UNICEF UK goes to the Thames Festival

Luckily the weather was fine in London on Saturday night – I was at the Thames Festival (pictured left our stall with volunteers Mya and Sonal who were collecting signatures on Sunday) getting signatures for UNICEF UK's petition to Nick Clegg on the Millennium Development Goals.
You might have heard of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a series of goals set by the UN in 2000. There are 8 goals to be achieved by 2015;

• Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a Global Partnership for Development

On 20th of September world leaders are attending a review meeting in New York to discuss the progression of the MDGs and accelerate progress towards achieving the goals by 2015.

At the moment, we're not on target to meet the goals. For example approximately 1.5 million children still die every year due to preventable illnesses caused by poor sanitation or lack of clean water and 280,000 children under 15 die of AIDS related illnesses.

UNICEF UK’s petition is going to Nick Clegg as the UK's representative at the meeting next week to ask him to;

• increase funding for safe water and toilets for those who have been left behind and persuade other governments to do the same
• prioritise the rights of girls and other disadvantaged groups of children living in the least developed countries in his speech and in the agenda for action on the UN goals in order to secure the greatest progress
• put in place taxes on the financial sector (the 'Robin Hood Tax') that could raise up to £20 billion a year and for that money to be spent helping the poor at home and abroad and tackling climate change

We had a really successful evening at the Thames Festival, and got a very good reception from the festival-goers. We managed to get a total of over 1,000 signatures and raised awareness of the MDGs and the need to put pressure on world leaders to ensure they up the ante and make sure the goals are met by 2015.

If you haven't already, please sign the e-petition at www.tagd.org.uk/takeaction before it closes on 19th September.

Ruby :-)

Tagd at Underage Festival

William Stringer was our lucky winner of tickets to the Underage Festival. Here he writes about his day in London, and what he found out about how UNICEF puts it right for children everywhere.

By William Stringer

My name’s William and I was the lucky winner of UNICEF Tagd’s competition for tickets to the Underage Festival in Victoria Park, London on Sunday 1st August. I only found out about the competition because I was researching some information about the upcoming Millennium Development Goals being held in September.

I simply sent off my answer to the question along with some contact details; it was actually so easy that I thought I had done it wrong! Afterwards, if I’m honest, I completely forgot about the competition. I’m one of those really annoying people who go on about never winning anything. Therefore, as soon as I sent the email, I resigned myself to believing that there was no chance.

So you can imagine my shock when I got a phone call saying that I had won the tickets. I remember distinctly not really being able to form sentences together, so much was my excitement. And that’s how I came to be jetting off from Belfast to Gatwick.

Underage Festival was blessed with beautiful summer weather, thankfully no need for my summer jacket. My first port of call was the UNICEF tent which was brimming with some of the friendliest people in London, a stark contrast to the silent underground I had just travelled on. I was given a Fairtrade tote bag and, in exchange, gave them my email address to aid UNICEF’s current campaign to provide millions of children with access to proper sanitation. The tote bag came in handy as I was able to stash my jacket in and head off to listen to some music.

Haduken played an impressive set claiming we were the “maddest crowd they had played to all summer”. Dust clouds erupted from beneath worn out feet, as we danced to various musicians from Ellie Goulding to No Mean City. The atmosphere was amazing, everyone excitedly hurrying between the six stages so as not to miss any of their favourite bands. I’d like to thank UNICEF Tagd for the opportunity to go to Underage Festival - it was great fun! I urge anyone to get more involved with their work in campaigning for children’s rights and also sign their campaign action to enable children across the world to get safe water and sanitation. UNICEF Tagd got 1575 people to sign up to the action at the Festival, but they need many thousands more to get Nick Clegg to ensure a fairer future by prioritising the world’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Sign the action now and tell all your friends!

Why not work for UNICEF? A work experience account

Read about how Kathryn discovered a future vocation at UNICEF.

"Yesterday I think I discovered my dream job... for a while now I have been interested in a job where you can organise events".

