For readers living outside Canada who wish to make donations, please visit the UNICEF website for your country. This is the link for readers in the United States.
UNICEF needs donations to help the millions of children affected by Pakistan floods
Today is World Humanitarian Day and UNICEF needs your help. The floods in Pakistan are wreaking devastation on an indescribable scale. More than 14 million people are affected and the crisis is growing worse by the hour. Donations are not keeping pace with the need. UNICEF and the children of Pakistan need you! Please help UNICEF provide life-saving assistance by making a donation. Please read more to find out what else you can do.
UNICEF is dedicated to the children of the world
This is from the UNICEF CANADA website:
Monsoon rains have triggered what some news outlets are referring to as “the flood of the century” in Pakistan, with the hardest hit region the province of Kyber Pukhtoonkhawa. An estimated 14 million people have been affected by this disaster – 6 million of whom are children. This is more people than the tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake and the Haiti earthquake combined.
UNICEF is on the ground providing emergency shelter, food, water and health care. Together with our partners, we are distributing clean drinking water, basic hygiene kits, and food to families affected by the crisis. We have also set up emergency medical centres in the hardest hit regions to protect children against tetanus, measles, diarrhea, dehydration and cholera.
“There are crucial needs for food and safe drinking water,” said UNICEF Representative in Pakistan Martin Mogwanja. “Potential disease outbreaks among survivors are a major concern.”
Please help UNICEF provide life-saving assistance by making a donation.
There are numerous other ways you can get involved
Follow UNICEF CANADA on Twitter. Join the UNICEF CANADA Facebook page. Become a UNICEF CANADA volunteer. Read more about the PAKISTAN FLOODS here, and share with your family and friends. This page will tell you what UNICEF will do with your donation money. Example: For $50 you can provide 20 litres of therapeutic milk which will help provide a severely malnourished child’s chance of survival.
Why I support UNICEF
Jitka Samková’s 1946 design for UNICEF’s first ever card
When I was a child, I used to help my mother address, close and stamp hundreds of UNICEF Christmas cards each year. My mother was insistent on buying UNICEF cards, and her passion for this cause made a big impression on me. I remember looking at the “exotic” images, greetings in various languages, hand-drawn pictures — the cards opened up a world beyond what I knew as a suburban Canadian girl who never knew hunger or cold or any kind of deprivation whatsoever.
At Halloween my mom was the same — she would make sure we had our UNICEF boxes and diligently collected money in the thick, waxy orange-and-black cardboard boxes. Nothing felt like those boxes, especially as they filled with change. They had a substance — and it wasn’t just the weight that gave them that substance. It was my mother’s care and concern.
I learned a lot from those early experiences with UNICEF — about my mother, about the world and about our obligation to share what we have with others in need, especially children — who are helpless without us. Now more than ever UNICEF needs our help. The scale of the flood crisis in Pakistan is unimaginable.
Mariellen Ward is a freelance travel writer whose personal style is informed by a background in journalism, a dedication to yoga and a passion for sharing the beauty of India’s culture and wisdom with the world. She has traveled for about a year altogether in India and publishes an India travel blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen also writes for magazines and newspapers.
