"UNICEF was a clear choice"

UNICEF supporters share their stories

Jasveer: "UNICEF has the ability to reach so many people and have such a wide impact"

My first visit to India must have been when I was around seven years old, and seeing the abject poverty was frightening. I remember being in a taxi and watching street children run up, begging for money. Having been raised in London, I'd never experienced anything like it before. I said to my parents, what do they need? I just felt so horrible for those children. When Paul and I got married, we talked a lot about giving. I had the experience of my visits to India and of being intimately involved with families living in impoverished conditions. And we had the means to give. We realized that there was so much good that we could do. What appealed to us about UNICEF was its ability to reach so many people and have such a wide impact. We felt that it would take an organization like UNICEF to coordinate the effort needed to make global change.

Paul: "UNICEF helps people who need it the most"

I really wanted to give for a variety of reasons. I grew up comfortably middle class, and I spent most of my twenties generally uninvolved. Hearing about Jasveer's life experiences was distressing. It was much more personal than whatever prior exposure I had had to poverty in the developing world. We started to make more money in our thirties, and we got to the point where it really didn't feel right just to sit on it or spend it exclusively on ourselves. We looked at a number of charities, and we ended up finding a group that we feel helps the people who need it most. UNICEF was a clear choice. There are a lot of intellectual reasons to help children, but maybe the most important is the emotional one. You just know it's the right thing to do. I think the question isn't why you do it, it's why you wouldn't.

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