For nine million refugee youth, a chance to learn and play
UN Refugee Agency Launched Innovative Global Campaign with Corporate Partners to Help World’s Refugee Youth
N ine million faces. Nine million names.
Nine million stories. They are the
world’s forgotten refugee youth. On
20 June – World Refugee Day, an innovative
global campaign was launched to bring
attention and a better future to youth given them a
chance to change their future through the power
of education and sport. Called ninemillion.org, the
campaign aims to create a global community dedicated
to giving the world’s refugee youth the
chance to learn and play.
Ninemillion.org was launched as part of
World Refugee Day by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with the
support of founding campaign partners Nike
Inc. and Microsoft, both founding members of
UNHCR’s Council of Business Leaders, and
Right To Play, the Toronto-based international
humanitarian organization dedicated to using
sport and play to foster the healthy physical,
social and emotional development of children
in refugee camps worldwide.
“Ninemillion.org is about giving the world’s
refugee youth a chance to see beyond their current
situation and begin to rebuild their lives,”
said UN High Commissioner for Refugees
António Guterres. “Our greatest priority is to
help refugees in crisis and to find lasting solutions
for them. Once out of harm’s way, the needs
of refugees continue despite having moved off
the front pages, and those needs far exceed
existing sources of funding. All too often, the
world’s millions of refugee youth become the
most forgotten. They are denied their basic
rights to childhood and are left with uncertain
futures. Ninemillion.org can help refugee youth
by giving them a chance to learn and play, a
chance to change their future through education
and sport.”
Kicking off the ninemillion.org campaign is a
30-second public service announcement featuring
Brazilian football star Ronaldo, a UNDP
(United Nations Development Programme)
Goodwill Ambassador. The public service
announcement is available for viewing at ninemillion.org, which features individual portraits
and biographies of refugee youth from camps in
Azerbaijan, Uganda and Thailand. These are
youth who have seen their parents killed, have
fled their homes because of war, or who have
been born in a refugee camp and known nothing
else. Yet despite the trauma and conflict of their
lives, and the harsh conditions of a refugee
camp, they are connected by a universal love of
sport and the desire to learn and create a better
future for themselves, their families and their
communities. Ninemillion.org is committed to
giving them that chance.
In addition to raising awareness about
refugee youth, ninemillion.org is the primary
way individuals can donate money to the campaign.
To kick off the fund-raising effort, the
Nike Foundation announced a matching grant
for the first US$1 million donated to ninemillion.org.
Nike Inc. supported UNHCR by developing
the overall concept and content for ninemillion.org and enlisted key support from other
council members such as Microsoft. Nike developed
the public service announcement with
Ronaldo and other videos of refugee youth in
Azerbaijan, Uganda and Thailand. T-shirts featuring
the ninemillion.org logo will be available
for purchase at select Nike retail outlets worldwide,
with net proceeds supporting the campaign.
Additionally, Nike has donated 40,000
balls, designed specifically for durability in
harsh refugee camp conditions, to UNHCR for
refugee kids. Nike also will broaden awareness
of ninemillion.org by creating a digital presence
on nike.com and nikefootball.com, and by
launching a ninemillion.org community on
joga.com.
Microsoft is supporting ninemillion.org
through MSN, its online media network, by hosting
and localizing the website content in nine
languages and providing 2.8 billion impressions
of primary advertising media worth an estimated
US$1 million, plus editorial placement and
promotional support for the campaign. MSN is
featuring ninemillion.org on local portal, Hotmail
and Messenger sites in the top ten markets
in Europe and on MSN.com in the United States.
In addition, Microsoft will support education
projects through donations of software to nongovernmental
organization partners, as well as
the provision of curriculum and basic training
content.
Two-thirds of money raised through ninemillion.org will be distributed by UNHCR to support
education in refugee communities, including
fundamental education and life skills
training; HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention;
gender sensitivity; and peace education programs
for war-torn communities. The remaining
one-third will fund access to customized sport
and play programs by Right to Play for refugee
youth, with an emphasis on getting girls and
young women onto the playing field.
Other companies supporting ninemillion.org
Earth Water International, the Canadabased
bottled water company that contributes
100 percent of its net profits to
UNHCR, features the ninemillion.org campaign
logo on its newly designed labels. Currently
sold throughout Canada, Earth Water
will expand its distribution to the United
States later this summer and to Western
Europe and Asia in the coming year.
Manpower Inc. supports ninemillion.org
through broad internal and external outreach.
The company’s CEO will invite the more than
27,000 Manpower employees across 4,400 offices
in 72 countries to get involved and spread the
word in their local communities. Information on
ninemillion.org also will be available on the
company’s website, and campaign information
will be distributed to Manpower’s vast client and
temporary employee/contractor networks.
Merck & Co, Inc., in collaboration with
UNHCR and the International Council of Nurses
(ICN) is delivering nursing knowledge and
related training for health workers in refugee
camps located in Tanzania and Zambia through
a program of mobile nursing libraries. The
libraries will increase access to the latest nursing
and health information to meet refugee
health priorities. Merck is also supporting ninemillion.
org through its Partnership for Giving
Program, which will match employee contributions
to the campaign.
Procter & Gamble also joined ninemillion.org
via its Children’s Safe Drinking Water program.
Procter & Gamble will provide more than 1 million
sachets of PUR Purifier of Water for safe
drinking water in refugee camps. The company
also will link to ninemillion.org from its website
and encourage employees to join the campaign.
Media information
Additional media information, including
the ninemillion.org video, is available at http://www.ninemillion.org/index.php?/site/Sections/Media-Gallery.
Media contacts:
Olivier Delarue: delarue@unhcr.org
+41(0)22 739 84 99, +41(0)79 214 24 54 (mobile).
© 2006 UN Special |