Catherine Russell | Protecting children in crisis (S10-E7) | United Nations

[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

So many children around the world are suffering because of war and other crises without proper food, medicine or education. But somehow, they survive.

[00:00:11] Catherine Russell

Children, they just want to be children. No matter what. The most bleak situation, the most terrible things, they still want to play, right? They want to find some joy. They want to just be kids. And I think that's what we have to all work to protect.

[00:00:34] Melissa Fleming

Catherine Russell is the Executive Director of UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund. She told me how she is fighting for their rights. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome, Cathy. It's great to have you here.

[00:01:00] Catherine Russell

Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:02] Melissa Fleming

Cathy, since you took up this position, you've traveled extensively. It's part of the job. Is there a child or children you've met that symbolizes why you are so passionate to keep going and why you want to do this job?

[00:01:18] Catherine Russell

The hard thing about the job is that I see such terrible things all around the world that happened to children. Children who are in war settings, children who have been abused, children who don't have enough to eat. You know, absolutely horrific things always. And those kids stick with me. And I have kind of a... I don't know, I think of it as sort of a lock box where I put a lot of those stories and encounters because I can't think about them all the time because they're so heartbreaking.

But then they are also great stories and children who I see who, you know, are so resilient, children who have hope for the future. I met a couple of girls recently. I was in Sudan. And I... You know, I always ask some version of the question of you know, 'What are you thinking about for your future? How do you see it?' Not really, 'What kind of job do you want?' But, you know, 'What do you think about for your future?' And to a person, these girls were telling me that they wanted to be... A couple of them want to be doctors. One wanted to be an architect. And for me, that's everything, right?

To say, even in the bleakest situation. They'd been displaced from their homes, you know, 2-3 times. They saw things that no child should see, really terrible violence. They knew that people around them were killed. I mean, you know, almost no child in Sudan of the 17 million children, are in school. I mean, these children are really suffering. They've been displaced multiple times, seen all sorts of violence, but they still think that the world may work out okay, that life may work out okay for them. And on the one hand, there's something crushing about that. But it's also really encouraging, you know, that they still believe that there's something out there for them. So, I see the bleak, bleak, bleak, most horrific things. And I see the optimistic things too.

[00:03:01] Melissa Fleming

I'm wondering if you've been surprised at how much suffering you're seeing among children. Is it something you expected coming into the job or is it worse than ...?

[00:03:14] Catherine Russell

You know what it is. It's kind of you know intellectually. Right? You can look at the data. You can see the numbers. You know, I have been kind of around this space for a while and I have some idea of what is going on in the world for sure. But when you really see it, you know, when you see these children and how much they're suffering. I mean, just as an example, you know, I was in Yemen two years ago and we do a lot of support there for children who are severely malnourished. And I... You know, okay, you know, children are severely malnourished. Right? But when you actually see it, you know. Or I saw it in Afghanistan too. You walk into these hospital rooms and they're literally rooms full of babies and they're silent because the babies are too weak to even cry. I mean, you can't really understand that until you see it, you know.

And you see it and I just think, 'How in a world where we have plenty of resources can it be that children are starving to death?' But that's what's happening. You know, I saw a child in Yemen. I'll never forget this. He was a little boy. He had just come into the hospital and his skin was like papery. There was like no flesh underneath his skin. And I said to the doctor, you know, ‘Will he be okay?' Because usually if we get these children, we have therapeutic feeding that we can give to them and we can bring them back. I mean, it's a miracle that we're able to do this. And the doctor said, 'He won't survive the night.'

I didn't also understand until I saw that these children, they feel physical pain from the starvation, which is just too much to bear, honestly. For them, for their parents, you know, for the people who love them, for the doctors, you know, the people who are trying to take care of them, to have to witness that is really dreadful. We can do something about it. And I think, you know, it is what keeps me going in this job and it keeps me from kind of descending into complete despair because we just have to keep at it. And if we keep at it, and UNICEF does such amazing work.

I feel so privileged, honestly, to work with the people at UNICEF, many of whom have been doing this for decades and are so committed. They know what to do. They know how to help. But the needs are just immense. And it just seems to keep getting worse. You know, since I came into the job, two weeks after I started, we had the invasion in Ukraine. Right? Last year was Gaza. This year - Lebanon, Sudan. Right? And nothing ever comes off our list.

[00:05:49] Melissa Fleming

What is it? Is it the wars? I mean, how do you...? How is it that you can't as UNICEF reach all of these children?

