Engaging global partners to innovate for Indonesian children

by Jeff K Hall, UNICEF Indonesia Innovation Lab Lead

 

Quick question: What do you get when you mix Schneider Electric Country Presidents with UNICEF innovators?

Here’s our answer: Creative arts, storyboards, and video skits!

In a recent workshop run by UNICEF Indonesia with WDHB (Worldwide Experiential Learning for Executives) and KIBAR (an Innovation group from Jakarta), UNICEF presented Schneider’s Country Presidents with a development challenge – the problem of natural disasters in Indonesia, a major issue in this country – and asked the team to come up with innovative solutions for young people.

Typhoon Haiyan: Jhana and Gwendolyn's story

Jhana with her UNICEF hygiene kit in Tacloban
© UNICEF Philippines/2013/Kent Page

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Tacloban has become a makeshift home for 300 families whose homes were wiped out by Super Typhoon Haiyan. Among them is 20-year old Jhana, a proud new mother of a very special daughter, Gwendolyn.

Gwendolyn was born just one week before Haiyan struck. "The typhoon washed away our home" says Jhana , as she breast feeds Gwendolyn amongst the hundreds of others sheltered amongst the church pews. "But she is my angel and I will do everything to make her life beautiful."

Typhoon Haiyan diary: Mud and ruin in Tacloban

By Nonoy Fajardo, Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Specialist

A boy displaced by Typhoon Haiyan in the city of Tacloban, Philippines
© UNICEF Philippines/2013/JMaitem 

I have been working on emergencies for more than 15 years now, and I seriously thought I had seen it all. But flying into Tacloban on Monday as part of a UN assessment team, I was in for a shock. As the plane taxied along the bare runway, I could see mud and ruin – only mud and ruin – where once there had been trees and buildings and all the normal signs of life.

Yes there was still a tarmac runway, but that was all that was there: a runway. Everything that had once been inside the terminal buildings was now outside, and what had been outside was now inside, even including a flight of stairs. We were told to avoid parts of the ruined buildings because there were still bodies in the rubble, where airport employees had sought refuge.