UNICEF and I > IDEAS & IDEALS

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The acronym, UNICEF, although known to me for quite long time, but like the great cities in the world, such as Calcutta in India or Cairo in Egypt that I have not visited yet, had been as much foreign and distant from me, until a letter of thanks arrived the other day from Mr. Edward Spessha, the UNICEF representative in Seoul, acknowledging the receipt of 50,000 Won I had sent. I blushed a little because it was rather a too long compliment for a too small contribution. Had I made it double, I would not have felt that way, and I could afford to.

     To tell the truth, so small an amount of money as it was, the contribution was not made as voluntarily as all the charity acts ought to be. About a week ago I had written an article for this column in praise of the humanitarian 'Operation Restore Hope" in Somalia by the American soldiers, and there came something like a bill from the UNICEF Seoul Office, urging me, as if, to act and live up to my words. I did not know, until then, they have an office in Seoul. Willingly as well as unwillingly I decided to do a good work after a long while. I decided to send my fee for my newspaper article and felt good as well as amused.

     The incident had almost gone completely out of my mind, when I received the very letter of thanks from Mr. Edward Spessha. It was an official letter, but very personal in its form and content. My name was printed at the head of the letter in large Korean letters, and the whole message written in Korean was sincere and moving enough to make me another contribution willingly hereafter. I did not know so small an amount of money could be appreciated by someone so much. The second bill for donation enclosed in the the same envelope along with the letter did not look so strange or embarrassing as it did at first. I came to feel suddenly very close to UNICEF by now, and decided to send some money very soon.

     But, very unfortunately, I had not sent any money until today. More than three months have passed without making another donation. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it until I found out the bill between the old letters and papers in one of my desk drawers this morning. Unconsciously I had put it there where I usually put all the unnecessary as well as not-so-urgent papers. This morning I was looking for other document in the drawer, and the bill from the UNICEF popped out. I could not put it back there this time with the usual ease of mind. I propped it up in front of me against a small family photo frame on my desk. As long as it remains there, I thought, I would feel that I owe something to UNICEF. Sometimes we need some reminder or promoter of good in order to do good. Some people are born to do good, but more people are made to do good.

     My first and early memory of UNICEF, vague as it is, goes back to the time when I was a hungry, nay, a starving little boy of about eleven or twelve during the Korean War. Although I could not read English words at that time, I can clearly remember the  acronym printed on the large carton boxes or on the bags that came from overseas. Now I realize they were relief goods collected by and through UNICEF in order to feed and clothe the war-refugees and orphans who had nothing to eat and wear. Had there not been the powdered milk from UNICEF at that hard time, many of us, including me, might have died of starvation or of malnutrition, exactly like so many Somali children are.

     Created by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, concerned with improving the health and nutrition of children and of mothers throughout the world, UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, started its work in Korea as early as in 1948, even before the Korean War broke out, by providing us with vaccination against the epidemics, and with the powdered milk, foods, medicines and clothes during the war. From then on, for more than 40 years, until now, we have been a great beneficiary of UNICEF, but a very ungrateful one. UNICEF is by now reaching out its helping hand to 129 nations on the globe. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.

     If the ideal that has given birth to the United Nations was noble and great, greater and nobler is the UNICEF. Among so many problems to be solved and considerations to be made after World War II, political as well as economic, there were some good people who really loved and cared children, not only of their own but also of others' who fell inevitably victim to wars, famines and other natural disasters. The founders of UNICEF as an international agency in the United Nations must have seen all the inhuman atrocities committed against humanity in general, but none could be more unbearable than the crying of the orphaned children abandoned on the streets, and the slow dying of them of starvation, of malnutrition and of disease.

     When and where men fight, children suffer. War is a hell for all, but more for children. They cannot receive tender love and caring protection from their parents. They cannot go to school. Schools are destroyed or closed, and even if they are open, they have no textbooks, no notebooks, and no pencils. They cannot go to the zoo or to the amusement park to ride the hobbyhorse with their parents. They have no time to read Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling," or Grim Brothers' Fairy Tales. Instead of playing hide-and-seek in the backyard, they will learn to play the war-game of "Shoot and Kill" with the abandoned guns. They will have no time to draw the white clouds in the blue sky with the crayons on the paper, and will never learn to play the piano. In the time of war children are hungry and lonely. And, more than anything else, they have no future. Children are not responsible for what is going on in Somalia, in Serbia, in Cambodia, in Iraq, and elsewhere in the world where adults are being engaged in fighting fiercely and fearlessly. But it is always the children that suffer most.

     UNICEF can go anywhere in the world where even UN can not. I am glad that we are no longer a beneficiary country from the UNICEF. We have become a benefactor country now. But I feel ashamed that I have lived without realizing all the benefits I had received from UNICEF until now, and when I came to know about the relief activities they are still continuing for the starving children in the North of Korea, I blushed with shame. UNICEF was already doing something, while we were only talking about the method of helping the children in need. They are doing what should be done by us. To our great shame, we are still a beneficiary of UNICEF yet.
          (April 30, 1995)