Global perspective Human stories

The Lid is On

Delfina Jalowik

'From heart to hand' — one cartoonist’s graphic UN journey

Putting pain eloquently on paper is just one of the gifts that has made Belgian-born Israeli cartoonist Michel Kichka a celebrated artist, but perhaps his most “overwhelming” and profound journey began when he put pen to paper and started work on a graphic novel examining the impact of his own father’s trauma surviving the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

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18'58"
UN News/Alexandre Soares

Digital innovation powering WFP efforts to end refugee hunger

Digital cash vouchers powered by the revolutionary technology behind the Bitcoin cryptocurrency are helping the UN ensure that food aid is getting to where it’s needed most.

For our latest Lid Is On podcast, Dianne Penn talks to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) innovation chief, Robert Opp, about the new, cost-effective and secure technology that’s making a difference to the lives of thousands of refugees.

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15'48"
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

'Conflicting trends' see journalists under fire as global struggle for media freedom continues

Just because more laws are being passed protecting media freedom across the world, it doesn’t mean that governments will respect them, or allow citizens to use them.

That’s one of the “conflicting trends” to emerge from the latest World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development report, from UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.

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19'10"
UN Photo/Marie Frechon

‘One size fits none’ approach to young terrorists ‘could really backfire’: new UN University report

How does a child end up working for a terrorist organization that’s responsible for killing his own father?

That’s one of the questions addressed by a new report from the UN University (UNU) that’s drawn on two years of fieldwork.

For out latest Lid Is On podcast, Matt Wells has been talking to Siobhan O’Neil, leader of the Children and Extreme Violence Project for UNU.

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28'49"
UN Women/Ryan Brown

No doubt we will end FGM: New UN Women Goodwill Ambassador

An activist who has mobilized young people in West Africa to lobby against practices that are harmful to girls will now be advocating for change across the entire continent.

Jaha Dukureh from The Gambia was recently named the first ever Regional Goodwill Ambassador for Africa with UN Women, the United Nations entity that champions gender equality and the empowerment of women.

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21'39"
UNRWA Gaza/Tamer Hamam

Surviving Gaza: one mother tells us her community could go “over the edge” without UN support

Cuts in UN funding for Gaza’s Palestine refugees threaten to push the entire community “over the edge”, combined with what one senior official has called the “combustible cocktail of humanitarian, political and security challenges” facing the territory.

That’s the key concern of Sikham Al-Khalout, a Palestinian mother-of-seven, who has watched her family’s standard of living tumble in recent months, to the point where they are struggling to survive.

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22'9"
Video screen capture

‘Where peace begins’: helping Liberia turn the corner through the power of radio

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) will close at the end of March 2018.

Over its nearly 15 years of operations, the peacekeeping mission has helped bring back peace and stability to the West African country.

In January, Liberia carried out its first peaceful democratic transition in more than 70 years, with the election of President George Weah, who succeeded Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – Africa’s first elected woman head of state.

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13'50"
UN News/Daniel Johnson

'Ready to go when crisis strikes': 25 years of UN rapid disaster response

It’s exactly 25 years since the UN created a new international emergency response team to respond to disasters around the world.

Officially known as the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination system (UNDAC) the team pools expertise from Member States, to rush to the aid of fellow Member States, hit by sudden-onset emergencies.

On Monday, the different countries that fund UNDAC from all the continents of the world, met for their yearly-gathering in Geneva.

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20'6"
UN News/Matt Wells

Saved from Auschwitz to bear witness to the world: Eva Lavi’s extraordinary story

She describes herself as “only an ordinary woman”, but Eva Lavi made an extraordinary contribution inside the UN’s General Assembly Hall in January, fulfilling what she said was her God-given destiny, to bear witness to the evil of the Holocaust.

Ms. Lavi is the youngest survivor to be saved from the Nazis by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler — just a little girl when she was added to “Schindler’s List”.

Before reaching the relatively safe-haven of his factory in Czechoslovakia, she survived the horrors of the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

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23'31"