CARE’s humanitarian approach: Predicting the future with women and girls in mind

CARE and local partners and UNHCR distribute relief items such as blankets, pillows, bed sheets, winter clothes for children, food and oil to Jordanian host communities and Syrian families. Photo: Chevy Morris/2013

Written by Brooke Gibbons, policy advisor, CARE Canada refugee programs

By nature, emergency and humanitarian professionals must be prepared for a grim future.

In 2020, it has been predicted that the world’s population will approach eight billion. Climate change will trigger a growing number of natural disasters. The increasing vulnerability of disaster-prone areas and the accelerated settlement of populations in remote regions of the world mean that these calamities will cause significant damage when they strike. States experiencing poor governance and civil conflict will face prolonged humanitarian crises and instability.

Women and girls are frequently the most vulnerable segment of such societies.

Malian Solidarity in a Time of Crisis

Guest blog post by Marie-Eve Bertrand, Quebec Director of Development, Communications and Fundraising for CARE Canada. Marie-Eve recently returned from Mali, where families are facing a difficult drought and food crisis.

Mali is an African country, located in a region commonly referred to as the Sahel. The Sahel, or Sahil in Arabic, is the border between the Sahara and more fertile and green lands.  It is a dividing zone, a mixture of cultures, people and tastes. Here in Mali, the number of ethnic groups and tribes are too numerous to count, yet  they still talk to me about tolerance, love and sharing.

CARE emergency response – Among the first to arrive, the last to leave

Sunday, August 19 is World Humanitarian Day. Do you know how CARE responds to emergencies?

When it comes to responding to an emergency, timing is crucial. That’s why CARE is fortunate to have the resources and experience necessary to act quickly. Every year, CARE provides urgent and immediate relief in natural disasters, conflict situations and humanitarian crises worldwide.

Our philosophy is simple, we are among the first to arrive and among the last to leave.

Watch our video to learn more.

You can help empower communities around the world to be stronger in the face of future disasters by supporting CARE Canada. Donate now.

 

 

Syrian Refugees in Jordan

Guest blog post by Thomas Schwarz, Director of International Communications for CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg. Thomas is currently in Jordan, where thousands of Syrian refugees have arrived.

Yesterday, as I flew from Frankfurt to Amman, Jordan, I read about the large numbers of Syrians fleeing their country.  They are on their way to Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon or Jordan, where I am now. The numbers are very high. The UN said they register around 450 people each day and about a quarter of them are here in Amman. In the coming days I will meet some of them.

The Time is Now for Development in Chad

Guest post by Kevin McCort, CEO, CARE Canada

One year ago I travelled to Kenya amid a devastating drought and food crisis that was affecting 12 million people in East Africa. Last summer I saw the outpouring of support from Canadians from coast to coast and because of that CARE was able to respond quickly and strongly.

However, one year later, I’ve just returned from Chad amid a similar crisis affecting countries in the Sahel Region of West Africa.

Unlike in East Africa where the UN declared famine in parts of Somalia, Chad and other countries in the region are not currently experiencing that worst-case scenario. Regardless of that, 18 million people in the Sahel region of West Africa face a severe food crisis. What struck me during this trip is that in some ways our success in preventing famine in Chad has actually impeded our ability to draw attention to this critical situation. The lack of a “highly visible tragedy” that a famine declaration provides just isn’t there. Although our efforts are averting a famine, we lack the means to support long-term development, which is worrisome because now is the time for development in Chad.

For the first time in a decade, Chad is experiencing peace and stability, particularly when compared to its neighbours in Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and the Central African Republic. It’s one of the country’s most stable periods, which has seen a history rife with civil war, armed rebellions, border conflicts and guerrilla campaigns.

Meeting with the Village Leaders

At CARE we have a window of opportunity to do truly effective and impactful development work in Chad. When we visited a small village near Biltine in the eastern part of the country, we gathered in a traditional way, sitting on mats under a large tree, sipping tea. As we engaged with female and male community leaders, we discussed how CARE had refurbished water supply points, how funds we raised through the HUMANITARIAN COALITION have helped with the current emergency. Throughout this meeting I kept wondering how we could take the next step, build on our successes and truly seize the golden moment for development.

