Mongolia: land of the eternal blue sky

Herds of livestock wander through the barren landscape of Khuvsgul
© Andy Brown/2013/Mongolia

Mongolia is unlike any other country I’ve been to. For most of the year it’s a frozen wasteland. Temperatures plunge to minus 35, lakes freeze over and heavy snow piles up across the land. Then, for a few brief months in summer, the snow melts and the country is transformed into a land of wide, open grasslands, sparkling lakes and vast green forests under an endless blue sky. I visited in June, when this transformation was nearly complete. The snow had temporarily retreated to the mountain tops, leaving the land clear for people, animals and vehicles.

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Home and Away: children with disabilities go to a Man Utd match

This article was first published in the Bangkok Post on 23 July 2013.

Among the 60,000 football fans packing out Rajamangala National Stadium for a Manchester United football match last weekend were 36 children with intellectual disabilities. The atmosphere was buzzing. Many fans arrived in the club’s trademark shirts, waving balloons, scarves and banners. The children, who were invited to the game by the Manchester United Foundation and UNICEF, had only seen the football stars on TV, and were among the most enthusiastic in the audience.

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Fighting the stereotypes: disabilities report launch

Children with disabilities pose for a photo after their drum game
© UNICEF EAPRO/2013/Andy Brown

UNICEF launched its annual flagship report, State of the World’s Children, in Da Nang, Vietnam. The subject was disability. I was on the ground with UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake as he visited centres around Da Nang and met children with disabilities.

I arrived in Vietnam two days before the report launch. From the air, Da Nang is stunning. We came in to land at sunset, with a cloudless view across a wide river delta and out to sea. Trees and village houses cast long shadows across the waterways and mud-brown fields. Near the coast, a handful of limestone peaks (the Marble Mountains) rose out of an otherwise flat landscape. Here and there, a few cargo boats made their way downstream to the sea.

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Children with disabilities overcome the legacy of Agent Orange

Dang Hong Dan is just three years old but he’s a victim of the Vietnam War. He was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange – a chemical sprayed in the south of the country during the war to destroy crops and forests. Although the war ended almost four decades ago, Agent Orange still contaminates fields and rivers in the Mekong Delta region. It gets into food and drinking water, causing birth defects in children.

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A chance for change: young people learn a trade

This article was first published in the Bangkok Post on 19 January 2013.

At a university dormitory in Bangkok, 21 young people from disadvantaged communities line up to pull the name of a top hotel out of a bag. Behind them, teams of hotel staff in uniforms wait to meet their new apprentices. For 19-year-old Daojai, a cabbage farmer from a Mon hill tribe village in Petchaburi province, it’s an exciting moment. She reaches in and pulls out a piece of paper saying ‘JW Marriot’ and her new life begins.

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Cambodia: after the floods, a brighter future

Leng Silong, 12, writes equations on the board at a flood affected school
© UNICEF Cambodia/2012/Andy Brown

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in South East Asia but also has perhaps the richest culture and history. In ancient times it was the seat of the Khmer Empire that stretched across the region and influenced the culture and religion of present day Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. More recently, it suffered the massacres and misrule of the Khmer Rouge, from which it has yet to fully recover.

I visited Cambodia to work with the UNICEF country office on digital communications and train staff in local ‘zone offices’ to write stories about children. I had a punishing schedule, with three provinces to cover in four days and groups of up to 20 people to manage. However, it was a great chance to see the country and meet local communities.

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The dark of day: life in a Jakarta urban slum

In the mornings, Neng helps her mum on the family food stall
© UNICEF/Indonesia 2012/Andy Brown

Neng is fourteen years old. She lives and works on Venus Alley, a lane in the notorious Jembatan Besi slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Unlike other children her age, she rarely gets to see the sun. The slum is one of the most densely populated in Indonesia, rising to four stories in places. The ground floor homes are reasonably well constructed but as they ascend, they become increasingly makeshift, with walls and floors made from wood and scrap metal.

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Independence days: the new nation of Timor-Leste

I’d only vaguely heard of Timor-Leste (or East Timor) before I went there last August. The tiny former Portuguese colony of just over a million people is most famous as the first new nation of the century. It achieved independence in 2002 after a long and bloody struggle with Indonesia, which invaded after the Portuguese left. The BBC describes the subsequent rebuilding of Timor-Leste as “one of the UN’s biggest success stories” so it was fascinating to visit with UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund.

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Welcome Obama: making history in Myanmar

‘Welcome Obama’ graffiti on the roadside opposite my Yangon hotel
© Andy Brown/Myanmar 2012

I always seem to be visiting Myanmar (previously Burma) at historic moments. On my first visit in June, Aung San Suu Kyi was visiting London for the first time in 24 years. On my second in November, Barack Obama was making the first visit to the country by a serving US President. On the street opposite my hotel, a large ‘Welcome Obama’ graffiti mural had sprung up, and the papers were full of the news. ‘From Sanctions to Success’ claimed the headline of the Myanmar Times, with articles inside ranging from sober analysis of the visit to a fortune teller’s predictions for Obama’s second term. Whatever else, Myanmar remains a deeply superstitious country.

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A stitch in time: street children learn a trade

Thanda sews a shirt during the vocational training offered to street children
© UNICEF Myanmar/2012/Andy Brown

Sixteen-year-old Thanda* has spent much of her life living and working on the streets of Yangon, capital of Myanmar (also known as Rangoon, Burma). She is a a Burmese of ethnic Indian descent: a small, serious teenager in a blue polo shirt and traditional longyi skirt.

Thanda’s father is a manual labourer and her mother is a washer woman. She has seven siblings. When the family earns enough, they live in bamboo hut outside town. But other times they can’t afford the rent and have to live on the streets. “I used to pick up garbage with my brothers,” she told me when I met her at a drop-in centre for street children. “We would sell plastic bottles to junk shops for 2 to 4 dollars a day. I never went to school and I didn’t know how to look after my health.”

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