Category Archives: Disaster Relief

FWD the facts: Day of Action for the Horn of Africa

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Lindsey Talerico-Hedren in Disaster Relief

FWD > Day of Action for the Horn of Africa | World Vision blog

There are many goals we have for the future that help define our work as an organization: reducing global poverty, ending preventable child deaths, eradicating malaria, and so on. But just for today, we have another goal: to inspire 13.3 million Americans to FWD the facts about the drought and food crisis in the Horn of Africa, spreading awareness to ensure that the tragedy no longer goes overlooked. In partnership with USAID and the FWD (Famine, War, Drought Relief) campaign, World Vision is asking supporters to participate in today’s FWD>Day of Action for the Horn of Africa. How? It’s as simple as this: FWD the facts....

Covering Somalia: Are we doing enough?

Posted on November 4, 2011 by World Vision field communicators in Disaster Relief, Stories

Over the weekend, I read a memoir of the life of Ahmed Ali Haile, a great Somali whom I was blessed to meet earlier at Daystar University in Kenya, where I attended my undergraduate studies. Haile taught a course I took on understanding Islam — a course that would positively influence my relations with the Somalis with whom I work. In his memoir, Haile narrates his experience of famine in 1965, as a 12-year-old boy in central Somalia. His family and community had coping mechanisms that they practiced. But the continued conflict there has clearly cut off this pattern — and the consequences are devastating. Since I started working for World Vision three years ago, I have met many malnourished...

What disaster? 4 global crises that deserve more attention…

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Elizabeth Ranade-Janis in Disaster Relief

Today is a day of observance mostly unknown to people outside of the international relief and development world — the International Day for Disaster Reduction. But with the American media largely preoccupied with the goings-on of our dysfunctional political environment, I’m taking the opportunity to commemorate this day you’ve likely never heard of by talking about four disasters you’ve probably not heard too much about. These disasters impact vulnerable children and families, and they deserve more attention....

Photo journal: The images that haunt me

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Jon Warren in Disaster Relief, Stories

The images that haunt me | World Vision blog

Jon Warren recently spent nearly a month in Africa, documenting the ongoing food crisis and highlighting our work in the region. Upon returning home, he put this post together of some of his most memorable images that convey the tragic stories of people left at risk of starvation from an unrelenting drought and food crisis in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia....

Victory in the war on hunger? Achievable.

Posted on August 31, 2011 by David Scheiman, director, World Vision Africa programs in Disaster Relief

People from Lopeduru village in Kenya's drought-stricken Turkana district gather at a World Vision facilitated food distribution. ©2011 Abby Metty/World Vision

Anybody who recalls the terrible images of starving children that were shown on television during the famine that struck Ethiopia in the mid-1980s might be forgiven for feeling despair at the current stream of bad news flowing out of the Horn of Africa. That feeling will probably only be heightened by the realization that the current drought in the region is more severe and more widespread than the one that appalled us in the ’80s. Indeed, it’s the worst drought in the area in 60 years and more than 12.4 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Given this sort of challenge, it’s easy to throw up one’s hands in horror and give up. After all, what have...