DRAWING / DZ-01.01Shipped / shippedREV. 2022-08

UNICEF High School Clubs

What would it take for young people to run a national program locally - without waiting for headquarters?

Piloted and scaled UNICEF USA High School Clubs to more than 800 chapters and 30,000 youth, then carried the same field-building discipline into humanitarian writing and global collaborations.

shippedISSUED. Drafting status: ISSUED.
Part01.01GroupShippedBuilt byGlobal Field Engagement Advisor / U.S. Program ChairFirst built2008Figures2022-08
Open the work →https://dariasdrafts.substack.com/p/make-something-beautiful
Figures as of 2022-08. Analysis, not investment advice.

Build the field, not only the campaign

UNICEF Clubs gave young people a repeatable way to organize locally inside a global institution. The U.S. program grew to more than 800 chapters and mobilized 30,000 young people.

The wider work spanned humanitarian writing for readers in 180 countries, reports after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, youth participation in UNICEF's 2022-2025 strategic plan, and a 2022 UNHCR-Autodesk Foundation refugee-shelter collaboration. The durable unit was not a single message. It was a structure that another person could pick up and run.

Design the handoff

A chapter needed enough structure to begin and enough freedom to respond locally. The operating blueprint connected onboarding, leadership roles, repeatable actions, and a shared global mission without turning every club into a copy of headquarters.

The wider work applied the same principle to humanitarian reporting and field collaboration: preserve the specificity of the place, then make the evidence useful to someone far away.

Open the working files

Make Something Beautiful - the origin story behind the first Sichuan earthquake assignment and the years of work that followed.

UNICEF USA High School Clubs handbook - the operating blueprint for local chapters.

State of the World's Children - the adolescence companion report.

Sichuan earthquake: one-year, two-year, and three-year reports - the humanitarian record after the 2008 earthquake.