Adriana is treated for malnutrition in Baucau, Timor-Leste

Adriana has her arm circumference measured at a community health outreach session
©UNICEF/China/2025/Lu Yufan

It’s a hot, dry and dusty afternoon in Bulubai village, in Baucau,Timor-Leste, when a team of health and nutrition workers arrives from the nearby Laga Health Centre. The community has turned out to welcome them. A group of women, children and older people sit on plastic chairs in the shade of a metal roof, surrounded by small village houses. The activities begin with a demonstration of how to cook nutritious meals with locally available ingredients, led by Ana Legita Correia, a local woman from the village, who is also a member of the mothers’ support group.

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Nonia’s school prepares for climate disasters in Timor-Leste

Nonia listens to a class on family history at Casnafar Basic Education Branch School
© UNICEF China/2025/Lu Yufan

It was a stormy evening when the worst flood in recent memory hit the outskirts of Dili, Timor-Leste. Flood waters swept down the hillside of a steep valley, engulfing Casnafar Basic Education Branch School and houses in nearby villages. People living in the area are used to annual flooding, but this was much worse than usual. They quickly abandoned their belongings and homes and climbed the hillside to find higher ground.

Before the night was over, the water had risen above the metal roof of the school buildings. Many family homes were either swept away or damaged beyond repair. The school buildings, which were stronger, survived but everything inside was swept away. When teachers returned, they found classrooms full of stone and sand left behind by the retreating flood waters. It was another two months before students were able to return to school.

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Yeming overcomes bullying, thanks to mental health lessons

Yeming, (left) 13, plays with her friend Jinghao at Zhangqiu No 4 High School, Shandong.
©UNICEF/China/2024/Zhang Yuwei

Thirteen-year-old Yeming stands on her own by the window of an empty classroom at Zhangqiu No 4 High School, Shandong. She looks out across the vast school campus, which hosts 9,900 students in huge red-brick buildings. She watches other students walking between yellowing trees beneath her, their footsteps echoing, towards a lake in the centre of campus. It is autumn but unusually cold and windy, and many of the children wear padded jackets over their uniforms.

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Zihan rebuilds her mental health with help from a peer supporter

Zhu Zihan (right) with peer supporter Wenhao at Zhangqiu No 4 High School.
© UNICEF China/2024/Zhang Yuwei

After a long day at school, Zhu Zihan, 17, returns to her family home in an ordinary apartment building in Zhangqiu, Shandong Province. She climbs the plain concrete stairs to the sixth floor and knocks on the last door. Her father, Zhu Chulin, welcomes her. It’s a bitingly cold autumn evening but warm and cosy inside. The small apartment is decorated with paintings of lotus flowers and red Chinese characters for good luck. Soft toys from Zihan’s early childhood, including the purple starfish from Spongebob, still sit along the back of the sofa.

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Wenfeng gets the best start in life

Xiuxiang plays with Wenfeng in the fields outside the family home
© UNICEF China/2024/Ma Yuyuan

How UNICEF is helping rural caregivers in China with early childhood development

A cow bell clanks gently in the otherwise still and quiet morning on a ridge high above Tongjiang river, Sichuan Province. The hillside is sculpted into terraces where farmers grow rice, wheat and potatoes. An older woman, Li Xiuxiang, walks down the terraces towards the clanking cow, past ancestral gravestones. On her back is a small boy, her grandson Wenfeng, who is one and a half years old. He is alert and curious, smiling and pointing at things as they pass.

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Thanva recovers from malnutrition

Thanva plays with a fan at Thongkang Health Centre, while his mother Bouanang looks on
© UNICEF China/2024/Andrew Brown

How UNICEF and China are supporting malnourished children in Laos

It’s a hot morning towards the end of the dry season in Nan District, Laos, when Bouanang brings her son Thanva to Thongkang Health Centre for a check-up. Small trucks called tok-toks drive past, with people or farm produce in the back. The sound of cockerels crowing is interspersed with the noise of chainsaws and there is a faint tang of smoke in the air. Further down the road, a farmer is burning a field in preparation for planting casava, ahead of the expected rainy season. There should be an impressive view across the valley to the hills opposite, but the mountains are wreathed in smog due to slash-and-burn agriculture, and the far ridge is a faintly sketched outline against an unnaturally grey sky.

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Vandy is treated for malnutrition

Meena comforts her son Vansy, 6 months, at a community outreach in Laos
© UNICEF China/2024/Andrew Brown

How UNICEF and China are supporting malnourished children in Laos

Meena is a 20-year-old first time mother from Houay On village in Nan District, Laos. Small and just past her teenage years, she still looks like a child herself. With her six-month old baby Vandy on her back, she walks up the hill to the village hall, where a community outreach from nearby Thongkang Health Centre is taking place. It’s around 9am but already well over 30°C. This is the end of the dry season, and the weather is brutally hot. The hills on the horizon are also much fainter than they should be: slash and burn agriculture has created a constant haze of smog that feels out of place in this rural area.

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Families arrive in Dadaab, fleeing drought and conflict

Markabo Ali (right) with her youngest daughter Hodan, 9 months, and sister Habibo, 14 years.
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Lucas Odhiambo

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper

Markabo Ali, 37, is mother to eight children. She used to live in Baidoa, Somalia, but left because of the prolonged drought. Now, she lives with her five daughters and young sister at Dadaab refugee camp, just across the border in Kenya. She sits in a small makeshift hut made from branches and plastic sheets, in an area of Ifo camp for new arrivals who are waiting to be assigned accommodation.

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Daniel treats children for malnutrition

Daniel examines malnourished children at Sopel Dispensary, Turkana
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper.

Daniel Ereng is Nurse in Charge at Sopel Dispensary, Turkana County. He’s an energetic and passionate health care worker who has made it his personal mission in life to bring health and nutrition services to remote rural communities. Over the last three years, Kenya has been affected by the worst drought in decades, driven by climate change. Most of the families in Daniel’s area are pastoralists, who rely on their livestock for food, but very few of their animals have survived.

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In Kisumu, healthcare moves closer to communities

Alice Mwajuma brings her children to Bunde Health Centre for a check-up
© UNICEF Kenya/2022/Lameck Orina

This story first appeared in The Star newspaper.

It’s a quiet mid-morning at Bunde Health Centre in Kisumu, when local farmer Alice Mwajuma brings her two children David, 5, and Dahzur, 2, for a check-up. Long antlered cattle wander down the earth road outside, stopping to munch on the occasional patch of green grass. Alice and her boys arrive on a boda-boda motorbike, stopping by a fruit stall on the road outside. The health centre is quiet and cool in the shade of large trees. Blue and white buildings sport graffiti art illustrating health messages, such as the six ante-natal care steps for pregnant women to take.

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