Y Care International and partners providing aid in East Africa

29 September 2011

More than 13 million people are suffering as a result of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa. Thanks to your donations, Y Care International's partners Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are providing life-saving humanitarian aid supplying life-saving food, water, medical care and shelter to people fleeing the drought.

Refugees and ACT Alliance workers pitch a tent in Dadaab camp, managed by The Lutherian World Federation

ACT Alliance/Paul Jeffrey

What is being done?
NCA has distributed packages to thousands of households affected by fighting between militia groups and government forces. In one Somali district over 30,000 people have received food items and 4,000 people, mostly women, were provided with life-saving water – 5 litres per person per day.

LWF manages Dadaab’s site planning, camp peace and security. New arrivals are searched for weapons so that camps are not infiltrated by armed militia groups. Families fleeing famine and conflict get life-saving emergency help. Fatouma Mohammed, 50, left Somalia a month ago with her daughter and the eight children they have between them:

Sagul Mohammed Omar feeds her children in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya

ACT Alliance/Paul Jeffrey

“I am pleased that the agencies will help us to settle somewhere,” she said. “I hope at some time they will help me to build a durable structure to live in, but now I am very happy to have a tent.”

And both NCA and LWF plan to do more – with your help. Donations from Y Care International’s supporters will provide refugees with packages including rice, beans and vegetable oil as well as blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets, soap, water jerry cans and sleeping mats. We will also be contributing to long-term solutions such as providing farmers with livestock and drought-resistant crop seeds like beans and maize so that livelihoods can be rebuilt.

Y Care International would particularly like to thank Nationwide Building Society which collected a large proportion of the total raised.

You can still donate via our website, or in any of the YMCA’s shops across the country by handing in your donation at the counter and at the following building societies: Cambridge, Cheltenham and Gloucester, Coventry, Cumberland, Norwich and Peterborough, Nationwide, Northern Rock ,Principality, Progressive, Skipton, Yorkshire, Chelsea, Barnsley.