Luciano Calestini
Luciano Calestini coordinates the UN Children’s Fund humanitarian programme in Iraq.
Born to a Kiwi mother and an Italian father, he was educated in New Zealand and Australia.
Luciano’s role with UNICEF Iraq is to ensure that children in vulnerable circumstances have access to safe water, quality health care, education, and protection from abuse and exploitation.
Last year UNICEF assisted more than 300,000 of the most vulnerable children and their families in Iraq.
Huge challenges face UNICEF staff as they work to improve the lives of children in Iraq. For example, an estimated 1.5 million people, many of them children, have been internally displaced in Iraq since 2006. In addition, the number of primary-aged children not in school has grown to over two million.
Luciano says that his work for UNICEF offers the chance to make a real difference.
“It is difficult to think of a more worthwhile cause than UNICEF’s. Every day I am grateful I have this chance to effect positive change.”
Luciano says he got into aid work by accident. While at university he did casual administrative work for a large non-governmental organisation (NGO) and after a few years a chance arose to go to Sudan for a few months.
“I took the chance and never went back,” he says.
Since the mid-1990s Luciano has worked in some of the poorest and most unstable parts of the world both for UNICEF and a number of other NGOs. His overseas aid work has taken him to Southern Sudan, East Timor, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Listen to a Radio NZ feature interview with Luciano during a visit to NZ in late 2008 (33 minutes 33 seconds)
Born to a Kiwi mother and an Italian father, he was educated in New Zealand and Australia.
Luciano’s role with UNICEF Iraq is to ensure that children in vulnerable circumstances have access to safe water, quality health care, education, and protection from abuse and exploitation.
Last year UNICEF assisted more than 300,000 of the most vulnerable children and their families in Iraq.
Huge challenges face UNICEF staff as they work to improve the lives of children in Iraq. For example, an estimated 1.5 million people, many of them children, have been internally displaced in Iraq since 2006. In addition, the number of primary-aged children not in school has grown to over two million.
Luciano says that his work for UNICEF offers the chance to make a real difference.
“It is difficult to think of a more worthwhile cause than UNICEF’s. Every day I am grateful I have this chance to effect positive change.”
Luciano says he got into aid work by accident. While at university he did casual administrative work for a large non-governmental organisation (NGO) and after a few years a chance arose to go to Sudan for a few months.
“I took the chance and never went back,” he says.
Since the mid-1990s Luciano has worked in some of the poorest and most unstable parts of the world both for UNICEF and a number of other NGOs. His overseas aid work has taken him to Southern Sudan, East Timor, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Listen to a Radio NZ feature interview with Luciano during a visit to NZ in late 2008 (33 minutes 33 seconds)
