New York (United Nations), 18 June 2023 (SPS) - The Algeria Office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has been named one of UNICEF's top five team winners for its "impressive support" to Sahrawi refugee children and their families.
The award, which was announced and celebrated by UNICEF's Executive Board in New York on Friday, is a concrete testimony and a well-deserved tribute to the quality work carried out by UNICEF teams and partners on the ground in support of Sahrawi refugees.
With this award, UNICEF "reaffirms its commitment to Sahrawi refugee children, their education and health, and their families.”
Introducing the five winning UNICEF teams, who "work to promote the rights of women and children, uphold the organization's core values and achieve tremendous results", UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell praised the "tremendous work done by the Algeria Office to improve education and health services for Sahrawi refugees.”
A video paying tribute to the efforts and achievements of UNICEF's Algeria Office in the Sahrawi refugee camps, to enhance education and healthcare services, was shown during the closing session of the Executive Board.
The video calls for "moving forward to change the lives of Sahrawi refugee children and their families", and highlights UNICEF's 2021-2025 strategic plan for their education, for which it has adopted an "innovative and evidence-based approach.”
Furthermore, the video shows that "this strategy has been hailed as a landmark achievement, including by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Western Sahara, in his report to the Security Council in October 2022, and has resulted in the training of 800 teachers, the provision of learning materials and the improvement of education facilities, including the equipping of classrooms with computers for students, in addition to maternal and child health services for 21,000 children.”
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