Lasting lifelines: game-changing help for mothers
In a quiet rural health post in Ethiopia, village health leader Zemenay Nigussi wraps a measuring tape around a toddler’s upper arm. She pulls it taut. The child’s mother watches in silence, waiting for the verdict: is her child merely hungry, or so severely malnourished that her life hangs in the balance?
This is the reality in Ethiopia, where 39% of children are stunted and 11% suffer from wasting. Behind these statistics are millions of mothers like 20-year-old Serkalem.
Serkalem used to walk two hours each way just to reach the nearest clinic. Today, thanks to a UNICEF-supported Community-Based Nutrition Programme, she is only five minutes from help. When care is this close, it changes everything. Mothers come earlier, they ask questions, and, most importantly, they return.
Wude too benefits from this transformational help. For her, a routine immunization visit turned into a lifeline. When health workers discovered her 11-month-old daughter was malnourished, they didn’t just give her a diagnosis; they provided immediate, ready-to-use therapeutic food.
Beyond emergency aid
True change, however, requires more than one-off emergency deliveries. It requires a system families can rely on:
- Trained local experts like Zemenay.
- Consistent screening to catch illness before it’s too late.
- Sustainable access to clean water and medicine.
UNICEF’s legacy gifts are essential to these long-term solutions. And one of the most innovative and effective gifts starts with a journal and a dream.
Bucketful of dreams
Gifts in Wills fund UNICEF’s long-term solutions to humanitarian crises. They give UNICEF the flexibility to strengthen programmes, respond to emergencies, and adapt when priorities shift. Leaving a legacy is both an act of care and a reflection of your hopes. And gifts protect and support children far into the future.
In Ireland, many people first think about a Will for practical reasons; to ensure their wishes are carried out and to spare their family hard choices later.
But it can also be a moment to pause and reflect on what truly matters.
That reflection is where UNICEF’s Bucketful of Dreams comes in.
You can get a journal for free which offers you a space to reflect on what matters most to you. A journal to capture your dreams, whether they are accomplished or still waiting to be achieved – and leave personal memories and messages.
The journal also has space for the details relatives often end up searching for later. From key contacts and accounts to the small information – like your Wi-Fi code – which relieves stress for those left behind.
It’s both a practical tool to help you plan and achieve your dreams, and a way to help children for generations to come.
Find out more
A legacy of stability
When UNICEF supporters sign up to leave a legacy with Bucketful of Dreams, they help fund programmes that bring stability to crisis hit regions. Take nutrition for example: it is never only about food. It also depends on stability, and in many parts of the world, stability is now closely tied to climate.
The impact of climate change strips away a family’s safety margin, pushing food out of reach, and reducing what families can grow.
In Tigray, UNICEF has supported an innovative pilot: hydroponic vegetable farming. This method lets families grow fresh vegetables without soil and, with very little water. Hydroponics saves space, can be run all year and reduces dependence on rainfall and traditional methods of irrigation.
Fifty households have now received the training they needed to start growing their corn this way. Now these parents can be confident their children won’t go hungry.
“This kind of initiative will not only help prevent child malnutrition; it will enable families to grow vegetables at a low-cost,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director, during a visit to the project.
As with all pilot projects, the hope is a positive impact can be extended both within the country and across the world. And it is people in Ireland, leaving charitable legacy gifts through projects like Bucketful of Dreams, that make this hope possible.
Your gift can help rewrite a child's future.
Add one more tick to your bucket list and start your legacy journey today.