Working for UNICEF
Phuong T. Nguyen, MA 01

Since graduating from the Sustainable International Development (SID) program at Brandeis University in 2001, I have experienced a whirlwind of professional challenges working with UNICEF. I joined the organization during my second-year practicum and was eventually employed by the East Asia and Pacific Island Regional Office. My initial work in that region was to monitor and follow up on commitments made by individual countries toward the global Education for All (EFA) initiative. The work required that I travel to countries as diverse as China, Papua New Guinea, and Laos PDR to gather education statistics for key EFA indicators. A wide and diverse region, my objective to monitor progress made by all the countries in the region was intensive. I even had to skip joining the SID community back in Boston for our graduation ceremony. Following the EFA initiative, I was charged to coordinate a girls' education project in seven countries where gender disparity was high. I also took the opportunity to coordinate with regional United Nations agencies and I/NGOs to create the first East Asia and Pacific Regional United Nations Girls' Education Initiative.

In 2001, after the downfall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the country and its transitional government were ready to attend to the business of rebuilding. Professionally, I saw this as an opportunity to contribute and support the re-establishment of the country's education system, and particularly to bring girls back to school after a six-year hiatus due to Taliban's banning of girls from education. Personally, I could not think of a better challenge. I wanted to be at the forefront of helping a country get on its feet again and use my energy, enthusiasm, hope, and hard work to support a whole generation of young people to realize their potential.

I initially went to Afghanistan in 2002 as an Assistant Education Officer, coordinating education activities in the eastern region bordering Pakistan. I worked alongside my regional and provincial government counterparts, I/NGOs, and communities to re/establish education infrastructures and provide teacher training support and aid in the logistics of distributing education supplies. I would love to say everything went smoothly but this was not the case, particularly when I first arrived. Being Asian in ethnicity, small in stature, younger looking for my age, and female seemed to be a lethal combination. I was often treated with skepticism by long, grey-bearded government officials, headmasters, and village elders. It took some time to break down barriers and to gain trust. However young I looked or however female my gender may be, my counterparts came to realized we share a common goal -- to support a generation of Afghan children to attain at least a primary level education.

The following year, I became the Technical Officer for Central Region of Afghanistan, which covered half the country. I took on a larger role and more responsibility, supporting not only the education program but also programs for child protection and water and sanitation. Once again, it was a great opportunity and I was able to work closely with my counterparts to support highly vulnerable groups -- former child combatants, at-risk adolescents, orphans, and abandoned children.

Despite the global interest and commitment made by the world community to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, negative elements were gaining ground in the country and the security situation had deteriorated to the extent that I was not able to undertake mission in nearly half of the provinces in my region. Landmines, rocket strikes and kidnappings were on the increase, making many rural villages inaccessible.

After leaving Afghanistan in 2005, I went directly to Darfur, yet another hotspot for humanitarian imperative. Driven by the injustices faced by the people of Darfur, I requested to be posted there even after being told by senior colleagues that I have proven myself in Afghanistan and could request an easier duty station.

My work setting in Darfur was quite different from that of Afghanistan because of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp settlements. These are camps often set up in larger towns where people fleeing from militia attacks seek refugee. Largely supported by international and local NGOs, though not without government authorization, there are some 100 IDP camp settlements throughout a region roughly the size of France. The largest IDP camp in Darfur was estimated to have a population of 150,000 when I first arrived. The humanitarian aid community provides support for everything from food and nutrition to medical services to water and sanitation facilities to education and protection services.

As Education Sector Coordinator for South Darfur, I faced the challenge of supporting the establishment of education facilities in an environment in flux. As these camps were considered temporary in nature, we did not establish permanent brick structures. However, during my two years in Darfur the reality was that a few years had passed and people were not going home. Some camps were actually growing in size, and thus services had to keep pace with population growth. To make matters worse, some camps were attacked and again people were forced to escape. Established education, medical, protection, and water and sanitation infrastructures were destroyed in the process. From this experience, I learned that I had to always be on guard and plan for the present by constantly analyzing events and forecasting trends. Similar to Afghanistan, humanitarian assistance was often curbed by lack of access, whether it be due to banditry, attacks, kidnapping, or even flooding during the rainy season.

I am proud to have been a part of the SID community of Brandeis University. The program brought together a diverse, active, and committed group of individuals with one common goal -- to better the human condition and to do it in a sustainable way. I did not have to seek out the worst humanitarian hot spots to work. I did it because it was the right thing to do. I did it because it was a challenging opportunity to support highly vulnerable groups of people to realize their rights to education, to food, to protection, to medical services, to clean water and sanitation -- in short, their human rights as committed by their country leaders and enshrined in well-recognized international instruments. SID nurtures this type of commitment from its students from the day they apply to the program to the day they graduate and put into practice what they have learned. I believe as graduates and representatives of SID, it is our duty to continue this tradition of human right activism in not only our careers, but also in how we conduct our lives -- fairly, respectfully and with humility.