[00:05:56] Catherine Russell

There are many reasons. War is certainly at the top of the list. War and conflict. I always say that war is the worst thing in the world for children because either they are directly impacted. Right? And hurt and killed. Or children are really dependent on government services. Right? Education, health care. And those are the first things to be disrupted in war. Right? So, children are so vulnerable anyway, and then they rely on these services, and they can't get them. So, war - horrific. Gaza is terrible. Sudan is absolutely terrible. Haiti -terrible.

You know, and so we're trying. But the needs are just so extraordinary. I think my broader point is in the whole world there are resources, there is food. Right? There are things. It's just a question of, I think, number one, making sure people understand the problems. You know, encouraging governments. Certainly, governments are our primary supporters at UNICEF, but individuals play a really important role in this, too. The private sector plays an important role. We have a lot of those people who support us, but we need more. And when I say "we", I really don't mean just UNICEF. I mean the humanitarian space overall. Everyone is struggling to do really good work, but the budget constraints are real, and it makes it really challenging for us to do our work.

[00:07:09] Melissa Fleming

Is this what is keeping you awake at night?

[00:07:12] Catherine Russell

Yeah, it's one of many things. The things that keep me awake really are the sort of when I think about these individual children who are really just so vulnerable and suffering so much. And, you know, we think hard about how we can do better to help them. And I have to say, it's not just... You know, war torn countries are the worst of it for sure. But, you know, children are suffering in places where there's climate change. Right? Children are.... Really in so many places, children are... They're always the most vulnerable.

So, I think it's really thinking about how UNICEF can do big systemic change. How do we help governments do better to support their populations? How do we make the world aware of the fact that climate has a different impact on children than it does on adults? And they need to think about that. Right? Children's bodies are smaller. They are not as able to deal with things like air pollution. They're more susceptible to it. They're more susceptible to heat. Little babies don't really perspire the way adults do, so they can't get rid of the heat. So, they're very vulnerable to these things.

And we... So, some of this is really just educating people and saying, 'Make sure that children don't get forgotten when you do whatever kind of responses you're doing.' I think sometimes people get, you know, they're fatigued by it, right? Because there's so many problems and I think sometimes they can't even get their heads around what they should be paying attention to anymore. It's one conflict after another, one horrible story after another. But the key is you can't lose hope. You can't despair and say, 'I can't.' You know, throw up your hands. You have to keep working. You have to keep trying. Every person in the world can make a difference if they try. And that's a lot of the work that we do is to try to encourage that.

[00:08:50] Melissa Fleming

Putting yourself and thinking about your own child, I wonder if you as a mother also had that kind of reflection.

[00:08:58] Catherine Russell

Look, I have two children. You know, they're everything to me, obviously. And so, when I see other parents struggling to try to protect their children, it's painful to see that, you know, because they're trying their best. It's just that they are, you know, they happen to be born in a place that is, you know, either desperately poor or has no water or is in the middle of one conflict after another. You know, my first trip in this job was to Afghanistan. And to see the girls there. I just, you know... It breaks your heart. It literally breaks your heart. But you have to put that aside and you have to keep doing the work.

[00:09:43] Melissa Fleming

You went earlier this year to Sudan. Could you just describe what you saw. And I mean, what is it about Sudan that makes you so concerned?

[00:09:56] Catherine Russell

The biggest problem was... Well, there are many. But first it's a huge displacement crisis. I mean really millions of people are on the move in Sudan trying to get away from the violence. As I think I said, 17 million of these children of the 19 million children are not in school, haven't been in school for a year. Right? They are just moving around. We have... You know, we have famine in part of Sudan. And that's terrifying when that takes hold. We have diseases. You know, we're fighting cholera, measles, all these sorts of things because we can't do the usual vaccinations for children. Right? Because they're on the move. They're very vulnerable. So, I think all of it is absolutely horrific, terrible. And no one's paying attention to it, which is what's so concerning.

[00:10:45] Melissa Fleming

You mentioned that some of these girls are really vulnerable and there have been horrific stories of sexual violence as they were fleeing. How are these young girls, these adolescent girls being protected and what do they need to heal?

[00:11:03] Catherine Russell

Look, you know, I mean, I met a lot of these girls and the things that happened to them are so horrific. I was in Haiti several months ago, and I met a young girl, and she'd been raped by three men, you know, who were part of a gang. And she was eight months pregnant. But, like, what on earth? You know, what kind of life is this? And, you know, a lot of it is... I mean, we do psychosocial support, although we don't do nearly enough given the challenges in the world.

