I must say that up until a year ago, before I was given the great privilege of becoming a volunteer for UNICEF, I used to be overwhelmed by a sense of desperation and helplessness when watching television and reading about the misery of the developing world’s children and their mothers. If I feel less helpless today, it is because I have seen what is being done by UNICEF and many other marvelous organizations and agencies, by the churches, by governments and most of all, with very little help, by people themselves.

我必須承認(rèn)就在一年前，也就是我有幸成為聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織志愿者之前， 每當(dāng)我在電視和報(bào)紙上獲悉發(fā)展中國家兒童和母親的悲慘境遇時(shí)，我都會沉浸在巨 大的絕望和無助之中。如果說現(xiàn)在我不會感到那么無助了，那是因?yàn)槲铱吹搅寺?lián)合 國兒童基金組織及其他偉大組織、教會、政府都在努力幫助他們，更重要的是人們 在以自己微薄的力量努力進(jìn)行著自助。

The effects of the monstrous burden of debt have made the poor even poorer and have fallen most heavily on the neediest, and those whom it has damaged the most have been women and children. We must do more about the alarming state in which the children in the developing world are only just surviving, especially when we know that the finances needed are minimal compared to the global expenditure of this world; when we know that less than half of one percent of today’s world economy would be the total required to eradicate the worst aspects of poverty and would meet their basic human needs over the next 10 years. In other words, there is no deficit in human resources. The deficit is in human will.

沉重的債務(wù)負(fù)擔(dān)重重地壓在了那些最需要我們幫助的人肩上，它使得窮人愈窮，但最終飽受摧殘、傷害最大的往往是婦女和兒童。我們還應(yīng)該為那些處于危機(jī) 邊緣的發(fā)展中國家的兒童做更多的事情，他們中的一些人現(xiàn)在僅僅處于能活命的狀 態(tài)。尤其是當(dāng)我們了解到所需的資金與世界開支相比微乎其微之后，其實(shí)只要拿出 不到世界經(jīng)濟(jì)0.5%的資金就足以根除地球上最貧窮的狀況，滿足這些人在今后10年 的基本生活需求。換句話說，我們并不缺少人手，我們?nèi)鄙俚氖侨藗兊囊庠浮?/p>

The question I am most frequently asked is: “what do you really do for UNIGEF?” Clearly, my task is to inform, to create awareness of the needs of children. To fully understand the problems of the state of the world’s children, it would be nice to be an expert on education, economies, ...politics, religions, traditions and culture. I am none of these things, but I am a mother.

人們最常問我的一個(gè)問題是：“你為聯(lián)合國兒童基金真正做了些什么？ ”很明 顯，我的職責(zé)是通過自己的努力，使社會了解和意識到兒童的需要。如果我是一位 通曉教育、經(jīng)濟(jì)、政治、宗教、文化和傳統(tǒng)的專家的話，我將更能了解當(dāng)今世界上 的兒童問題。然而我不是，我只是一位母親。

There is, unhappily, a need for great advocacy for children~children haunted by undernourishment, disease and death, and you don’t have to be a financial whiz to look into so many little faces with diseases, glazed eyes to know that this is the result of critical malnutrition. One of the worst symptoms of which is Vitamin A deficiency that causes comeal lesions resulting in partial or total blindness followed within a few weeks by death. Every year there are as many as 500,000 such cases in countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Ethiopia. Today there are in fact millions of children at risk of going blind. Little wonder that I and many other UNICEF volunteers travel the world to raise funds before it is too late, but also to raise awareness and to combat a different kind of darkness-a darkness people find themselves in through lack of information on how easy it is to reach out and help these children.

遺憾的是，現(xiàn)在的兒童事業(yè)仍需要很大的支持，這些孩子飽受營養(yǎng)不良、疾病 和死亡的威脅。你不需要知道確切數(shù)字，你只要看著這些瘦小的臉和木然呆滯的眼 睛，因?yàn)檫@些都是嚴(yán)重營養(yǎng)不良的表現(xiàn)。導(dǎo)致這種病最重要的原因就是缺乏維生素A,這將引起角膜損傷甚至于眼睛部分或完全失明，幾周之后可能就會死去。在諸如 印度尼西亞、孟加拉國、印度、菲律賓和埃薩爾比亞等國家，每年出現(xiàn)的此類病例 多達(dá)50萬例。如今，有成百萬的兒童正在受到失明的威脅。這也是在事情發(fā)展到無 可挽回之前，我和其他許多聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織的志愿者奔赴世界各國努力籌集資 金的原因。與此同時(shí)，我們也要喚醒人們與另一種形式的黑暗作斗爭的意識——人 們因?yàn)槿狈π畔ⅲ圆恢老蜻@些孩子伸出援助之手是多么的輕松簡單。