By Kathryn

Hello, my name is Kathryn and for the past week I have been doing a weeks Work Experience at the UNICEF office in Billericay.

When our school told us in January that we must pick somewhere to do a work experience I must admit I completely panicked. I had no idea where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to be when I was older. To make things worse the majority of my friends all had very good ideas of what their futures held for them. After a lot of thought and deliberation I settled on working in an office...and then it hit me why not work for UNICEF? It is so close to my house and I had always wanted to see how a charity worked as I didn't believe it could be as simple as just sending money in and it being sent to the people who needed it. I was not mistaken.

On my first day I was nervous but everyone was so friendly I soon felt at ease. I was given a timetable informing me what I would be doing all week, and it surprised me how many different departments there were. So I spent Monday working at the Helpdesk, inputting details and then printing off letters for people. I also learnt about all the different websites that UNICEF have, and was interested to discover the Tagd website, especially for younger people.

I woke up on Tuesday morning and found myself tired, from not being used to working a 9-5 day, but still eager to work. I spent the day with Internal Services, and again everyone was really friendly and welcoming. I logged the Schools participating in Day For Change, and when I return to school in September will mention it to the Sixth Form Committee and see if they are interested. I also had to cut up ten banners to be sent off with a packet for a run, and sadly using a pair of scissors is not my strong point, but I managed and they came out fine.

A visit to Head House in London was in store for Wednesday and I was looking forward to seeing the other office. I had three meetings and learnt a lot about the different campaigns, the Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA) and alternate ways of fundraising. After eating our lunch on the balcony, in the sunshine, it was time to return to Billericay. After a delay and kerfuffle at Liverpool Street we finally caught a train and arrived back in time for me to help sort the cheques in the Donations department. After putting so many letters in envelopes the day before it was a nice change to be taking letters and cheques out. The following day I was to be putting the donations onto the system. It was lovely to see how many people were willing to donate to such a good cause.

Yesterday I think I discovered my dream job. Not only at UNICEF can you sit and look at pictures of some of the celebrity ambassadors...but in the Baby Friendly Department Karen told me all about her job which involved researching the hotels and train times for all the different courses on breast feeding around the country. It sounded amazing. For a while now I have been interested in a job where you can organise events and this sounded perfect.

Now sitting here reflecting my week, I've decided it's true what our teachers told us. "After work experience you will know what career you will want to go into." Which at the time I thought unlikely, now however I am now definitely considering working for a charity once I have hopefully been to University.

So with a huge thankyou to everyone at UNICEF who have all been so lovely and welcoming to me this week I will leave my first blog at this.

Find out more information about work experience at UNICEF.

Work experience with UNICEF - the insider's view!

Josie's view
Hey, my name is Josie. I’ve just finished doing my AS levels at school - which means it’s come to that terrifying time in life when I have to decide what I want to do with my future! I’ve always been interested in working for UNICEF, or something similar, because I really want to work abroad and generally make a difference. So, when I saw on the UNICEF website that you could do work experience with them I was really excited and applied – now I’m lucky enough to be sitting in the UNICEF UK office telling you all about it! And funnily enough someone else had the same idea…

Lucia's view
Hi, my name is Lucia. I was lucky enough to finish my GCSEs before the rest of my friends, meaning I had a week to do whatever I wanted before the summer holidays started! I’ve always had an interest in UNICEF and the amazing work they do all over the world. The idea of working for an organisation like UNICEF, or WHO, in the future really appeals to me so, when I saw that UNICEF UK offered work experience I was very excited!

Monday morning - Josie and I arrived at the office in London at the same time, even though we’d never met! After we finally worked out how to open the doors, we were met by Rosie, who was to be our supervisor for the week. We were shown around and introduced to everyone we’d be working with. We both felt really welcome straight away – all the team are so lovely and friendly!

