TRICK OR TREAT FOR UNICEF

By Felice Prager

In 2006, UNICEF celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. Born out of a humanitarian response to the desperate needs of children in Europe who needed assistance after World War II, UNICEF continues to provide food, blankets, education, and medicine to children affected by war, disaster, and unhealthy living conditions, regardless of race, creed, status, nationality, or political belief.

Before the earliest days of UNICEF, Europe had been devastated the horrors that went along with World War II. Twenty million children needed help just to stay alive. Statistically, half of all babies were dying before their first birthday. UNICEF began by tending to the needs of the children in Albania, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. There were also programs in China, which had been badly affected by years of Japanese occupation and in the Middle East. By 1948, UNICEF was providing for five million children in twelve countries.

Also in 1948, UNICEF began the largest mass vaccination campaign in history up to that time, and by 1955, 155 million children had been tested and 60 million children vaccinated against tuberculosis.

UNICEF’s work began with the early days of the United Nations. Initially, Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States, allies during the World War II, came together as the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and organized a joint humanitarian response. In 1946, the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 57, formally replacing the UNRRA with UNICEF.

By 1950, UNICEF’s mandate was reviewed because some people thought UNICEF should be disbanded. Fortunately, Pakistan’s representative to the United Nations claimed that children in developing countries were suffering from a permanent emergency. They were living in poverty, suffering from diseases, and continuing a pattern of illiteracy and malnutrition. He argued that the United Nations had a responsibility to assist such countries.

A United Nations resolution extended UNICEF’s term for three more years. In 1953, the United Nations General Assembly voted to make UNICEF a permanent agency. Rather than the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, it then became, as it is today, the United Nations Children’s Fund, although it kept the original acronym: UNICEF.

The 1950s saw UNICEF launch a major assault on three deadly tropical diseases among children: yaws, trachoma, and malaria.

Yaws creates very contagious sores on the face, hands, soles of the feet, and sometimes, the whole body. Experiments had shown that a short course of penicillin could cure the disease. By 1955, one million people a year were receiving penicillin injections thanks to UNICEF’s efforts.

Trachoma is an eye infection that can lead to visual impairment. In the 1950s, UNICEF treated ten million children with a major antibiotic ointment, showing how the work of the organization combined with advances in medicine could dramatically alter the future for millions of children.

Malaria was more difficult to cure and even more deadly to children. DDT, a powerful insecticide, was used by UNICEF together with the World Health Organization to spray the walls of houses where mosquitoes settled after biting. The spraying was very costly, and in addition, mosquitoes began to develop resistance to the insecticide.

Today, malaria is still a major child-killing disease. Although simple and inexpensive measures such as using insecticide-treated bed nets can mean the difference between life and death, there are still many children who are beyond UNICEF’s reach. There are still approximately 600,000 children dying each year from malaria. Thus, despite its success, UNICEF’s work against malaria continues to this day.

UNICEF became a Halloween tradition in 1950 when a group of children in Philadelphia donated $17 they received on Halloween. The Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box has become a tradition in North America each Halloween season. The small orange boxes are handed to children at schools and at various retail (Hallmark stores) locations. To date, these boxes carried by children as they trick or treat for candy has collected approximately $91 million dollars in Canada and over $132 million in the USA. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.

The annual trademark “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” campaign is of special interest to children, parents, and educators and provides an opportunity for children in the U.S. to raise funds to help children around the world while learning about the challenges they face. For many youngsters, “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” is their first volunteer experience. Today, Halloween means more than candy, costumes, ghosts, and goblins. It means vaccines, clean water, and improved nutrition for less fortunate children. Within the program, children learn that a little money can go a long way.

Just $1 protects a child from polio for life. Once at epidemic proportions in the United States claiming some 50,000 victims annually in the 1950s, today polio still strikes children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Additionally, $1 immunizes one child against the deadly disease, measles. Measles claims more children's lives each year than wars, famines, and natural disasters combined. $2 can provide 66 children with vitamin A capsules for a year.

Vitamin A protects children from permanent blindness, helps them grow strong, and protects against certain types of infections. Just $2.46 can buy school supplies, such as pencils, books, chalk, slate boards, and paper for one child for one year. Just $9 buys a pack of 200 water purification tablets. Five million Iraqis already lack access to safe water. Drinking unsafe water can lead to digestive diseases that kill 1.5 million children each year.

UNICEF educates our children about other cultures and community values. "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a full-year program that provides youth leadership opportunities even after Halloween.

Guided by a commitment to build a world fit for children, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF -- in partnership with individuals, non-governmental organizations, foundations and corporations -- works to advocate for the world’s children, increase awareness among the U.S. public of children’s needs and raise funds in support of UNICEF’s work.

The Fund is based in New York and has chapter offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, as well as smaller volunteer committees across the country. Staff and supporters are involved in a wide variety of efforts – from the Campaign to Save Mothers and Babies from Tetanus and the sale of UNICEF greeting cards and gifts, to efforts to secure an annual contribution from the U.S. Government to UNICEF.

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF has an active troupe of Goodwill Ambassadors and Special Representatives including Katie Couric, Laurence Fishburne, Edward James Olmos, and Sarah Jessica Parker. These people play an important role across the United States and around the world by reaching out to fans and supporters to raise awareness about UNICEF's lifesaving mission and help keep children's issues under the public spotlight.