UNICEF’s work

Press, 10 July 1979, Page 18

UNICEF’s work

Wherever there are children in need, the United Nations’ Children’s

Fund (UN.I.C.E.F.) wants to help. The organisation has a mighty task because millions of the children of the Third World countries are suffering from malnutrition through a lack of nourishing food and pure water to drink. Malnutrition is a killer and it is estimated that one out of every four children in the developing countries die from this cause before they are five years old. But U.N.I.C.E.F. is not daunted, and their skilled workers are busy in parts of South America, Africa, India and South-ast Asia, helping the people to help themselves. Children need food that is rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals which are present in meat, chicken, fish, eggs, fruit and green vegetables; but these foods are scarce and consequently expensive, and most of the time they have to exist on cereals and root crops. U.N.I.C.E.F.’s advisers try to help the people in the developing countries by working with them and showing them how to use their natural resources to

produce more food of better quality by:— 1. Providing tools and seeds for school and family vegetable gardens. 2. Teaching about nutri-

tion and food hygiene in medical centres and schools.

3. Teaching practical farming. 4. Stocking fish and poultry farms. 5. Supplying high protein foods such as wheat flour, oats, skim milk and special food mixtures. 6. Providing concentrated forms of vitamin A, vitamin D, iodized salts and iron. U.N.I.C.E.F. was established in 1946 to help children who had been victims of war. Those children are now parents themselves, and in the 33 years that have passed since the end of World War 11, the scope of U.N.I.C.E.F.’s activities has widened, because their services are needed so greatly by so many of the world’s children. In this, the International Year of the Child, U.N.I.C.E.F.’s aim is to reduce substantially the numbers of children who are suffering and dying from poor nutrition, so that they, “Released from hunger, fear and need, Regardless of their colour, race or creed, Look upwards, smiling to the skies, Their faith in man reflected in their eyes.” (From “Ride with the Sun.” by Dorothy Roigt).