Our first task was to help the media team with their epic job of going through ALL the weekend and day’s newspapers, looking for any stories relevant to UNICEF and their work. It was an interesting opportunity to get a better insight into what UNICEF UK is really involved in. This took quite a while! When we were done, we were asked to help organise and research data about MPs. It felt satisfying to help as this information is going to be used in UNICEF UK’s efforts to implement the Robin Hood Tax.

The next day started again with media monitoring, and would for the rest of the week. This didn’t matter – it never got boring – there were interesting stories every day, although it took some effort to find them! We then were asked to brainstorm ideas for the up-and-coming Underage Festival where UNICEF UK will be having a stall trying to encourage more young people to join Tagd and sign the petition for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We were also asked for any feedback on Tagd. Honestly, this was quite a scary and challenging task, but it felt really good that our input was valued and, even as young people, our ideas were useful. Another exciting job on Tuesday was writing an article for Tagd about the current crisis in Kyrgyzstan.

Wednesday was mostly spent helping out Jazmin, who works on climate change. We searched the web to compile a list of blogs all about the environment, for UNICEF UK’s use in the future.

We’ve been working so hard this week that we kind of ran them out of things for us to do on Thursday morning. We tried to show some initiative by posting the MDG campaign, and link to the petition on Facebook so that our friends could get involved. You should do the same – it really makes a difference!! Our day soon livened up though, with a meeting all about UNICEF’s work in Yemen. It was fascinating to find out about the extent of the problems faced in our world, and the way UNICEF works tirelessly to solve them. The rest of the afternoon we worked again on the climate change campaign by assessing the Tagd campaign and resources, doing some more data work for the Robin Hood Tax and writing this!

We can’t believe that our time here is ending now! It’s been such a brilliant experience - getting such an insight into the work of UNICEF UK; feeling useful; and generally being motivated to support UNICEF’s campaigns and efforts more in the future, as we’ve seen how much hard work goes into them and the genuine effect they have.

If you would like to do work experience at UNICEF UK then check out these work experience pages on the UNICEF website.

Young people discover Tagd at Valley Comprehensive School

Ruby has been volunteering for UNICEF UK for a few years, here she talks about a project she coordinated with students from a school in Worksop





At Valley Comprehensive School in Worksop a group of year 10 students completed a UNICEF UK project as part of their Diploma in Health, Society and Development.

The students worked hard to raise awareness of issues affecting the world’s children and to spread the word about Tagd, UNICEF UK’s youth website. As part of their diploma the students researched, planned and carried out some small events and the results have been fantastic.

Stephen Smith, the class teacher, said “the opportunity has been brilliant for the students; it’s been a chance for them to become truly engaged in their work and passionate about their studies whilst supporting a fantastic charity”. Not only has their work raised their awareness of UNICEF and issues that affect child rights all over the world, but it has raised awareness across the whole school.

Whilst keeping a video diary to record all their exciting work, the students planned a ‘Tagd Design’ competition and a Tagd outreach session. With the help of loads of stickers and flyers the outreach session really raised the profile of UNICEF with students and made it the top talking point in Valley School! Tagd was also a topic of discussion and thanks to the creative and imaginative minds of the school’s students some fantastic Tags were designed in the competition.
To handle Tagd’s new-found popularity in Valley School, the students held a Signing Up Session, where they set up a classroom and had their laptops ready and prepared to sign people up to Tagd - what a fantastic idea!

But the students didn’t want their work to be only about the fun and games of stickers and competitions; they wanted to make sure that the serious message of UNICEF’s work was heard loud and clear. To this end, they did two presentations for other classes about HIV and clean water which taught other students about the adversities faced by other children and young people across the world, the work UNICEF does to help these children and how the students can be involved through Tagd.

I have been volunteering for UNICEF UK for a few years and coordinated the group’s work. It was a great experience and I hope that this example inspires other students to initiate projects in their own schools and communities - it’s been a brilliant display of hard work, altruism and commitment”.

On another note, I have also set up a UNICEF fundraising group in Sheffield which I am keen for students to be involved with- please visit the groups Facebook page or email us at bethechange10@yahoo.co.uk.

