A REFUGE FOR EVERY CHILD

Nyenhuis spent the first 10 years of his career as a journalist with a passion for covering public health issues. In the mid-1990s while reporting on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Central America, he witnessed the profound impact a global nongovernmental organization (NGO) could have in developing countries. This experience would go on to shift—and shape—the rest of Nyenhuis’s career.

“I ended up in this little village in Honduras and I met a local nurse who was a dynamo in serving her community,” he says. “She had been taught by MAP International, a nonprofit medical relief agency, and I was just so impressed with her and all the training she’d been given. As I shadowed her working with HIV patients, I had this kind of epiphany moment. I didn’t want to be just an observer—I wanted to be an active participant. I wanted to be like her, making a real difference in this world.”

Nyenhuis studied up on the NGO. The Brunswick, Georgia-based MAP International works to secure medicines, supplies, and training for hospitals and clinics located in remote parts of the world. Impressed by all he learned, he leveraged his journalism background to land a job heading up the organization’s communications efforts.

But he didn’t remain in that role for long. During the next six years, Nyenhuis moved up the ranks and eventually became MAP International’s president and CEO.

“I happened to join MAP at the right time,” he says. “Sometimes I think when you really find your calling, the doors just keep opening.”

One of those doors was to Emory University and Goizueta Business School. Jeffrey Rosensweig, associate professor of finance, joined MAP International’s advisory board and was instrumental in helping the organization extend its networks into the Atlanta area.

“Jeff’s a brilliant economist and truly a global thinker,” Nyenhuis says. “He proved to be a great counselor to me and MAP.”

Over time, Rosensweig convinced Nyenhuis that pursuing a formal business education would help him better lead the organization. After all, MAP International wasn’t just a nonprofit, Rosensweig reminded him, it operated like a global business with offices in 10 countries and held contracts with national governments and major corporations.

Following the encouragement of Rosensweig, Nyenhuis enrolled in Goizueta’s Executive MBA program. “It really opened my eyes working with a cohort of students who had experience in the traditional corporate world,” he says. “I learned a lot, especially about developing a strategic vision and looking at MAP International as a financial organism that needs to sustain itself. I found it also really helpful to brush up on core business principles and grow to understand the mindset of different types of business partners.”

One of Nyenhuis’s proudest achievements at MAP International was forging a partnership with former President Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center to eradicate the Guinea worm from the West African country of Côte d'Ivoire. “We already had staff on the ground in the country, and we served as the hands and feet of the effort there,” Nyenhuis says. “It was a major moment in my life when we saw the last case of Guinea worm in Côte d'Ivoire.”

After 13 successful years with MAP International, Nyenhuis left in 2014 to lead Americares, a Connecticut-based global nonprofit dedicated to helping people impacted by disaster and poverty gain access to quality health care. “The Emory network helped me get this new role as two members of the selection committee were board members with strong ties to the university,” he says.

UNICEF USA recruited Nyenhuis just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning and he became president and CEO two weeks after much of the country went on lock down. “Even though I had to learn about the organization remotely and we all had to adapt to hybrid working here in the States, we were very productive and enjoyed a couple great years of raising money and awareness,” he says.

In addition to raising awareness and soliciting donations for critical issues affecting children across the world, UNICEF USA also plays a crucial role in lobbying the US Congress and advocating for the creation of legislation to support the rights of children both at home and abroad. “We have a great team that we mobilize in Washington, DC, as well as across the country to make our country and the world a safer, better place for children,” Nyenhuis says.

While the war in Ukraine remains a major focal point for UNICEF’s efforts, it is just one of nearly 500 new and ongoing humanitarian crises that the organization is tackling in more than 150 countries. Right now, tens of millions of children and their families globally are victims of war, poverty, famine, human trafficking, poor sanitation, and lack of quality health care. All are in dire need of help.

Case in point: The Horn of Africa is currently the center of one of the worst global hunger crises the world has ever known. The region has suffered several years of relentless drought, and UNICEF estimates that 10 million children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. “Global warming, internal conflicts, and the war in Ukraine have all exacerbated the situation, as grain imports haven’t been able to reach those affected,” Nyenhuis says.

“In my 25 years in humanitarian and development work, this hunger crisis ranks among the worst, along with the Asian tsunamis, the Haiti earthquakes and the war in Ukraine,” he says. “Unfortunately, most people in the world aren’t aware of how bad things are. It’s my job—UNICEF USA’s job—to drive greater attention to this issue. Media coverage drives donations, as you might expect.”

In addition to the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, there are also devastating humanitarian situations in Syria and Yemen, and numerous other places across the globe. “UNICEF is uniquely positioned to help out on all these fronts, because of its global scale and reach,” Nyenhuis says.

For many outsiders looking in, such problems seem overwhelming. “A lot of people tell me the world’s problems are too big to fix,” he says. “They say they don’t know why we even try. We try because there are people, there are children, who have nowhere else to turn.”

Nyenhuis, however, remains optimistic about humanity’s ability to tackle such weighty challenges. “The reality is that the world is a much better, much healthier place for children and others than it was 30 or 40 years ago,” he says. “And that’s because of the work of organizations like UNICEF and MAP International and Americares and others. The stats bear it out—there are more kids than ever in school, childhood vaccinations are higher, childhood deaths are lower.”

He points out that, since 1980, the percent of children born each year who died from preventable causes has dropped from 10 percent to under 3 percent, thanks to advances in health care and humanitarian efforts made by NGOs.

“Our work is not a hopeless cause or delaying of the inevitable,” Nyenhuis says. “There is a path to a better life for kids across the globe. We are making a real difference, though sometimes it comes gradually. We have learned that no matter what obstacle we face, we can beat it. We just have to stick with it.”

Written by Roger Slavens. Design by Elizabeth Hautau Karp. Photos and videos courtesy of UNICEF.