UNICEF Club Partners on Tap Project

Students work with University of Minnesota, fundraises for clean water

Last month World Water Day commenced on March 22, and Andrews University UNICEF Campus Initiative Club (AU UNICEF) joined the campaign of raising awareness for the importance of water around the world.

United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is an organization that reaches out to children and mothers across developing countries and provides them with humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has a club program aimed at college students who want to work with their local communities to advocate global issues and promote fundraising events for different projects.

In February, Anna Kim, club president of AU UNICEF, and her team of officers had the opportunity to attend the UNICEF National Student Summit in Washington, D.C. and learn more about engaging in and advocating for various humanitarian projects.

“We were able to meet different Campus Initiative members from all over the United States,” said Kim.

Among these members was Zineb Alfath, leader of the National Council of MidWest and representative for University of Minnesota’s UNICEF club.

“Our team worked with Zineb to lobby the REACH Every Mother and Child Act bill,” says Kim. “We kept in touch and decided to work on the Tap Project together.”

The UNICEF Tap Project, a campaign lasting the month of March, aimed to promote awareness about global water and sanitation issues, while raising critical funds that would help meet clean water and basic sanitation needs of children across the world.

The project was sponsored by Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer and philanthropist. It included a simple, non-taxing process for those who participated.

“Basically, every five minutes you went without your phone, you unlocked the funding equivalent to one day of having clean water,” says Kim. “Its funds are going towards UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) program.”

The project is finished now, and AU UNICEF accomplished their goal of spreading the word about water-related issues developing countries experience on a daily basis and promoting UNICEF’s Tap Project website.

“Through this project, we were not only able to promote the project, but also the AU UNICEF club itself and our club’s purpose,” said Kim.

In the past ten years, UNICEF has raised over six million dollars through their water awareness campaigns. Although the final numbers have not been calculated for this year’s project, Kim is hopeful.

“Our primary goal was to advocate the importance of water issues, and I think it went pretty well,” said Kim.

Andrews University UNICEF Campus Initiative Club began in the fall of 2015 and has around 150 members. Their previous ventures include involvement in UNICEF’S Syrian Refugee project, Andrews’ Premiere Service Gala and Homelessness Awareness Week.

“We are exited to work on more projects next school year and spread the spirit of awareness on campus,” said Kim.

To learn more about UNICEF and their awareness campaigns and projects, or to get involved, visit unicefusa.org.