Completing a Decade of Partnership Committed to Child Survival

Kimberly-Clark recently announced new funding in the amount of $640,000 in support of two UNICEF programs to improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in Brazil. This new funding builds on the nearly $1 million already contributed by the company during the past two years. The renewed funding is important to UNICEF because it will allow these programs to continue building on their successes for possible replication throughout Brazil and globally, and because funding in these challenging economic times is increasingly scarce.

The new grant will:

• Provide continued support of two of Brazil’s marginalized communities – the Quilombolas and Indigenous populations – through a program to provide access to basic health care services for children and their families; and
• Help launch Phase II of UNICEF Brazil’s innovative Urban Platform Program. This project that will benefit an estimated 180,000 children and adolescents through an integrated, long-term approach that aims to bring all sectors of society together to solve the systemic problems facing children in impoverished areas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo.

The K-C office in Brazil has been involved in these programs since their inception. Jefferson Correia, director of public relations for K-C Brazil, has attended multiple program planning sessions, has organized meetings between K-C Brazil employees and adolescents participating in the program to provide them with career and life advice, and helped to organize a fundraising breakfast inviting key suppliers, clients and partners to learn more about the Urban Platform Program and encouraging them to join the movement. Click here to go to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF website to read more about Jefferson’s experience of engaging with UNICEF with the goal of improving children’s lives in his own backyard.

Thanks to the support of partners like Kimberly-Clark, the Urban Platform Program is expanding nationwide. On July 7-8, UNICEF Brazil held a launch event to officially kick-off the first phase of the program. In attendance were everyone from UNICEF officials, community members participating in the project and local partners, to the mayors of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, UNICEF celebrity ambassadors and private companies, including several employees of Kimberly-Clark Brazil.

“I commend Kimberly-Clark for their long-term commitment to UNICEF’s work. They recognized that children already vulnerable due to poverty are the least able to weather a downturn in the economy,” said Caryl M. Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. “Through their renewed support of UNICEF programs in Brazil, Kimberly-Clark is helping to provide a better future for countless children there.”

Photo Credit: © UNICEF/NYHQ1992-0298/Perkell

Kimberly-Clark has been supporting UNICEF programs since 2001, when the company expanded the traditional definition of family to include child-headed households, a growing problem especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where many children were losing parents due to the rising HIV/AIDS epidemic. K-C committed $2.6 million over four years to help UNICEF come to the aid of children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. Then, in 2005, K-C renewed its partnership with UNICEF and pledged an additional $2.6 million over 4 years, this time investing in UNICEF's child survival programs, sharing the organization's belief that no child should die from preventable causes. K-C funds have supported programs for children affected by HIV/AIDS in China and programs to improve community health facilities in India.

Throughout its partnership with UNICEF, K-C has also challenged the public to contribute to UNICEF's programs to save and improve the lives of children, through a series of challenge grant campaigns that have leveraged more than $11 million.

To learn more about K-C’s 10-year partnership with UNICEF, click here to visit the U.S. Fund for UNICEF website.

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