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TRAVEL KINDLY | How your foreign coins have helped children around the world!

21st December 2022

 

SMALL CHANGE, BIG IMPACT.   

 

For these children, your small change is making a BIG difference to their lives. 

Our friends at UNICEF Australia have shared the heartwarming stories of just how far your foreign coins have and continue to travel to help children in need.

A little change goes a long way...

 

Did you know, 51 cents can provide a child with clean drinking water for a day?

Or $1.43 is all it takes to provide a severely malnourished child with enough therapeutic super food for one day?

Around the world, in places like Ukraine, the Horn of Africa and even across the Asia Pacific region, the lives of children are being positively impacted by people, like you, donating their loose change. Whether it’s two dollars here or five euros there, what might not seem like a lot to one person is life-changing for another. 

From emergency work to long-term development programs, here are just some of the ways your loose change is making a difference to children across the globe.

In Pakistan, where flooding and landslides have caused mass destruction, children are able to attend school. Some for the first time.

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0729029/Zaidi

Meet 10-year-old Asifa from Pakistan – a country that has been enduring severe monsoon weather since June 2022.

More than two million children in the flood affected areas have lost everything to flooding and landslides. Their homes, their books, their schools, and their sense of security. 

UNICEF established more than 600 temporary learning centres in the worst-affected areas and supported teachers and children, like Asifa, with education supplies.

For some children, who had never been enrolled in school before, these learning centres are their very first experience of education. Plus, more than 200 teachers have been trained in psychosocial support and teaching in an emergency. This will help equip teachers with important skills to they need to support their students.

When war broke out in Ukraine, safe spaces provided crucial support to children and families fleeing the conflict.

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0599062/Moldovan

When conflict began in Ukraine, 5.25 million children, like five-year-old Divia and eight-year-old Damia, fled violence in Ukraine with their mother to find safety.

One of the ways UNICEF responded was by setting up 'Blue Dot' safe spaces to provide crucial support to families on the move. These spaces gave children and families a safe place to rest, access to health care, water and food and the chance to play and be children again. UNICEF teams also helped to identify unaccompanied and separated children and focused on family reunification and protection. 

Thanks to the support of UNICEF donors, Blue Dots were set up across Moldova, Romania, Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, and Slovakia.

With a malnutrition crisis gripping the Horn of Africa, and Somalia on the brink of famine, millions of children are being provided with life-saving treatment.

Photo Credit: ©UNICEFSomalia/2022/Zerihun Sewunet
 

As Somalia faces its fifth consecutive failed rainy season, increased conflict within the region and soaring food prices, the situation for many children, like one-year-old Obsinale, is dire. 

Like millions of other children throughout the Horn of Africa (and beyond), Obsinale and her twin sister were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. Which, if left untreated, is a life-threatening health condition.

After receiving treatment, such as a Ready-to-use Therapeutic Food, at a UNICEF supported Stabilisation Centre, Obsinale and her twin sister have since made a full recovery.

In Kiribati, a remote nation of the Pacific Islands, routine vaccinations are helping to protect newborn babies and children from preventable diseases.

Photo Credit: ©UNICEF Australia /2022/Itaea

Located just southwest of Hawaii in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the island nation of Kiribati is home to Meten and her two young children. Having seen improved health care with her older child, Meten knows the importance of having her newborn baby immunised against preventable diseases like rotavirus. 

UNICEF is working across the Pacific Islands, ensuring children living in remote communities and in some of the world’s hardest to reach places have access to life-saving vaccines.

When a devastating earthquake hit Afghanistan, life-saving health care and essential supplies were delivered to children and their families.

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0665324/Bidel
 

Sitting beneath a tree, seven-year-old Nasim rests with his father who is receiving an IV drip from a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team. When a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan on 22 June 2022, hundreds of children were killed, many more wounded and up to 60 children lost both parents. 

UNICEF responded rapidly with life-saving health care and water, sanitation and hygiene supplies to earthquake hit communities, many of which were already facing the many challenges of conflict, malnutrition, and lack of access to safe, clean water (plus more).

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, when education became accessible to all children, new classrooms were built.

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0549959/Dubourthoumieu

In Goma, a city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, schools were inundated following the government's announcement that primary school was free. Since 2021, UNICEF has helped build new classrooms equipped with desks and chalkboards, and distributed school kits to facilitate children’s education.

Your small change, no matter the currency, can make a big difference

UNICEF is the world’s largest children’s charity working to protect vulnerable children, globally and here in Australia. Every day their teams are on the ground in 190 countries working with local partners to deliver life-saving help and create lasting change.  

Travel Money Oz is proud to support UNICEF Australia; working closely with UNICEF to collect and manage the donations of foreign coins for charity. UNICEF, through existing systems, relies on the collection and processing of these unwanted and unusable foreign coins and converts it into real, meaningful change for children.

So far, from 2017 - 2022 we've raised over $320,000 together, which has gone on to make real impacts in the lives of children all over the world. 

Help make a difference by depositing your foreign coins at any Travel Money Oz store and donate today. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR SMALL CHANGE BIG DIFFERENCE PROGRAM

WRITTEN BY OUR FRIENDS AT UNICEF AUSTRALIA

GO TO UNICEF

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Small Change Big Difference

Gemma Edwards

Gemma is always chasing her next sundrenched adventure - from taking a helicoper flight over an active volcano in Hawai'i, to going on a 50+ temple pilgrimage in Japan (and accidentally ending up at a midnight armwrestling tournament).

When she isn't travelling the world, you can find her writing and creating content about it.

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View all posts by Gemma Edwards

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