Carol Bellamy disagrees with critics of her tenure who say her promotion of children's rights and women's issues in the last decade has detracted from the issue of child mortality. "Unicef is taking into account the broader implications of what contributes to child survival," she says. "It isn't as if we created a separate subset area. It's that gender issues run through all of it."
A Forceful Voice for the Children of the Tsunami
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
Published: January 14, 2005
IT is just after 7 a.m. and Carol Bellamy has been at work for more than two hours. Ms. Bellamy, the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund, sits in the emergency operations center at Unicef House on the East Side. There is only a view of her upright back through the window of a small room crowded with top Unicef officials, but her voice is distinctive, loud and forceful
"We need to make sure our work is really producing results," Ms. Bellamy is saying in a conference-call meeting with Unicef staff members on the telephone from places like the Maldives, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia and Geneva.
The Dec. 26 tsunami in the Indian Ocean has propelled Ms. Bellamy, a veteran of New York politics, into the public spotlight in a way unparalleled during her 10 years at Unicef. The tsunami has claimed more than 150,000 lives, with at least a third believed to be children.
Ms. Bellamy, who turns 63 today, seems to be everywhere, appearing all over the news media as well as on the ground in the battered region. She returned from Indonesia and Sri Lanka on Saturday night. The other morning, she squeezed in an interview before a news conference with former President Bill Clinton in which they announced the creation of a fund to provide sanitation systems and safe drinking water to tsunami victims.
As she leads a reporter to her airy office with a sweeping view of the East River, Ms. Bellamy is asked about the tsunami's staggering toll.
"Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of terrible stuff, but this scale?" she says, her voice trailing off as she relaxes into a leather couch, crossing her legs. "I don't think I've seen something as horrific on this massive scale, so many countries, so many people, the death toll, the toll on human beings who have survived. No, I've never, ever seen something as unprecedented as this."
Ms. Bellamy talks of an image she cannot get out of her head. In a devastated area in Sri Lanka, she saw five people, two men and three women, standing on a beach. She wandered over to ask what they were doing. "They said they were waiting for their children to come back," she recalls. "They were just standing there. There was just nothing left. It was so silent."
Why did so many children die?
"First of all, kids are kids; they're not as strong as adults," Ms. Bellamy says. "They're hanging on something, running, not that you could outrun this. And surviving this, if it was not the water, it's all the other stuff. They're smaller, more vulnerable, weaker."
Ms. Bellamy says her biggest worry now is the issue of trauma on the children. She views it as essential to get children back into schools, including temporary ones, "just to bring a little normalcy into an otherwise abnormal situation."
Ms. Bellamy has devoted most of her life to public service, between stints as a Wall Street lawyer and an investment banker. A Democrat, she was a New York State senator and the first woman elected president of the New York City Council. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala who later became the director of the Peace Corps. She will step down from Unicef in May, after two five-year terms.
For someone who arrives at work every day before 5 a.m. from her home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, she does not seem in the least worn out by her rigorous schedule.
Dressed in a black pantsuit and pink shirt, she is energetic and straightforward, talking briskly, during a long conversation. The daughter of a nurse and a telephone installer, she grew up in Scotch Plains, N.J., and graduated from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law.
Ms. Bellamy is not exactly a touchy-feely type, but there is a warmth to her office. It has something to do with those stuffed animals scattered about, including Elmo from "Sesame Street."
"I get all kinds of stuff," she says. She is single and has no children. On her desk is a serene photograph from her weekend house in Garrison, N.Y. She bought the house from a friend, Donna Shalala, the former secretary of health and human services. Ms. Bellamy says hiking and gardening are among her favorite hobbies.
So what is her legacy?
"I came into a strong organization, and I hope I strengthened it more and expanded its capacity to deal with some of the challenges that might not have seemed as great 10 years ago, such as H.I.V., AIDS and children affected by war," she says. "With H.I.V.-AIDS, we've dramatically increased our work in that area, but it seems so small in relation to this pandemic. It may be the worst disaster to ever hit the world at this point, and it is still growing. It is a global issue."
She disagrees with critics of her tenure who say her promotion of children's rights and women's issues in the last decade has detracted from the issue of child mortality. "Unicef is taking into account the broader implications of what contributes to child survival," she says. "It isn't as if we created a separate subset area. It's that gender issues run through all of it."
Ms. Bellamy leaves Unicef under rules that limit an agency head to two terms. She hopes to stay involved in international work dealing with young people.
"It's been a long time since I looked for a job," she says. "I forgot it's not a lot of fun."