I have known UNICEF a long time. For almost 45 years ago, I was one of the tens of thousands of starving children in war-ravaged Europe to receive aid from UNICEF immediately after our liberation that freed us from hunger, repression and constant violence, when we were reduced to near total poverty as is the developing world today. For it is poverty that is at the root of all their suffering—the not having- not having the means to help themselves. That is what UNICEF is all about, helping people to help themselves. Giving them the aid to develop. Thereby allowing them to become self-reliant and live in dignity.

我很早之前就知道聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織了。大約45年前，戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束，我們剛 從饑餓、壓迫和暴力中解放出來，在飽受戰(zhàn)爭摧殘的歐洲大陸上，我便是成千上萬 需要聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織幫助的饑餓的兒童之一。那時(shí)我們一貧如洗，正如今天的 發(fā)展中國家一樣。正因?yàn)樨毟F是人類遭受苦難的根源，這些身無長物之人沒有辦法 進(jìn)行自助。而聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織的作用正在于此，幫助那些需要幫助之人實(shí)現(xiàn)自 助，給予他們發(fā)展的幫助，使他們可以獨(dú)立而有尊嚴(yán)地活著。

Unlike droughts or floods or earthquakes, the tragedy of poverty cannot easily be captured by the media and brought to the attention of the world-wide public. It is happening not in any one particular place, but in slums and shanties and neglected rural communities across two continents. It is happening not at any one particular time, but over long years of increasing poverty which have not been featured in the nightly news but which have changed the lives of many millions of people.

與旱災(zāi)、洪災(zāi)和地震災(zāi)害不同，貧困的悲慘畫面不易被媒體捕捉，從而不能引 起全世界的關(guān)注。它并非發(fā)生在某個(gè)特定的地方，而是在跨越兩個(gè)大陸的貧民窟、棚戶區(qū)和被忽視的農(nóng)村地區(qū)廣泛地存在；它也并非發(fā)生在某個(gè)特定的時(shí)候，而是困擾人 們多年并不斷惡化。這些雖未在晚間新聞里被報(bào)道，但卻威脅著上百萬人的生存。

UNICEF’s business is children, not the workings of the international economy. In its every-day work in over 100 developing nations UNICEF is brought up against a face of today’s international economic problems which is not seen in the corridors of financial power, not reflected in the statistics of debt service ratios, not seated at the conference tables of debt negotiations. It is in the face of a child. It is the young child whose growing mind and body is susceptible to permanent damage from even temporary deprivation. The human brain and body are formed within the first five years of life and there is no second chance. It is the young child whose individual development today and whose social contribution tomorrow are being shaped by the economics of now. It is the young child who is paying the highest of all prices.

聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織的工作中心是兒童而不是國際經(jīng)濟(jì)。聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織 每天都在全球100多個(gè)發(fā)展中國家開展工作。在這些工作中，聯(lián)合國兒童基金組織遇 到了一些國際經(jīng)濟(jì)問題，這些問題不會在金融大亨的走廊里看到，不會在債券匯率 的數(shù)據(jù)中反映出來，也不會在債務(wù)談判桌上被提及，這些問題反映在孩子們的臉上: 兒童正在發(fā)育的身心正在受到哪怕是暫時(shí)性貧困的傷害。人類的大腦和身體在5歲之 前發(fā)育完成而且不可能有第二次機(jī)會。正是現(xiàn)在的經(jīng)濟(jì)援助決定著孩子們今天的發(fā) 展和明天對社會的貢獻(xiàn)，而也正是這些稚嫩的孩子們在為此付出最昂貴的代價(jià)。

There is so much we cannot do. We cannot give the children back their parents, but we can return to them the most basic of human rights, the right to health, to tenderness, to life. Thank you.
 

有很多事情我們確實(shí)愛莫能助。我們不能還給孩子他們失去的雙親，但是我們可以 給予孩子最基本的人權(quán)，健康的權(quán)利，享受人間關(guān)愛、享受人生的權(quán)利。謝謝大家。
 

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