Lifen promotes recycling to protect nature

Huang Lifen draws a picture on the beach at Chengmai, Hainan Island.
© UNICEF/China/2025/Ma Yuyuan

Early in the morning, 18-year-old graphic design student Huang Lifen walks down a beach at Chengmai on the north coast of Hainan Island, China, with a sketchpad under her arm. The sound of the waves can be heard, rolling gently to the shore. It’s a beautiful sweep of sand but, as she looks out to sea, the horizon is lost in the haze. Lifen walks towards the top of the beach, where she starts finding rubbish left behind by tourists the day before or washed up from the sea.

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Cao Kun saves water to help protect the planet

Cao Kun adjusts a passion fruit vine on the trellis he made from recycled bed frames.
©UNICEF/China/2025/Ma Yuyuan

Cao Kun walks up the hillside from a small lake to his family farm in Chengmai, a rural area of China’s southern Hainan Island. It’s sunset and the air is filled with the sounds of birds and crickets. A white egret flies across the sky from the marshland. Cao Kun pushes aside the leaves of a tall maize plant and follows the winding earth path in the fading light. He turns to look back across the valley.

“When I was a boy, this lake was much larger and had lots of fish in it,” he recalls. “But there was a very severe drought a few years ago. The lake became so dry that only the central part had some water left. The mud at the bottom of the lake dried up and cracked because of the sun.”

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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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Sharlyne recovers from drought

Sharlyne Kapua, 14, at the solar powered water system installed at her school
UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

Sharlyne is a bright and outgoing 14-year-old, who recently graduated from Nabulon Girls Primary School in Lodwar, where UNICEF last year installed a solar-powered water system. The county has been affected by drought for the last three years, and much of the livestock that families used to rely on has died. In the last week, scattered rains have finally arrived. The ground remains dry and sandy, but trees are starting to return to life, with tentative green growth on their branches. It’s a fragile moment for the county.

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