I have been fortunate enough to spend one week working at UNICEF UK for some work experience. The reason that I got involved was that I am interested in geography, and one of the aspects of geography that interests me is development and so this was an amazing opportunity to find out more about this and what careers are entailed.

My first impressions of UNICEF UK were how vast and diverse the organisation was. I guessed it would be large but having just come from a company with six people in it, 150 people in a 4 floor building of offices was quite a shock!! The number of different individual teams as well that go into helping an organisation such as UNICEF UK run so successfully is surprising.

At first there were a few confusing aspects, most of all the fact that all the meeting rooms were called after countries e.g. Cambodia or continents e.g. Asia. This threw me and my only conclusion was that any meetings to do with Asia took place in Asia and so on but yet this seemed impractical. I subsequently found out that the names correspond to the size of the room e.g. Asia is the biggest, then Africa... a fun idea!! Having talked to some of the people here though I feel slightly less stupid as they mentioned how excited they were when they initially told they had a meeting in Brazil... on the ground floor!!

I got a chance to spend a bit of time at many of the different departments over the course of the week such as the media team, the donor development team, the current affairs team and the youth team as well as visiting a jamboree and talking to individuals about aspects such as climate change and emergencies.

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to visit the Kent International Jamboree 2009 with the youth team and help encourage the children (and adults!) sign up to Tagd. It was great fun and I must thank the girls for putting up with me as the only boy!! Speaking of which in a floor of about 30 people at least, I am the only boy – slightly daunting at first but now I am reaping the rewards of a constant supply of chocolate!!!

In all I have had a great time, participating in everything from reading newspaper and researching people to drafting letters and working on databases. I would like to thank everyone at UNICEF UK for being so kind and (understanding!) and in particular Fiona for organising such an interesting week.

Ali

On Tuesday 4th August the UNICEF UK Youth Team went to the Kent International Jamboree in Sevenoaks in order to try and encourage more kids to sign up to Tagd and talk to them about children’s rights and other issues.

Overall, it was a successful day with over 200 boys and girls expressing an interest in Tagd and signing up as well as many people getting involved in the ‘push for the pool’ and the sexual education campaigns being worked on at UNICEF UK.

The UNICEF tent that was set up included a HIV & AIDS football game, information about the charity and its campaigns and the opportunity for kids to make their own tags showing support for issues such as climate change or HIV & AIDS.

The Jamboree itself was very impressive with many activities from wall climbing to ‘it’s a knockout’ as well as music and food and there were hundreds of children there who were camping for a week. To extend the Tagd sphere of influence we decided to leave the comfort of the tent, despite the often miserable weather, and approach the many high spirited children wandering around.

Crucially with the aid of free stickers and bags, the children were generally very receptive and keen to get involved and we were able to talk to them about Tagd and other UNICEF campaigns and get them to sign up. The sun did finally emerged at the end of a long but fulfilling day with much fun, free bags and hopefully a greater knowledge of children issues around the world.

Ali

As my last day is drawing to a close whilst I’m filling out my final evaluation, I am a little saddened to think that I won’t be back here anytime soon. Answering the questions on the evaluation are some what taxing at this time in the morning, especially since I got up at 6:30am and then slept all train journey from Havant to London Waterloo.

One of the questions was on how I would stay involved in UNICEF UK’s work in the future and the list seemed to be endless. I want to stay involved as many ways as possible such as making my college, Churcher’s College, more aware of UNICEF and the work that they do. From this, I am going to encourage them to donate more money to UNICEF and hold more fundraisers!

I am also extremely shocked on just how fast the week has gone by, at first I thought it would be slow and painful due to getting up 6:30am and not getting back home until 7:40pm, even my mum thought I wouldn’t be able to cope, but surprisingly I have coped pretty well and I think that it is down to how awake, friendly and fresh everyone in the Youth Team is, so thank you for keeping me on my toes.

From looking back, I most enjoyed writing content for their websites such as articles for the Underage Festival and the Scouts Jamboree. And it’s crazy that I enjoyed this most as at school I was not a great fan of English lessons so to speak.

Finally, I just want to take the time to thank everyone on the Youth Team at UNICEFUK for making my week thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. Even though I will enjoy all my lie-ins next week I will miss not being in the office. So, thank you so much to Jazmin, Rowan, Connie, Alice, Jess and Hollie for such a great opportunity and good luck with all their forthcoming events

Melissa