Burundi: protecting the most vulnerable in times of trouble
Being a child in Burundi is not easy, even during peaceful times. The average Burundian child suffers from malnutrition, goes to a school in a classroom with 74 pupils and shares a textbook with three...
View ArticleFinding safe shelter in Burundi
“We heard a lot of gunshots where we live, in Musaga,” Brice, 7, tells me. “I was scared, I cried all the time.” Brice is one of more than hundred children currently being temporarily sheltered by a...
View ArticleIn Tanzania, protecting refugees from cholera
Last week the Oral Cholera Vaccine, OCV, was administered at the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, in Kigoma Region, Tanzania, to over 106,000 refugees from the Congo and – more recently – Burundi, out of an...
View ArticleTanzania: responding to the needs of vulnerable children from Burundi
The influx of Burundians seeking refuge in Tanzania since the unrest in their own country began is enormous – we’re looking at a figure above 80,000, more than half, children. And of those children,...
View Article“I try to flee, but I can’t move”
It is a warm Tuesday morning in Bujumbura, Burundi. The sun is shining and birds are chirping. On my way to work, I am called by our Child Protection Specialist, who has just had news that a...
View Article“We need people to teach others that girls are important”
This week, we are paying tribute to an amazing voice for children in Burundi who left our world too early. UNICEF is extremely sad to report that Carlène Kaneza, 16, child journalist and U-Reporter...
View ArticleNOW is the time to invest in Burundi’s children
[Bo Viktor Nylund, UNICEF Burundi Representative, talked to Sam Mort, Senior Communications Advisor, UNICEF Brussels, about how deteriorating conditions in Burundi are affecting children.] It’s tough...
View ArticleBurundi’s children: Optimism despite continued violence
For a long time, everything I knew about Burundi came in the form of headlines: missives from the New York Times and Guardian that spoke of political instability and coups, a press whose freedom was...
View ArticleThe chief of cooks prepares a meal – and dreams of a future
“They call me the chief of the cooks,” is how Janvier starts our conversation. He’s been cooking for a long time now. As the youngest child in his family, he spent most his free time with his mom, who...
View ArticleAdvocating for children’s rights in Burundi
Last April 2016, I arrived in Burundi to serve as a Communication Officer with UNICEF, with a very clear mission: to advocate for the rights of Burundi’s children through the power of storytelling and...
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