Chad still faces challenges including a population of over 366,000 refugees, an economic collapse as cross-border trade dries up, and of course, the current drought. In addition to managing refugee camps in two separate regions of Chad that 60,000 refugees from Sudan and the Central African Republic call home, CARE is also scaling up its emergency response efforts to support both refugees and local community members who are struggling to feed their families.  

While in Chad, I visited a government run hospital where CARE was referring malnourished children. The head of the hospital (supported  by Médecins Sans Frontières), expressed a frustration at the number of children who successfully received treatment but reappeared at the hospital within weeks because there was not enough food at home to keep them healthy. He talked about how more resources were needed in the most severely affected communities to prevent this cycle. In its next phase of operations, CARE will target the communities where 6 to 7 per cent of the children are severely malnourished and a further 17 per cent generally malnourished.

What was striking to me was seeing the arm bands used to measure the circumference of these children’s arms. It was truly shocking to see these tiny little arm bands and how hundreds of children in Chad are really that thin.

Clearly CARE needs to continue to provide emergency assistance, but we also need and want to build on the opportunity for development. We will continue to invest in Chad and help families become stronger, healthier and better able to face challenges such as recurrent drought and economic downturns. We cannot and must not abandon Chad.

The real hunger games

Guest blog post by Kent Alexander, CARE USA’s General Counsel.

Driving from Niger’s capital Niamey to the town of Konni for five hours through the sand-swept, arid Sahel region, I listened to the audio book The Hunger Games. The novel opens with a scene of bleak poverty in a post-apocalyptic town called District 12. Dirt, grime, threadbare clothing, scarce food.

Enroute to the town of Konni, Niger.

Looking out the window at the mud-and-thatch structures and the gaunt, colorfully dressed women floating by my window, I couldn’t help but think Niger was District 12 on steroids. Here, people are experiencing ‘the hungry season’, and it is certainly neither a novel nor a movie. It’s very real.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile about the difference people here are making in partnership with CARE.

Having joined CARE as general counsel just last April, this is my first trip to a region deep in the throes of crisis. This is poverty as I’ve never seen.

The facts? Niger ranks 186th out of 187 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index, putting it in a dead heat with the Democratic Republic of Congo as the least developed country on earth. Most adults over 25 have precious little formal education, and an overwhelming majority are illiterate. Particularly hard hit are Niger’s women and children, always the most vulnerable to poverty. Conflicts simmer on three bordering countries. And among many other challenges facing Niger, a catastrophic drought is underway.

According to a recent report over 10 million of Niger’s 16 million citizens will run out of food stocks well before the next harvest, expected around October. All families have cut back on their food consumption. Most who I met are down to one meal a day.

The country is on the proverbial brink. Without help, many will suffer irreparable physical harm; many will lose their lives.

A young girl in Ayyawane.

When we arrived at Ayyawane hundreds of people gathered for a welcoming ceremony. During the program, young children presented formal requests in envelopes to the group of visitors from CARE. Their number one request? Not toys, not new clothes, and certainly not a trip to Disney World. Drinking water. Water! This was especially striking because Ayyawane was by far the most ‘affluent’ of the villages we visited.

So the uplifting parts of the visits? There were certainly many.

While in Ayyawane, we visited a garden made possible by five wells that CARE had dug through the years. Outside the garden stood a huge grove of trees, greenery rarely seen in most of Niger. The mayor told us they planted all those trees with support from CARE more than thirty years ago, when he was just 11. The grove now serves as a ready source of wood for energy and construction, which villagers maintain, planting new trees as they log.

Women pose with the vegetable gardens in the village of Ayyawane (Tahoua region, Niger).

In another village, Bangoukoirey (please don’t ask me to pronounce it!), I saw one of CARE’s savings and loan groups in action. Each of the three dozen or so women members stepped forward to contribute their week’s savings of 500 CFA ($1 CAD) or less into a pooled fund, which they could later use to make and collect small development loans. The president of the group, colorfully dressed in a green, black and blue striped robe with a purple scarf, told me she had been saving for six years. During that time she had used the loans to buy poultry, two oxen and a cart, and had repaid all the money with interest. But life was still hard. With the drought underway, there is no longer money for the future and not enough for food and water now.