The power of young people

Katie has been busy volunteering in her local area.

Since I returned from Copenhagen, I have been sharing what I learnt at UNICEF's Children's Climate Forum with my local community and other young people. In Decemeber, a presentations evening was held at Worcester Volunteer Centre, where I have been volunteering for almost two years. The international environmental youth project in the centre, called SEED, also had exciting stories to tell as they had just returned from a trip to India where they learnt about sustainability out there. A fact that really surprised me was that in terms of wind power installed capacity, India is ranked fifth in the world.

In February, I was invited to speak at the National Trust's 'You, Me & The Climate' project's celebration event, which was held at one of their beautiful properties, Prior Park, in Bath. I am always really impressed by the National Trust's work with young people and the environment, but I guess they have to be given their organisation is already being severely impacted by climate change. For instance, over the last eight years, they have been forced to make over 400 separate insurance claims for flood or storm damage, worth over £3.2 million.

'Society cannot ignore climate change - its impacts are being felt
already and they will become much more widespread.' - Dame Fiona Reynold
DBE, Director General of the National Trust

Over the past few months, I have also been organising a high school eco-ambassadors event, which took place at Worcestershire's County Hall. Five local eco-schools attended, along with two youth volunteering groups from Worcester Volunteer Centre and some county councillors.

'Eco-Schools is an international award programme
that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to
help embed these principles into the heart of school life.'

The purpose of the event was to give the eco-schools the opportunity to hear about wider environmental volunteering opportunities whilst sharing what they are already doing within their schools. I also ran a climate change-related activity, called 'Rising Tide', which I too from Tagd's peer education pack. I wanted to communicate the fact that in the next 100 years, Atlantic sea levels are predicted to rise by up to 1m, threatening low-level countries all across the world, including the Maldives and Bangladesh.

Having a fun break, doing the Rising Tide activity

All my events received great feedback and I encourage you to hold some of your own about issues that are important to you. We need to make adults realise that young people have a passion, creativity and determination that can and should be used as a positive force for change in society.


Katie x

David Kidney: Looking Good

Meeting with David Kidney was a great opportunity for us, the Copenhagen 4, to tell The Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate change about our experiences in Copenhagen. Incidentally, is was also a marvellous opportunity to see inside the Houses of Parliament, in the ‘canteen’ – if I can call it that with oak panelling and the iconic green leather of the House of Commons, anyway, let’s just say it was a far cry from my school canteen! our meeting was informal but informative. I left the meeting feeling both positive and reassured that out government really does want to listen to us. It was also great to know that Kidney had read the manifesto from the Children’s Climate Forum – ‘What’s up COP?’ and agreed with all that was outlined, saying it was ‘fantastic’ how we had looked at adaptation as well as mitigation.
From our meeting we were hoping to share all that we had gained from the forum, especially how all the delegates came together with the goal of trying to safeguard the planet for future generations- not out of self-interest. Kidney was pleased by this and said how he felt that politicians had a thing or two to learn from us- something that Kidney assured us he would feed back to Ed Milliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

The main points of discussion from our meeting were:

• The role of civil society, maintaining the momentum built in the run up to COP15, ensuring Mexico delivers all that was promised of Copenhagen.
• The role of young people in the Climate Debate and the example of global co-operation they set at the Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen.
• The DECC, Department of Energy and Climate Change Youth Panel; Luke, Katie and Kidney came straight from sitting on the panel to the meeting. The plan being to get a panel set up and cemented before the general election.
• The Robin Hood Tax (click to support)- this was something Kidney supported, his only concern being that the funds gathered would be allocated to too many projects, one of these being Climate Change.
• Climate scepticism, Kidney reassured us that while there will always be criticism the government is trying to promote greater transparency from scientific bodies to help reassure the public that climate change is a very real danger that is imperative we deal with.
  