But there was another woman there who told me the story about how the gang had come upon her and her sister and they raped her. And her sister fought back so hard against these men who were trying to rape her that they burned her alive and then burned down their house. So, can we provide support? Yeah, we can. Can we ever...? I don't even know. I mean, you know, when you see that kind of inhumanity, can you ever get past that? I don't know. I mean, I think... You know, we can try, and I think human beings are incredibly resilient, or they can be. They're not always. And you can see people move forward. But at the same time, I don't know that they can ever get over it.

You know, one boy who always sticks with me. I have to... Just the story, it's sort of heartbreaking. He was... I met him in the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] and his mother was with him. And he's telling me, you know, what happened to him. And he's telling me in a very flat tone, he's telling me how he was out playing with his best friend, and a group of men came along, and the boys ran. And then he said, 'I saw them kill my best friend right in front of me.' I was like, 'Jeez, you know, sorry.' And, you know, he was very like, no affect. And he said, 'I just wish they had killed me.'

And I went over afterwards, and I was talking to our team there and I said, 'What?' I can barely tell you the story. They said that he had seen his friend decapitated. So, I think, 'Well, okay. I don't know. Maybe he doesn't ever get past it.' You know, maybe there are some things that are so terrible that human beings can't recover. I don't know. I mean, we tried, we tried to help him. It was clear to me that he couldn't find a way to sort through what that meant to him and what it meant maybe about the people around him, the community around him. I think he... I'm not sure he'll ever recover. So, you know, it's...

[00:13:55] Melissa Fleming

You mentioned before that you had been to Afghanistan early on and that now the situation for girls there it's just the... It's hard to even imagine. Not only are they banned from secondary school, university, but they can't even speak out. Their voices aren't allowed to be heard outside in public. How does that make you feel?

[00:14:21] Catherine Russell

It's heartbreaking. You know, I used to work around women and girls, and I had been to Afghanistan, and then it was all about, you know, getting girls into school, keeping them in school, girls going to universities. I mean, it was, you know, such an optimistic moment. Not perfect for sure, but an optimistic moment for girls. And that's all taken away from them. And I find that really heartbreaking, honestly, because they are obviously, they're human beings. They deserve opportunities. When I think about the potential. You know that country and every country needs everybody to be at their best, to be educated, to be participating. No one can afford to say, 'We don't even want half the population to participate here.' It doesn't make any sense to me.

[00:15:08] Melissa Fleming

I mean you're speaking about rights. I mean, Meryl Streep at an event here on Afghanistan at the UN said, 'Even a cat has more rights than an Afghan girl because the cat can put its face in the sun.' Is it...? I mean, you also are a rights-based organization.

[00:15:31] Catherine Russell

Every girl to me, every child, right, yes, they have rights. And we are... There's the Convention on the Rights of the Child that is the most endorsed international convention in the world. Right? And people understand intuitively that children are human beings and have rights to things. And everything we do at UNICEF is about child rights. You know, they have a right to have decent water and a right to education. They are basic things that you would expect for anyone.

And I've never in my life heard a good argument for why girls deserve any fewer rights than boys. I just don't think there is such an argument. So, we will always press for that and remind countries that they have endorsed this convention, that they have a commitment and an obligation to protect the rights of children. Many countries fall short for sure, but we are there to remind them that this is something that they have agreed to, and we are going to continue to press to make sure that all children have the right to live a healthy, decent life. To be educated and to grow up and participate in their societies.

[00:16:38] Melissa Fleming

And also, probably girls have the right not to be married off, child marriages.

[00:16:42] Catherine Russell

Girls should never be forced to marry. It's such a horrific, horrific practice, honestly. It's just... You know, I mean, you see these girls who they want to stay in school, right? They want to be with their friends. They don't want to get married. And some of these situations are just horrific. Old men who, you know... I mean, it's just terrible. And these girls, they don't have... You know, it's not like... They're not equal partners in these marriages. Right? So, they don't have the ability to negotiate things like, you know, safe sex or anything. Right? They don't have any control over their lives and that it's wrong. Right?

They're taken from a place where, you know, ideally, they're in school, they're with their friends, they're having, you know, some sort of fun like a normal kid. They're thinking about their future. Next thing you know, they're stuck at home cleaning a house, taking care of, you know, some person who they don't want to be married to. They start having children. They have them early. That's bad for girls. It's bad for their health. They have them. They don't space them out again because they don't have the ability to do that. So, it's really bad for them and it's bad for their children. Their children are less likely to be healthy and their children are less likely to be educated.

