Photo © UNICEF

520 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 280
Houston, TX 77027
713.963.9390
713.963.8527 (fax)

STAFF | EVENTS | EMERGENCIES | FIELD VISITS |
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES | BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Staff

Sonya L. Renner, CFRE, Regional Director
Karen Turney, Regional Development Officer
Nathalie Herpin, Regional Development Coordinator

The Southwest Chapter is grateful for the volunteer leadership of our Board of Directors.

Recent Events

An Exquisite Evening with Lucy Liu

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© Fulton Davenport

UNICEF Ambassador Lucy Liu and Southwest Region Board Member Monsour Taghdisi.

The Southwest Region began 2010 with a stunning evening at the home of John and Becca Cason Thrash.  On January 14th, UNICEF Ambassador Lucy Liu and US Fund President and CEO Caryl Stern joined 240 guests at a record-breaking fundraiser where the night's auction revenue was committed to Haiti relief.  With extraordinary, if not one-of-a-kind live and silent auction items and generous additional support for Haiti victims, the evening raised almost $775,000, becoming the most successful southwest region event to date.

Emergency Relief Efforts

Earthquake Strikes Haiti

Haiti Poster SWOn January 12, 2010, Haiti was rocked by an earthquake that registered over 7.0 on the Richter scale. In its wake, the quake left massive devastation and a nation in desperate need of the world’s assistance. Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and it is believed that as many as 200,000 have been killed. Still, with nearly 40% of all Haitians under the age of 15, this disaster is correctly called children emergency. The 1.5 million children that have been directly affected by the disaster represent an entire generation of Haitians that will have to struggle with harsh memories of this calamity.

Despite the challenges, UNICEF worked around the clock to get much needed assistance into Haiti and mobilized an unprecedented global response.  UNICEF, with its partners, is continuing to support relief operations and assist in reconstruction and recovery faces. UNICEF is insuring that the three Haiti priorities for 2010 are:

  1. Keeping children and women alive and strong since they are in much higher risk of various health threats, particularly communicable diseases. UNICEF will continue to provide support to ensure immediate access to basic health care for women and children, including support to emergency immunization activities. UNICEF is also working on the reestablishment of sustainable public health system for maternal, neonatal and child health services including HIV services.
  2. Keeping Children Safe. UNICEF will continue to assist the Haitian government in order to respond to children’s psychosocial needs and protect them sexual violence. Furthermore, UNICEF will assess the capacity of local partners, associations and networks to conduct recreational, psychosocial and protection activities at their community level.
  3. Ensuring that Children Are Learning. In order to ensure that the children are able to establish there schools, UNICEF is coordinating with UN forces the ensure primary schools are prioritized in clearance efforts. Moreover, UNICEF will continue to work with the Haitian government to guarantee that learning opportunities are available, free, and effective: and that the Ministry of Education is supported to level in which it can manage teaching, learning and construction standers in both public and private schools.

Field Visits

"I have recently returned from Sierra Leone where I bore witness to a seven-day-old baby dying from tetanus. TETANUS—a disease usually prevented and if not, cured by a $2 readily available serum here in the United States, but not in Sierra Leone. As I looked into the face of the baby’s Mom, I promised that I would do everything in my power to ensure that Americans come together and work until we can indeed reduce the 24,000 daily preventable deaths of children under the age of five, to zero."
- Caryl M. Stern, President and CEO, U.S. Fund for UNICEF

Volunteer Opportunities

volunteers

© U.S. Fund for UNICEF

Volunteer/Interns from the University of Houston: Aydin, Business Major from Turkey, and Slava, Anthropology Major from Bulgaria

If you would like to volunteer to help raise money through Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF or other youth activities, please call 1.800.4UNICEF.

If you are interested in volunteering for local events, office or clerical work, or applying for internships, please contact Nathalie Herpin, Regional Development Coordinator at (713) 963-9390 or download the volunteer application and fax to (713) 963-8527.

Board of Directors

Chair:
Dr. Andrew Bass

Vice-Chairs:
Susan Boggio
Kimberly DeLape
Kim Evans
Ann Holmes 

Eileen Lawal
Pershant Mehta
Monsour Taghdisi

Chair Emeritus:
Brede Klefos

 

Honorary Board Chairs:
The Honorable Lee P. Brown
The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee
Dikembe Mutombo

 

Directors:
Camilla Blaffer Royal
Dr. Adel Chaouch
Jill Cochran
Joyce Goss
Rosemarie Johnson
Nancy Kurkowski 


Neda Ladjevardian
Nidhika Mehta
Christine Messina
Carmen Maria Montiel
Gowri Sharma
Alicia Smith

Advisory Council

Thomas Au
Kimberly Gremillion
Gigi Huang
Leela Krishnamurthy

Louise Ng Robin Reimer
Mariana Servitje
Mark Sullivan
Laura Torgerson

 

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Annual Report


2009 Annual Report

Click to view a PDF of our 2009 Annual Report online, or right click to save it to your desktop.

Recent News

September 2, 2010

U.S. Fund for UNICEF eligible for $200K in funding from American Express

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF has been selected as a candidate for funding from American Express through Members Project®, a partnership between American Express and TakePart. A win in this current round of voting could mean $200,000 for UNICEF child-friendly projects in refugee and displaced persons camps around the world. On-line voting has begun and is open to anyone who has joined Members Project.

September 1, 2010

UNICEF’s Next Generation announces Project Ethiopia to fund neonatal health

Less than 2 years after its founding, UNICEF’s Next Generation, a group for young professionals who are passionate about UNICEF’s work, has raised $500,000 to support UNICEF’s lifesaving programs around the globe and is launching its third program-specific fundraising goal to help mothers and babies in Ethiopia.

Special Campaigns

Believe in Zero campaign graphic 
Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF 
Right Box Img Snow 
Tap Project