Today the 20th November 2009, we as Save the Children, have all reasons to be happy and to celebrate as it is exactly 20 years ago the UN welcomed the Convention on Child Rights. A lot have happen as we can read in the press from cross the globe and we also know it very well from our own work on the ground, amazing partners cross the globe fight and defend childrens rights every minute with us which we today should recognize and applaude.

In the same time we also know that nearly 200 million Children gave stunded growth because of insufficent nutrition and we also know ( its a lot of knowing..) that if we managed to convince ourselves ( we 15.000 employees in SC) as well as another 999.985.000 others to give a euro each we could end world huger as told by WFP! 

So the reality is , that we as Save the Children know that we are just in the beginning of many struggles, one of them to meet the dead lines of the Millenium development goals and to make our own ” Everyone ” campaign a success. Myself,  I am just back in office after handing out more than 500 shining red balloons with our newly printed materials in Arabic about Child rights on Hamra street with my collegues. We were met with big smiles and questions which is amazing. Our own windows are decorated with the red balloons, as a reminder to everyone that every little gesture you make will make a difference.

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Just arrived back from Yemen. Yemen is the oldest country of operations for Save the Children Sweden, we have been there since 1963. The decision to do work in Yemen was based primarely on at that time severe situation in relation to TBC. Today, Yemen with a popoulation of more than 22 million people, are still among the poorest in the world with a health situation for both adults and children so below any acceptable standard, high degree of malnutrition among children, poor water conditions, poor health infrastructure etc etc.

This time my main objective for the trip was to visit the war plagued north of the country, the Saada region. Saada have been in five wars as they say in Yemen and we are now in the 6th, its a complicated background to the conflict with a combination of tension between the central goverment and the region, tribal interest but bottom line, the disparities  in regard to economic develpment, access to health and education creates tension in the North but its also bubbeling troubles in the South of the country where we as SC have a major work with the Somali refugee both camp and urban population.

The result this time of the war between the central goverment and the Houthis in the North have led to more than 175.000 IDPs. A large majority of them we find in the city of Amran, primarely hosted in schools and host famillies and in Haradh and the refugee camp Al Mazraq . When I arrived to the camp it was chaotic. Saudie Arabia started a heavy air bombing on Saturday the 14th of November and in the same time,  the population along the boarder were given 72 hours to leave which has given an influx daily to Al Mazraq camp of more than 1000 people a day, the vaste majority are children, and Al Mazraq is alrady full, to chaos it was. As SC we have had both NFI distribution, emergency education, set up safe spaces, all traiditional emergency work, with a brilliant team from the region including our own staff from Sana whom have worked 24/7  as true superheros.

After all this long explanation, what is my point. I took a walk with my protection colleageu cross the camp as she wanted me to visit one specific family. I entered the tent, where I did find a Salim, a mother whom last week lost her daughter due to severe malnutrition.When our staff did get contact with Salim and her husband, all efforts performed were to late. Salim has also lost two other children also from malnutrition earlier in the year. When I met Salim , three days ago, she had her baby girl Sabeina in her lap. Sabeina is a great little girl of 14 months BUT, she was hungry, she had been hungry for a long time and despite Salims effort to breastfeed, Sabeina is severely malnutritioned. The health clinic has just started up in the Al Mazraq camp, the life saving work of therapeutical feeding have not yet started, its in the pipeline, so there I stood, facing a child fighting so survive, a mother who had already lost two of her children had no money to buy food BUT Salim the mother and father were chewing the traditional qat! I asked but why do you chew qat, Salims response were that its making her less hungry, but that is not a good enough answer for Sabeina. So as aid workers we come in the odd situation and to be perfectly honest frustrating situation in times of a severe emergency where famillies do most likely have a bit of money as they can buy qat , a drug, but they do not want to prioritize it to food for their children. So, the we have to bit our lip, we have to push for securing that Sabeina , one do get access to feeding that allows her to grow up, to become older than 5 years old. We have to in the same time educate her parents in being parents, we need to secure that the older children are having a protective environment not only in times of crises but through their lives, that they have access to education so that when they become parents , they will have a basic knowledge on the importance of nutrition for a childs well being. Leaving Al Mazraq when the sun went down was difficult, frustration was boiling, but in the dark there is always light. Our driver Mohammed looked at me and said, you know Sanna, we do,  do a good good job, look the children had a lot of fun in the safe spaces, they played together boys and girls and all of them were in school, they dont go to school of them normally in their villages. And thats true so, we have to keep moving and never give up, belive that access to education at large is a key to all development.

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Beirut 2009-10-19

Everyday media is trying to catch attention. To attack aid organizations, aid work, questioning if the money really reach the target group has to some extent become a new mantra, but as Save the Children we can say, yes it does! Every day colleagues around the globe stands up to defend children and their rights, every day colleagues risk their own well being to get needed emergency relief to the most vulnerable. We have seen it the last weeks with our emergency responses in Asia and we have seen it before. To that, in our launch of Every One we have committed ourselves to do even more, with financially viable solutions.