[00:17:54] Melissa Fleming

There's some legislation in front of the Iraqi parliament that lowers the age of marriage to eight.

[00:18:01] Catherine Russell

It's a constant struggle. And that's the other thing. You can go in, the law can be good, and then the law can be changed. Right? There are forces in the world that push back on rights, you know, for girls. I mean, we see this everywhere and we have to be vigilant, and we have to say this is not just bad for them, it's bad for the society.

[00:18:22] Melissa Fleming

One of the parts of UNICEF's job that I think is little known but became more well known during the pandemic was your role in vaccinating children around the world. And we just saw recently this effort that UNICEF and WHO [World Health Organization] and UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] made to vaccinate children in Gaza against polio that was emerging really dangerously. Could you just describe a bit of that work delivering vaccines against the worst childhood diseases and how difficult that can be sometimes.

[00:19:04] Catherine Russell

Well, I'd say a couple of things about it. One, vaccines are a huge success story in the world. I can't... You know, when you look at one of the most important indicators of progress is that we have reduced under-five mortality really consistently over the years. And right now, it's at the lowest it's ever been. Why? Because of vaccines. Immunizing children makes a difference.

And to me, you know, for children to die, they die for so many reasons. They suffer for so many reasons, as we've discussed. They should not be dying from preventable diseases. That is an outrage. We need to do better. We need to make sure that all children are immunized against everything. And we... UNICEF we immunize half the children in the world every year. I mean, we are a huge player in that field. And I'm proud of that work. And I think we have to keep pushing at it. The Gaza experience was interesting because it showed that if you sort of, you know, take your foot off the gas at all, these horrible things can come back.

[00:20:05] Melissa Fleming

While you were vaccinating children for polio in Gaza, I mean, there was this maybe two-day pause in the fighting for each cycle. You were... Your colleagues there were encountering children who were malnourished, who were traumatized. I mean, it was this amazing sense of accomplishment, but what else should be done?

[00:20:31] Catherine Russell

Conflict is the worst situation for children. It just, it... You know, Gaza is an unforgiving hellscape at this point for children. I mean, it is... You know, most children have been displaced from their homes. They're not in school. They have not been in school for over a year. Many of them are not getting enough food. The water is problematic and we're struggling to try to deal with those problems. But it's very, very difficult to work there. And the security situation there is just very challenging. You know, I would say the same thing about Haiti. And it can be very difficult to do the work when, you know, you don't have any space to do it.

[00:21:13] Melissa Fleming

What does Gaza look like through the eyes of a child?

[00:21:18] Catherine Russell

It's terrible. I mean, you see it on the news. It's just these children are... I worry so much about how they ever can recover from this. You know, when I was there, I'll never forget. I met this girl. She was in a hospital bed, and she was 16 years old. You know, a young girl. And she told me this, that she had, you know, the home next to her had been hit by some kind of shells or bombs or something. And she was paralyzed for life.

One thing that always sticks with me is that, you know, if you or I needed to get a prosthetic limb, we would get it, get fitted for it and have it. For children because they are growing, they have to be refitted every six months. Right? How is this going to happen with these children? So, it's just such a terrible situation. And it has to... You know, we have to get to the point where this is resolved, where all the hostages are released, where all the fighting can stop, and we can start to think about what it looks like going forward. And how we can, you know, give these children some sort of a life going forward, which is going to be just an immensely challenging enterprise.

[00:22:34] Melissa Fleming

You also served in the Obama administration as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.

[00:22:41] Catherine Russell

Yeah, that was the second-best job I ever had.

[00:22:43] Melissa Fleming

Really? Why was that?

[00:22:45] Catherine Russell

I mean, the job I have now is such a huge privilege. I love it so much. That job was really interesting because it was a State Department job, and the idea was to really think about how to make sure that women and girls were integrated in the work of the State Department. And it was at a time where there was, I think, a real understanding that women had not been sort of at the centre of a lot of the thinking about things like peace and security and some other issues. So, it was really a huge privilege to be a part of those discussions and to really be there and to say, you know, we need to think about these issues. We need to make sure that women are a part of the discussions. They're a huge part. If they're included in societies, the societies are going to be more prosperous, they'll be more stable. It was a huge privilege, really interesting and exciting work. I loved that job and was really just grateful to be able to do it.