On the long drive back to the capital city of Niamey, I listened to the rest of The Hunger Games and watched more villages roll by. My mind wandered to the real life hungry season and the onset of a food crisis in Niger. Suzanne Collins’s book, compelling to most, seemed almost trite as I thought – and continue to think – about how to make the crisis in the Sahel compelling to all those who will never see it firsthand. How to avoid a severe crisis like what we are now seeing in the Horn of Africa? How to preserve the development progress made to date through the efforts of CARE, other NGO’s, the UN, the government and the people? How to help the adults and children of the Sahel with such strong spirits and determination avoid going beyond the tipping point, when no amount of aid can bring them back?

Learn more about the Sahel Region Food Crisis.

CARE responds to floods in Thailand

Thailand is currently experiencing the most severe flooding the country has seen since 1995, with almost the entire country affected by the flood. We talked to  Promboon Panitchpakdi, Executive Director Raks Thai Foundation (CARE Thailand), about the situation and what CARE is doing to support those affected.

Thailand has been experiencing severe floods for several weeks now. How is the situation at the moment?
Almost 60 of the country’s 76 provinces and nearly eight million people have been affected. Although the rains have stopped, water is flowing from the north to the south, inundating large areas and destroying homes, roads, farmlands and industrial compounds. Many businesses had to close down and I fear that after this natural disaster, Thailand will face an economic crisis.

A female migrant worker makes her through floodwaters. The high water levels are hampering transportation and access to affected populations. (Photo: Raks Thai)

The bulk of water is in the central provinces and in some areas it has risen up to three meters. People need boats or trucks to move around and to provide assistance to those in need. More than 300 people have died, mainly due to drowning and electric shocks. The provinces will stay inundated for at least one more month, some even longer.

How have the floods affected Bangkok?
Bangkok is located right at the southern spot where the water is flowing. So the water coming from the north flows into the Chaopraya river, which runs through the capital city. This means that eventually Bangkok will be flooded to the same extent as the other provinces, with water masses standing between one and three meters high.

The government is trying to divert the water west of the city, where there are suburbs, so a lot of people are being evacuated. But even with all these efforts, the water gradually creeps closer. People are building sand bag dykes and trying to irrigate the many canals into the sea. But most calculations say that more and more areas of Bangkok will become flooded – including our office. We will need to relocate our key staff to a city outside of Bangkok.

How are the floods affecting people?
The floods have destroyed houses, crops and livelihoods. In those areas that have been flooded for almost one month now, water and sanitation conditions are very poor and people have started to become sick with diarrhea and other diseases that come with dirty water. Many evacuation centers are crowded and ill-equipped, without enough supplies to assist people who have lost everything.

Raks Thai Foundation is preparing 1,500 survival kits for migrant workers in Muang District, Pathumthani. Most of the migrants are afraid to evacuate, fearing prosecution or extortion by authorities. Photo: Raks Thai

But those affected most are marginalized groups, such as migrant workers. There are around three million migrant workers in Thailand that live here either with or without documents, most of them coming from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. They isolate themselves from the Thai population through their language, uncertain status and fear of extortion. There is a real risk that they will be excluded from relief efforts.

Migrant workers who are staying in apartment buildings are isolated, many are lacking food, water and other basic supplies and some of them have no access to public health services. They cannot travel to their homelands because their travel documents are often kept by their employer. Many have lost their jobs and their means to support their families.

How is Raks Thai assisting the migrant workers?
Raks Thai will support almost 25,000 migrant workers, women and children in four provinces with food, clean water and essential relief items. We will organize and facilitate the transport of vulnerable people to emergency shelters and temporary accommodation. We plan to install water supply systems and implement sanitation and waste management systems.

Raks Thai Foundation was established in 1997 and became a member of CARE International in 2003. Learn more about CARE’s work in Thailand.