By Andrew Denu | Program Fellow, GlobalGiving
It has been over a year since the UN announced the largest humanitarian crisis in the world since 1945: the drought and famine which has wreaked havoc on millions throughout East Africa, Yemen, and northeast Nigeria.
Luckily our nonprofit partners have donors like you. With your generous support, our partners on the ground reached affected communities with life-saving relief services. The situation in East Africa has improved dramatically with the help of our GlobalGiving partners, other relief entities, and abundant rainfall in March and April, which makes this a good time to celebrate the accomplishments of our partners.
One organization mounted a unique response to an overlooked issue that sometimes arises when children flee from drought and resulting resource conflict in their communities. The drought hit northern Kenya harder than any other region of the country. Child Rescue Kenya (CRK), an NGO that focuses on reintegrating children living on the streets back into their families in the western Kenya city of Kitale, had to pivot their operations to accommodate the new arrivals of children due to the drought. These children were exposed to drugs, poor diet, and abuse in a city that was foreign to them. CRK stepped up and scaled up. Their social workers traveled throughout Kitale to identify new arrivals on the street and refer them to their short-term or long-term centers, depending on the specific need of the child. CRK staff then visited and provided resources to children’s families, such as business grants or bio-intensive agriculture training, which is particularly important to build resilience and take advantage of limited resources and rainfall. If there’s no family in the picture, CRK provides long-term, holistic services, such as education and housing.
World Vision reached over 3.1 million people in East Africa with food and livelihood assistance. Concern Worldwide was able to recently make cash transfers to 1,606 vulnerable households in southern Somalia, a region dealing with significant food insecurity.
Thank you again for standing with people affected by drought and famine, and for making the smart choice to donate in support of community-led disaster recovery efforts.
Warmly,
Andrew Denu + the GlobalGiving Team
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When a disaster strikes, recovery efforts led by people who live and work in affected communities are often overlooked and underfunded. GlobalGiving is changing this reality. Since 2004, we've been shifting decision-making power to crises-affected communities through trust-based grantmaking and support.
We make it easy, quick, and safe to support people on the ground who understand needs in their communities better than anyone else.
They were there long before the news cameras arrived, and they’ll be there long after the cameras leave. They know how to make their communities more resilient to future disasters, and they’re already hard at work. GlobalGiving puts donations and grants directly into their hands. Because the status quo—which gives the vast majority of funding to a few large organizations—doesn’t make sense.
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