  Overall, Kidney’s message was that of a positive one and that by the time we come to Mexico the World should be in a much stronger place to reach a legally binding consensus. Additionally, ever since December more and more countries have been signing up to the Copenhagen Accord- showing political willingness and progress.
  
  The message is: We must continue to lobby, campaign and overcome climate change scepticism but things are starting to look up. We must keeping going. We must keep believing.

'Make the change- show that you care'.

Cressie
XXX

UNICEF HQ through the eyes of an Article 12 Advisor

I’m Evie and recently was appointed an Article 12 Advisor to UNICEF UK’s Child Friendly Communities initiative. Along with 5 other people from Britain, I will be working with UNICEF in 2010 to implement the initiative among British towns and promote a ‘child-friendly’ approach in all communities. Recently, I went to New York City with my family and was lucky enough to visit the headquarters of UNICEF on the last day of my visit.

I spent most of my visit with Cristina Gallegos, who runs the UNICEF Voices of Youth website, and she showed me around the building. The first thing that struck me was the size of the building and the amount of people who worked there – it’s incredible how many people work there, and how much all of these people genuinely care about children is a really positive thing to remember.

The Voices of Youth website is a great forum for young people to discuss issues that relate to them and that they care about – these range from AIDS awareness and the Junior 8 summit to children’s rights and media coverage, along with hundreds of other topics. All the conversations are logged and recorded, as a way of integrating young people’s views into projects. For example, a document was published called A World Fit for Us, which used stories and comments from the VOY forums to explore the impact of the UN Special Session on Children in 2002. The VOY site also carries news items and themes to inform and initiate discussions among the thousands of young people who use it.

I really enjoyed my visit, and extend my sincerest thanks to Cristina Gallegos for showing me around and to Matthew King for helping us to organize the visit. I’d love to return in the future!

Evie xo

Follow the Article 12 Advisors and Child Friendly Communities on Facebook.

Copenhagen 4: Letter to Gordon Brown and Final Prep. Weekend

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since our last blog, but it's good because we've now got a lot to update you on!

Last weekend (6-8 Nov.) the four of us travelled down to London for what was our final meeting in preparation for the Children's Climate Forum. It was a really fun weekend, and once again we left feeling inspired by each other's enthusiasm.

Having arrived at our hotel on Friday night, we got cracking early on Saturday with some public speaking training, which was a really amazing experience. Jennifer, the expert who was training us, was fantastic, and got us talking about all kinds of crazy things off the top of our heads. We each learnt a lot about ourselves and how we come across to an audience, and picked up some great tips as to how to improve our speaking, which will be really helpful at the CCF.

In the afternoon we talked more about the Forum itself and what we would be doing there, and discussed the presentation that we are to give to our host Danish school (you can see the presentation here, even as we are making it - we're not quite there yet, but we think it's looking really cool already!). By the evening, although we were completely worn out by the day's activities, we had a lovely pizza dinner and went to watch Up! (definitely worth a watch) in 3-D in the West End, which was really good, albeit in quite a sad and scary way! Then Luke kindly tried to give us a really fascinating explanation as to how the 3-D glasses worked and how they could be used to demonstrate quantum mechanical effects, but by that time we were too tired to care and instead politely pretended we were listening.

In the morning we finished off a few more things, such as our choices for the workshops we would be doing in Copenhagen. We had to resort to pulling names out of a hat at least twice, and it turns out that the hats love Graeme! We ended up (after MUCH deliberation) being very happy with our choices, and it's great to know what we'll be doing while we are there. There was a bit of rush at the end to get our exhibition stand created - this is where we'll be making a display about Britain for the other delegations to look at on the first day of the Forum. We ended up not quite getting it finished, but luckily the wonderful UNICEF staff were (all too) keen to help finish the painting and sticking for us!

