On Wednesday 2 November 2011, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be making a special visit to UNICEF’s global Supply Centre in Copenhagen to help put the global spotlight back onto the humanitarian crisis in East Africa, which has left more than 320,000 children so severely malnourished that they are at imminent risk of starving to death unless they get urgent help.

UNICEF’s Supply Centre has a warehouse within it the size of three football pitches.  It sources, packs and distributes essential supplies for children around the globe, including food, water, special nutritional supplies for the most malnourished children, vaccines and emergency medical kits.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be accompanied on the visit by The Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark.  Their Royal Highnesses together will seek to raise awareness of the crisis in East Africa, an area well known to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and encourage the public to support UNICEF’s appeal for funds to help millions of children at risk.

People in New Zealand have been hugely generous in their response to news of the devastating crisis unfolding in East Africa, and life-saving supplies are getting through to children and families affected. So far, UNICEF has delivered more than 10,000 metric tons of supplies to the region, treated 108,000 severely malnourished children in therapeutic feeding centres, vaccinated 1.2 million children against measles and provided 2.2 million people with access to safe water.

However, the region is currently experiencing the worst drought in decades and much more needs to be done in order to help the many thousands of children who are in need of urgent nutritional and medical help .

Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF’s, Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, who is also UNICEF’s Global Emergency Coordinator for the crisis, said, ‘Right now UNICEF, along with many other partners, is working tirelessly to ensure that children’s lives can be saved across East Africa. Every day children are being given food and water thanks to the huge generosity of the public all around the world. But, there is so much more to be done. As we speak more than 320,000 children are in grave danger and need life saving emergency supplies, like those being shipped and airlifted from our warehouse today. We desperately need every single person to help us continue our work, so please donate today at http://www.eastafricacrisis.org/.”

Dennis McKinlay, Executive Director at UNICEF NZ, travelled to the Horn of Africa recently to see first-hand the scale of the emergency and the work UNICEF is doing to alleviate this, “There is immense progress being made in the Horn of Africa thanks to the support of generous New Zealanders. I witnessed some amazing work being carried out by UNICEF in very difficult working conditions. However it was also clear to me that this crisis is far from over with huge numbers of children still extremely vulnerable.

“That’s why this special visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to UNICEF’s global Supply Centre in Copenhagen is especially timely – there is a real need to put the global spotlight back onto the humanitarian crisis in East Africa. So many children still need our support so please donate to UNICEF and help us to keep saving young lives."

To donate in New Zealand please visit http://www.eastafricacrisis.org/