowska, “and placing that information in the hands of a survivor can save her life. The referral cards we’ve developed provide information on how and where to access essential medications to prevent pregnancy and HIV. And of course, the provision of timely information gives survivors access to full medical treatment, psycho-social support and justice.”
In partnership with NGOs and other UN agencies, UNICEF supports the Haitian Government’s push to include gender-based violence services as part of a comprehensive approach to women’s and girls’ health. Plans to develop dedicated health centers for women and girls are currently in the works in the areas hardest-hit by the earthquake—including Port–au–Prince, Leogane and Jacmel.
The partners’ goal is to expand these services to even the most remote corners of Haiti, including Anse–a–Pitre.
Chad, along with eighteen other African countries, began immunization of 85 million children against polio in a massive immunization campaign. The campaign has high level support and was launched by Heads of State and Health Ministers across the continent on March 6.
President Idris Deby Itno of Chad initiated the campaign by immunizing a child and announcing, “I am personally declaring war on polio.” He called on the entire nation to stop “this terrible disease,” emphasizing that it is “about the lives of our children.” His leadership is especially important given that Chad had been unable to stop polio outbreaks within its borders for more than two years, resulting in the spread of the disease to neighboring countries including Sudan, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic.
As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow shared with you earlier, she was in Chad for her eleventh visit to the country to help with their polio vaccination campaign, highlighting the need for vaccinations to reach the most vulnerable children.
This impressive, synchronized campaign is made possible in large part by the support of $30 million in funding from Rotary International.
Photo Credit: WHO/UNICEF
The AP reports:
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday selected U.S. foreign policy expert Tony Lake, who was an adviser to President Barack Obama, as his candidate to head UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.
UNICEF’s board must approve the selection, and is expected to do so.
Lake, 70, would replace Ann Veneman, a former U.S. secretary of agriculture who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. She announced in late December that she would not seek a second five-year term as UNICEF’s executive director. Her term ends April 30.
The head of UNICEF has always been an American, largely because the United States is the largest contributor to the agency, which is active in 190 countries.
Ban told a news conference that Lake “brings with him a wealth of experience after a long and distinguished career with the United States government.”
He thanked Veneman “for her immense dedication, energy and determination to improve the lives of children around the world” and said “she leaves behind an organization well-equipped for the enormous challenges ahead.”
Make sure to check out this post from Mia Farrow (written exclusively for the ONE blog) about her recent visit to Chad with UNICEF to raise awareness about the importance of polio vaccines.
Last week I made my eleventh visit to Chad, one of the most compelling and impoverished countries in the world. Life is harsh for the people of Chad and it is especially precarious for the children. In the capitol of Ndjamena, I met four-year-old Clako Ali, who lives with her grandmother in one of Ndjamena’s teeming, squalid alleyways. The child has a smile I won’t forget. Her grandmother described a happy, active little girl who is smart; Clako would do well in school.
But last October, polio stalked the streets and alleyways of Ndjamena and found little Clako in their one room hut. Today her legs are withered and useless—without bracing and crutches she will never stand or walk.
Her grandmother worries about the future. How can Clako attend school, and as time passes, how will she assume a woman’s tasks—fetching water, wood, cooking, farming and caring for children. And anyway, what man would ever want to marry Clako Ali?
I was with UNICEF in a vaccination campaign to fight a disease I know too well. My own son, adopted from India, is paraplegic because of polio. When I first brought him home to the United States, it was hard to find a doctor who had any experience with polio because we have had the vaccine since 1955. Polio disappeared from the developed world and our consciousness decades ago.
Today, it exists only in the poorest countries on earth, because the world does not care enough about its most vulnerable children.
Polio is the shameful legacy of destitution and global indifference.
-Mia Farrow
