World Humanitarian Day Observed

UN, 20 August 2013: World Humanitarian day was observed on Monday. 365 days a year aid workers around the world face adversity and danger in order to help those in need. Many have also died in the line of duty. World Humanitarian Day was designated by the UN General Assembly to honour who have given their lives in the field.

This year the 10^th anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq which claimed 22 lives is being commemorated by the international community to remember those who died.

Also on this day the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs begins a month long campaign called “The World Needs More” which aims to help millions of people in need around the globe.

Matthew Cochraine, the spokesperson for “The World Needs More” talked about the initiative.
“The centre piece of it (the campaign) is our website, worldhumanitarianday.org and what we’ve done is we’ve created what we believe is the world’s first marketplace for words…”
Money raised from the campaign goes to an emergency response fund.

World Humanitarian Day was marked for the first time on 19 August 2009 and every year since the day has focused on a particular theme. Last year’s theme “looked at making ones mark by doing something good, somewhere, for someone else”. The campaign had a social reach of more than 1 billion people around the world.
Source: VR Eng