AFGHANISTAN / CHILDREN

UNICEF's South Asian Regional Director, Dan Toole, makes an on-the-ground assessment of the situation of children in Afghanistan, meeting with government officials, donors, members of the UN family and NGO partners before heading down to the eastern province of Nangarhar. UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:59
• Production Date: 28 May 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: HEALTH; SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
• Geographic Subject: AFGHANISTAN
• MAMS Id: U090528e

Description

STORY: AFGHANISTAN / CHILDREN
TRT: 1:59
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: MAY 2009, TORKHAM / KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Shotlist

MAY 2009, TORKHAM, AFGHANISTAN

1. Wide shot, Torkham border crossing
2. Med shot, child pushing heavy cart across border
3. Med shot, Dan Toole meeting with local officials
4. Wide shot, countryside
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Toole, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia:
“What we’ve been looking at are children who cross the border each day collecting firewood, carrying flour basically creating a traffic across the border. Most of the time these children don’t have education. Here they can get schooling. So they may work in the morning, we’re trying to get them to do less heavy work and make sure they get schooling so that they get that right start in life.”
6. Med shot, Dan Toole with children at drop-in centre
7. Med shot, children at centre
8. Med shot, children writing in school books
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Toole, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia:
“Afghanistan is one of the four countries in the world that still has endemic polio and that polio is crossing the border.”
10. Med shot, children riding in handcarts at border, getting vaccination as they pass
11. Close up, Dan Toole vaccinating child

MAY 2009, KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

12. Med shot, Dan Toole meeting Minister of Education Farooq Wardak

MAY 2009, TORKHAM, AFGHANISTAN

13. Med shot, girls singing at border drop-in centre
14. Wide shot, girls singing

Storyline

The Torkham border crossing. Every day thousands of people and tons of goods pass through here between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Here children often do much of the physical work and it’s the poorest and most vulnerable ones who have the least choice.

Dan Toole, UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia travelled down to this remote outpost to see how the agency is working in collaboration with the provincial government, local communities and NGO partners to improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in Afghanistan.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Toole, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia:
“What we’ve been looking at are children who cross the border each day collecting firewood, carrying flour basically creating a traffic across the border. Most of the time these children don’t have education. Here they can get schooling. So they may work in the morning, we’re trying to get them to do less heavy work and make sure they get schooling so that they get that right start in life.”

Children of all ages come here not only to learn to read and write. This drop-in centre also teaches children how to stick together to protect each other from the abuse they are so vulnerable to here on the border. It also ensures that these children get at least one meal each day.

SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Toole, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia:
“Afghanistan is one of the four countries in the world that still has endemic polio and that polio is crossing the border.”

So people who have children with them under six years of age when they cross the border to or from Pakistan, receive automatic polio vaccinations.

Earlier Toole met with key Afghan Ministers including Farooq Wardak, the minister of education.

Back on the border far away from the political debates, UNICEF’s work on the ground is helping to ensure that these children living down at Torkham have a future.