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We'd love to hear from you, so please register and leave your comments. Readers, please keep in mind that comments do not necessarily reflect official positions of UNICEF or UNICEF UK. While we welcome different points of view, we will review each comment prior to posting it and will not post comments that are off-topic or inappropriate for this public forum.

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What's life like for children in the slums of Jakarta?

Andy Brown, Fri, Feb 15 2013 6:14 AM

Neng is fourteen years old. She lives and works on Venus Alley, a lane in the notorious Jembatan Besi slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Unlike other children her age, she rarely gets to see the sun. The slum is one of the most densely populated in Indonesia, rising to four stories in places. As they ascend, the homes become increasingly makeshift, with walls and floors made from wood and scrap metal.

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Water of life: villages in Timor-Leste get sanitation

Andy Brown, Tue, Oct 23 2012 8:01 AM

Francisca Martinez lives in Suku (village) Estado, high in the mountains of Ermera district in Timor-Leste. She doesn’t know her age exactly but guesses around 30. She has two teenage children of her own and helps look after her sister’s young children. “All the families round here are coffee farmers,” she says. “We earn up to $500 a year selling sacks of beans to an American company. We also keep pigs and chickens and grow corn to eat.”

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Delivering mosquito nets in flood-hit Bangkok

Andy Brown, Wed, Nov 16 2011 6:55 AM

Seven-year-old Ratnasunder lives with her grandparents and pet dogs in a former classroom at an evacuation centre at Bang Kruai Nok Temple, in Bangkok. For a child who had to flee her home in the face of rising floodwaters, Ratnasunder seems happy and carefree. She smiles broadly and lifts up one of the dogs, squeezing it tightly.

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Escaping the Thai floods at a Buddhist temple

Andy Brown, Tue, Nov 15 2011 9:55 AM

Twelve-year-old Tang sits with his sister Ice, 13, in a ‘child-friendly space’ at Laksi Temple evacuation centre, in Bangkok. They are surrounded by a mixture of squalor and beauty. Dozens of families sleep on mats on the floor of the temple, while golden Buddha statues look down from their pedestals, smiling enigmatically.

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A Bangkok university rises to flood challenge

Andy Brown, Tue, Nov 8 2011 5:17 AM

Tired mother Gaew is one of the thousands of people made homeless by Thailand’s devastating floods. She waits with her chubby five-month-old baby, Peem, outside a makeshift health clinic at Bangkok’s Phranakhon Rajabhat Universit.

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The UK Government keeps its promise on overseas aid

Samah Abbasi, Tue, Oct 26 2010 3:06 PM
Last week, the Government announced that it would meet its commitment to increase aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) by 2013. Given that it also announced significant cuts across other areas of public spending, the coalition certainly...

Co-op Pharmacy urges businesses to help improve sanitation in developing world

John Nuttall, Fri, Oct 8 2010 10:00 AM

The Co-operative Pharmacy Managing Director, John Nuttall, reflects on the recent UN Millennium Development Goals Review in New York and discusses the great need for improved sanitation in the developing world.

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Getting children back to school in Orissa state, east India

Kevin E. G. Perry, Mon, Oct 4 2010 12:11 PM
By the age of ten, 40% of children in India are forced to drop out of primary school, denying them their right to an education. Kevin E. G. Perry looks at how UNICEF is working to change this in Orissa, one of India’s poorest states, with the help...

What did the MDG Summit achieve for children? The outcomes de-junked

Amy Whalley, Fri, Oct 1 2010 2:07 PM
Since the UN MDG Summit finished we are already another week closer to the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. With only 5 years (or 260 weeks) to go to achieve these targets the pressure was really on global leaders at the MDG...

1.3 million messages from campaigners delivered to Nick Clegg and Andrew Mitchell ahead of the UN meeting next week

Guest Blogger, Thu, Sep 16 2010 2:07 PM
Young UNICEF volunteer Ruby Smith reports on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign hand-in event with Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development . The thing I was most anticipating...

A firsthand account of the floods in Sukkur, southern Pakistan

Guest Blogger, Tue, Aug 10 2010 4:39 PM
Raabya Amjad, who works for UNICEF in Karachi, reports from Sukkur, the third largest city in the southern Sindh province of Pakistan, on the relief camps set up to house people displaced by the floods. Tired and expressionless faces searching for answers...

Water of life

Andy Brown, Thu, Mar 19 2009 11:51 AM
UNICEF is campaigning for clean water and sanitation for all children Students clean a latrine block at Etoba Primary School, Senegal. The school is working with UNICEF to introduce sanitation and hygiene to the curriculum. © UNICEF/NYHQ2008-1116...