Syrian Refugee Relief Fund

After fighting broke out in northeast Syria last month, conditions for Syrian refugees are as critical as ever. An estimated 180,000 individuals, including 80,000 children, had to flee their homes and communities. The United Nations reports that vital infrastructure has been damaged in the fighting, including clean water sources. Additionally, the onset of colder weather heightens displaced Syrians’ need to escape the violence even further.

We are so grateful for your support at such a crucial moment for Syrian refugees. Your support continues to make a difference to our nonprofit leaders and the communities they serve.

For example, your support is helping our nonprofit partners provide immediate relief to those in need of food, water, shelter, and other basic necessities.

• Since May, CARE has reached more than 70,000 individuals in northwest Syria with emergency supplies, such as hygiene kits, food rations, cash assistance, mobile health clinics, and clean drinking water. Despite some of their health centers sustaining damage from nearby bombings earlier in the year, CARE is continuing to coordinate with local partners to best assist the most vulnerable survivors, especially women and girls. 
• In the past year, Peace Winds America has constructed more than 800 durable shelters for Syrian refugees that have fled to northern Iraq (Kurdistan). They partner with the community in this work by training and employing refugees throughout the construction process, offering them the opportunity to gain much-needed income. Peace Winds is also distributing food kits to families, along with water and clothes.

Additionally, your generosity is helping our partners provide important psychosocial support needed to help refugee children begin to heal from the traumas of war and displacement.

• The UN Refugee Agency reports that more than half of all refugees are under the age of 18. Our partner, Emfasis Foundation, created a PhotoTherapy project in Greece to serve this growing population and provide them with much-needed psychosocial support. Through Emfasis’s work, refugee children have a safe place to express their thoughts and emotions, process their trauma, and find community.
• International Association for Human Values (IAHV) is responding to high rates of mental illness in refugee children by providing a variety of programs tailored to meet children’s specific mental and emotional needs. So far, IAHV has served 18,000 children through integrated trauma-relief, healing, and resilience workshops. They have also provided 400 children at risk of recruitment by armed groups with in-depth training in human values and non-violent empowerment.

Watch your inbox in the coming months for more stories of how your donations are making the world a brighter place. Thank you again for your generous support of the Syrian Refugee Relief Fund that makes a community-focused response to the ongoing refugee crisis possible. 

Warmly,

Claire Hilton + the GlobalGiving Team