We also, finally, got our letter to Gordon Brown finished, signed and sent off! Wooo! Basically we are thanking him for agreeing to attend COP15, telling him about who we are, what the CCF is, and what we are doing prior to it. We also ask to see if he will meet with us so that we can hand over the Declaration of Young People's views after the Forum to him personally, which would be an awesome opportunity for us to tell him and the UK public about what we have been doing. You can see the final letter here. We think it's a great summary of everything we have been doing and our most important views about climate change. Let's hope he agrees to meet us! You can see the letter below:Well I think that's about it! We are so insanely excited about Copenhagen - in two weeks' time we'll be there! Make sure you keep reading this blog - we'll be updating it regularly with all the exciting things we're doing!

Thanks for reading!

350 Hand's Up!

On October 24th, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in history. Over 5200 events took part in the 350 campaign, calling for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

My 350 Hand's Up! event, held in Worcester town centre.

People from around the world were asked to organise an action incorporating the number 350 at an iconic place in their community, and then upload a photo on the website. By raising awareness of the significance of the number 350, which refers to the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide we can have in our atmosphere, we can hold our decision-makers accountable to producing a treaty at Copenhagen that is strong, equitable and grounded in the latest science.

I was inspired to join this campaign and organise my own event for the 350 International Day of Action. I came up with the idea of collecting 350 messages from my local community, asking them why they care about climate change and called the project Hand’s Up!

I collected messages from my local rugby team, the Bishop of Worcester, the fire service, children as young as 3 and local MP’s. Peter Luff MP said, “I am delighted to help Katie with her excellent initiative. There is no more pressing issue facing the planet than climate change and I really hope what Katie is doing will draw even more attention to it ahead of the vital summit of world leaders in Copenhagen in December.”

Worcester Warriors, my local rubgy team, invited me to have a photo taken with a couple of their star players at the stadium before a match. They made me feel very short!

I received great support from a number of local organisations and individuals, including Transition Worcester, Worcestershire County Council’s Switch It Off campaign and the local Green Party. It just proves that climate change needn’t be something to be scared or angry about as it can bring local communities together to achieve amazing things!



Katie x

Tagd gets blogging for Climate Change Blog Action Day

Today is Climate Change Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers around the world post their thoughts on climate change. The aim is to spark discussion on this pressing global issue.


Apparently, it will be one of the “largest social change events on the web”. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s at it.

Never one to miss out on a party, Tagd is also doing a blog for the Climate Change Blog Action Day (you’re reading it right now!). Climate change is one of UNICEF’s central campaigns, after all.

So we thought we’d use this opportunity to fill you in on the climate change campaign activities Tagd is involved with.

As you might have gathered from the posts below, Tagd are sending four young people to Copenhagen to represent the UK in the Children’s Climate Change Forum in December, ahead of the very important United Nations Climate Change Conference, where world leaders will meet to formulate a global agreement on climate change.

The ‘Copenhagen 4’, Cressie, Graeme, Katie and Luke (pictured above), won the chance to attend the forum on behalf of young people in the UK after entering UNICEF’s Big Climate Callout competition. Stay tuned for more enlightening posts from our foursome on their preparations for the trip and the forum itself over the coming days and weeks. You can also keep up to date with UNICEF’s work leading up to the conference by registering with Tagd.

Tagd is also promoting loads of ways you can get directly involved in the climate change campaign. You can email your MP, asking him to contact Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to demand that he takes decisive action at the Copenhagen conference. Or, you can join us at the Wave march, the UK’s biggest ever protest in support of action on climate change, in London on Saturday 5 December. If you can’t make it, why not paint your hands blue and send us your photos, which we’ll bring to the march.

And if you’re feeling particularly inspired, Tagd has details on how you can organise a ‘Wave Day’ with your school, youth group or your friends. We’ve produced a downloadable climate change resource pack, filled with tips and ideas on how you can take action on climate change.

So there you have it. But now we’ve done our bit and got you up to speed on Tagd’s climate campaign work, why not get blogging yourself? If you’re passionate about this issue, you couldn’t choose a better day to start. And even if you don’t have a blog, you can do a post on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

For more inspiration, check out our tips on writing an article and getting creative.