As Father’s Day is celebrated across nearly 90 countries this month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Vietnam on June 14^th launched a parenting website, bringing fathers together to share their parenthood experiences.

UNICEF is calling for more support for fathers globally, including for policies that give parents the time and resources they need to spend quality time with their children. (Photo: UNICEF)

This is part of the UNICEF’s “Super Dads” campaign which is implemented to recognise the role of fathers in their children’s early development.

UNICEF is calling for more support for fathers globally, including for policies that give parents time and resources they need to spend quality time with their children. It also uses the Father’s Day to renew its call to break down cultural and financial barriers preventing fathers from spending quality time with their young children.

The online site will bring together fathers from across the world to share their parenting tips, their struggles, their needs, and their successes. It will also feature ‘mini parenting master classes’, the first of which features UNICEF Global Chief of Early Childhood Development Dr. Pia Britto explaining to Sesame Street’s Grover the importance of protection, stimulation and good nutrition for healthy brain development.

“Super Dads” campaign is intended to remind parents everywhere that when fathers nurture their babies in their earliest years of life by providing love and protection, playing with them and supporting their nutrition, their children will learn better, have less behavioural issues, and become healthier and happier human beings.

Joining in the campaign, Actor Xuan Bac, UNICEF Vietnam Goodwill Ambassador, said, “Spending more time and playing more with children as well as do little things with them will help enhance parent-child relationship and benefit their physical and psychological development”.

UNICEF is also using Father’s Day to renew its call to break down cultural and financial barriers preventing fathers from spending quality time with their young children.

“There is no time more critical for brain development than the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, and there’s a growing body of evidence that fathers hold a huge stake in this process. Yet this evidence is not being matched with investment in the support that fathers urgently need to step-up and be the best they can be,” said Britto./.

VNF/NDO