Children in Gaza: Top questions from UNICEF’s Reddit Q&A

[Jefferson23]

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Pernille Ironside, Chief of UNICEF’s Gaza Field Office took to Reddit today to answer questions about the impact of the current conflict on the children of Gaza, and UNICEF’s humanitarian response.

Q1 from laurac82: What is UNICEF currently doing to try and protect children in Gaza?

A: Hi Laura82 – thanks for your important question. Children across Gaza are incredibly vulnerable right now in so many ways and require multiple forms of protection. UNICEF is actively advocating for the protection of civilians and civilian objects from military strikes so that no more children are killed and injured; we monitor and document this on a daily basis. We also have teams on the ground who are reaching out to children and their families who have already lost loved ones to provide them with some immediate coping skills to deal with their grief and loss; this is called ‘psychosocial first aid’.

Unfortunately Gaza is now littered with unexploded ordinances, so we are doing a lot of awareness raising via the radio and in public shelters/communities to protect children (and adults!) about spotting such dangerous explosive remnants of war and who to report to. We fear that many more children could lose their lives or be maimed from this after the war if we don’t step up awareness. These are just some of the activities that we have underway.

in full: http://blogs.unicef.org/2014/08/20/children-in-gaza-top-questions-from-unicefs-reddit-qa/