[00:23:42] Melissa Fleming

And you left a legacy. You were the principal architect of the groundbreaking US Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls.

[00:23:50] Catherine Russell

Yeah, I love those girls. I'm telling you I feel so determined to make the world a better place for them. And I just am grateful to be able to continue to do that work.

[00:24:03] Melissa Fleming

Do you have a daughter?

[00:24:05] Catherine Russell

I do. I have a daughter. She's grown now. She's in law school. And just a huge, wonderful part of my life, for sure. Both my kids.

[00:24:17] Melissa Fleming

You have a son?

[00:24:18] Catherine Russell

I have one of each.

[00:24:19] Melissa Fleming

One of each. We haven't talked that much about boys, actually, because to empower or to give equal rights to women and girls, we also need the boys on board.

[00:24:30] Catherine Russell

Absolutely right. That's absolutely right. And I tell you, some of the biggest proponents of adolescent girls are their dads. And if you get the dads... You know, if you think about... I don't know if you've ever had the chance to meet Malala, but her dad is such a force and was really dedicated to making sure she had every opportunity. He's been a part of her work. And it's people like that who really understand. They love their daughters. They want their sons to treat their daughters well. Right? That is the discussion that needs to happen. And when you see it, it is really magical.

[00:25:01] Melissa Fleming

I have met her and I've seen him looking at her with just such pride as she speaks. It's really, it's really wonderful.

[00:25:09] Catherine Russell

And you're right. I mean, boys are a huge part of that. And I tell you, I mean, no child is born with ideas that girls are less, or any other person is less. Those are all learned things. And we can address those, right? We can say, you know, ‘You need to treat everyone equally and fairly.’ And I mean, that's all positive and that's all something that children can learn. Little boys are so sweet.

When I was in Gaza, I'll never forget this little group of them. I was touring this hospital and the whole hospital was just teeming with people who were camped out there. So, there were sleeping bags in every spot of the hospital. And we were just kind of making our way through. And there were a couple of little boys, and they started to follow me. And they're kind of, you know, trying to catch my eye and smiling. And so, it's a little like playing hide and seek, you know. And I'm going all through the hospital. And by the end of it, there's a huge group of these boys just... And I... You know, I thought boys, children, they just want to be children. No matter what. The most bleak situation, you know, the most terrible things, they still want to play, right? They want to find some joy. They want to just be kids. And I think that's what we have to all work to protect.

[00:26:18] Melissa Fleming

No child is born with hate in their heart.

[00:26:20] Catherine Russell

No. They're not. They're not. They're all innocent. And their natural instincts, I think, are so positive. They want to be kids. And we have to make that possible.

[00:26:34] Melissa Fleming

How did you get into public service in the first place?

[00:26:37] Catherine Russell

Well, that's an interesting question. When I was young, when I had just gotten out of college, I had a friend who worked in a political campaign. And I was going to go to a law firm and, you know, be a paralegal or something. He kept saying, 'You should come do this.' And I said, 'I'm not cut out for politics. I don't know anything about politics. I'm not really interested in that.' Anyway, he kept bugging me to death.

So, I finally went, and I got involved in this political... It was a presidential campaign in the US, and I was such a shy person. I mean, you can't imagine now because you hear me talk constantly. I feel like I never stop talking. But when I was young, I was so shy, and I would hate to have to talk to groups of people. You know, I would be nervous about meeting new people. I was just like, 'Oh, God.' And as I was doing this work, I realized that because it wasn't about me, because I was doing something I cared about and thought mattered, I was able to put all of that aside.

And I loved the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself and being part of something that I thought would make a difference. So, I did that. And then I decided to go to law school, and I came out and I got a job on Capitol Hill in the United States in the Senate. And it was the same thing where I just... I loved the work, and I felt really grateful to be a part of something that meant something to me. And that's really what I've done the rest of my career. And for me personally, that's just incredibly rewarding and motivating. And I think I encourage people always... You know, obviously I talk to a lot of young people about what they want to do in their lives, but to find whatever it is that makes you feel like that.

[00:28:23] Melissa Fleming

I'm just wondering, curious what your parents did. I mean, you're originally from New Jersey and whether they kind of set you on this path.

[00:28:31] Catherine Russell

It's so interesting. I was born in New Jersey. I actually grew up in Pennsylvania, a place called Reading, Pennsylvania. And my parents... My father was like just a super poor kid from Indiana who moved to New York and met my mother. And my mother was just like the warmest, most wonderful person, but a little bit sort of snobby, I would say. She would murder me for saying that if she were still alive. But she looked at my father and she was like, 'Well, I mean, all I can say is he would wear a suit and white socks.' And I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I guess.'