In Yemen, one of the 10 countries most affected by an increase in malnutrition and where 45.6% of children under five are under weight, SC is aiming through the CAP mechanism to fund raise a bit more than 2 million USD to promote nutrition practices of pregnant and lactating mothers as well as to promote and support the appropriate introduction of complementary foods to children age 6 months. DFID has already committed a smaller amount of 150 000 USD to the work up in the North of the country Sada, but with the CAP we hope to have a national coverage . 

Since centuries back Swedes make bad jokes about Norway , and vice versa, in an endless competition between the two nations. But through a message from the Alliance today, we got painfully aware of that our main rival once again is catching up with us: “Norway has a leading international role through the Prime Minister’s participation in the Network of Global Leaders who work for MDG 4 and 5, and as member of a High Level group looking at innovative financing of international health.”

So as SCS we are aware that our Swedish government is committed to working with health and one of the bigger donors, but they have to be aware and alerted that there is a need to do more not to once again come in the shadow of our neighbor. Norway has beaten us in skies for years which is painful. They have less or actually no national debts compared to Sweden, and the things we could always take as a last resort the food, no longer valid, their food is getting better and better. So to add on that being in the lead regarding MDG 4 and 5, it looks like we are back in back position as a nation, but thanks to the Alliance cooperation, we as SCS can share the front seat with SCN.

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The sun is setting over Beirut, its been quite a day. Round the globe colleageus, national NGO  partners  and children have teamed up to make our voice heard on the simple truth of that  22000 children are dying everyday from illnessess that simple and affordabel solutions could easily prevent and that everyone can make something about it. Today in Yemen the childrens parliament met to raise their concerns to the goverment of Yemen and to Media. They are an amazing group of girls and boys, always well prepared, well spoken and straight to the point. Their voice we know makes a difference They have been active to change the attitude towards children with disabilities, they have been vocal when it comes to the right of children to be registered at birth, and now hearing them speak out about siblings whom have lost their lives because their mother couldnt afford doctor fees,  is to be a part of million of youngs childrens every day life. Everyone ; we have started our gigantic mission and there is not one minute to loose.

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As we are coming closer to the 5th October, we also now know that more than 40 countries have now signed on to do activities to make sure we get this issue back on the agenda, small, big events across the globe, film stars, politicians, academics, professionals from a large number of fields will be involved and most importantly a large number of children will bring the voice of demanding the right to have their siblings, relatives and friends to survive.

The campaign “Every One” will strongly combine direct program work with strong advocacy components at all levels, both in regards to asking the big donors to commit to more funds but also in regard to holding governments accountable to the CRC. Article 6 in the Convention on the Right of the Child states “The inherent right to life, and the States obligation to ensure the child’s survival and development”, this is our guiding star for the campaign we will launch today.

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Last steering committee meeting is done before 5th of October, business plan almost done, materials are produced at large, the Policy report is strong, one of the most amazing notion is that the total cost of additional funds needed to meet the Millenium Development Goal on child and maternal mortality is 36-45 Billion USD, a big amount BUT it is less than half what we as consumers are spending globally on bottled water. So if we all skip every second bottle of our sparkling Ramlösa, Perrier, San Pellegrino etc, we can make a change.

Amazing, especially when you sit in Lebanon where we all buy water in all possible bottle sizes due to poor water conditions in country, but for sure, if the commitment was also from the Lebanese government to improve the water quality in country we could skip those bottles, commit to a global campaign, but also secure that children in the Palestinian camps and in the other poverty pockets in country could survive and have a better life start.

It is not much to ask for when you think of it, we all should have the right to clean water, we should all have the right to access of health services, we should all have the right not to die from diseases which we can prevent as measles, diarrhea and pneumonia as we are in the 21st century and the techniques and methods are available.

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To run a campaign and to mobilize all Alliance members with its entire staff to commit to it, it’s a huge task for any one. We still have a few things to solve but it’s moving. The big day is the 5th of October, the final details of a business plan are under discussion, the branding has not been easy, languages can we translate it? how do we show that our way of working with child mortality and new born health as Save the Children is different and thereby our commitment will make a difference, those questions are challenging but exiting. 90 years after Eglantyne Jebb’s commitment to make a difference in partnership with friends and colleagues, we have embarked on the same trip, and I am convinced we can do it.

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The very idea that every second three children are dying from causes we could have done something about gives me a chill. Nearly 9 million little persons from our main constituency loose the possibility to grow up, most of them during the first months of living. To change those numbers and to join the global movement to reduce child mortality by 2015, Save the Children have made the brave decision to launch a global campaign “ Every One”, which indicates the very essence of humanity, we can all do something to make a difference.

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