But they ended up falling in love and then moved. You know, my father sort of started a really small business. But I grew up in a place where it was just a very provincial place. Like literally when I was younger, I didn't know anyone who had a passport. I didn't know anyone who had ever been anywhere. I didn't. And I remember... It's so funny because I told this story once before where I vividly remember we got these little UNICEF boxes. I don't know if you ever saw these where you grew up.

[00:29:37] Melissa Fleming

I got the UNICEF boxes too.

[00:29:39] Catherine Russell

Trick or treating for UNICEF.

[00:29:40] Melissa Fleming

Trick or treating for UNICEF. I did the same.

[00:29:42] Catherine Russell

And I remember it was the first time that I had ever thought about... I mean, I never imagined working there. I'm not suggesting that in any way, but it was the first time I ever really thought about the fact that there were other children in the world who - even though we were not, I was not from a wealthy family at all, like the complete opposite - but who had so little that we in the United States should be thinking about how we could help them. And it was kind of an eye-opening experience for me.

And it's funny now, just this year at UNICEF, we brought the boxes, the trick or treat boxes back because... I mean, they probably don't raise that much money, and it's you know, they say it's more challenging now because people don't have coins. There are lots of reasons. But I do remember that feeling of like, wow, you know, this is an eye-opening thing for me. I really learned something through this.

[00:30:33] Melissa Fleming

Well, I for one, am so glad you brought back the UNICEF boxes for Halloween trick or treating, because it is awareness. That's the first I had heard of UNICEF, and I probably never would have until later in my life if I had not.

[00:30:49] Catherine Russell

And really thought about why. Right? Why were you doing that? And that is something that's so valuable for children to think about that. Right? That there are other children in the world just like them who are really in desperate need.

[00:31:02] Melissa Fleming

Who would you say are your mentors?

[00:31:06] Catherine Russell

I would say, you know, really, first and foremost, this is probably such a cliche, but I really think my parents were so critical to me in the following ways. I think my mother, as I said, was just the kindest person on the planet, the most thoughtful, generous, loving person. My father was, I mean, also a loving person. But he definitely... You know, I was the oldest of five.

[00:31:34] Melissa Fleming

Five.

[00:31:35] Catherine Russell

Oldest of five, yeah. And my father definitely, you know, he pushed me. And I think that was a good thing, really. He had high expectations, and he really wanted me to do something useful in the world. I don't think he ever imagined this. I think his idea of useful would probably be, you know, he wanted me to be a business major or an accounting major or something. But he definitely, you know, encouraged me and pushed me to be the best that I could be. And I really appreciated that. Well, maybe not at the time, but I appreciate it now.

[00:32:08] Melissa Fleming

I just wonder, just hearing about your life and hearing about all that you're doing at UNICEF and your travel to war zones. Do you have any ways to relax? And what are your coping mechanisms?

[00:32:26] Catherine Russell

Yeah. You know, listen, it's as I said, it can be really hard, but it's a huge privilege. And the thing that keeps me going the most is to know that we are making a difference. We can make a difference. We know what to do. I mean, it's one of the great things about UNICEF. They've been doing this work for so long and they know how to. These people are amazing, and they know what to do. And so that's the most important thing from my perspective.

And then really, I try to spend time with my family if I can. That's the thing that gets me, you know, feeling the best. If I possibly can try to get out for a walk, you know, see my kids. You know, if I'm really desperate, I'll watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel, which like always has a happy ending, which I'm grateful for. But, you know, it's really just to try to be as grounded as I can in the things that I love, the people I love. And I feel like that helps me get through some really challenging, some challenging times.

But I will say it's just - I'm sure you feel this way too - being a part of the UN, it's a real privilege and it's an honor. And I feel that very much. You know, I want to try to do the best I can by these children who really need the help. And we think about it all the time. We try to come up with new ideas and we're grateful for anybody else who has them. And, you know, just keep at it and just keep fighting for these kids.

[00:33:47] Melissa Fleming

Cathy, thank you so much for sharing your story and thanks for everything you do.

[00:33:52] Catherine Russell

Thanks for what you do. You do amazing work too.

[00:33:56] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell, to Adam Paylor and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Carlos Macias, Abby Vardeleon, Laura Rodriguez De Castro, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi and Bissera Kostova. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.