Your Impact
All we did together in 2019 started with love, ended with action and resulted in joy for over 300,000 people who you helped in some way.
*Total income (CAD) received by our field office from Partners Relief & Development’s registered charities in Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. The accomplishments detailed in this report are the result of our combined efforts.
Thailand
You worked in migrant communities and amongst refugee populations to provide greater access to education and health care, while also investing in the training of migrants to gain employment so they can financially support their families.
1,801
Patients Treated.
Rural communities are benefitting from the increasing standard of healthcare provided by local health workers through Lay Tong Ku Health Center.
1,453
Days For Girls Kits Produced.
Not only do you employ women from migrant communities to sew them, but the kits they’re making are helping restore some dignity to those receiving them.
875
Refugee and migrant students supported.
For children who have suffered from the effects of war and poverty, the community-based care and education programs you support are helping to set them up for success.
411 gifts
for Christmas.
You responded with wild generosity and hundreds of gifts for kids and families caught in oppression and we can’t thank you enough. This is what you bought, and what they received.
Myanmar
As human right abuses continued in Myanmar, you provided food for those displaced by conflict, while also investing in better health care, education and farming practices in communities recovering from decades of war.
72,221
Instances of relief delivered.
That's the number of separate times in 2019 that help was given across Myanmar, otherwise known as 72,221 times you delivered love.
7,429
Children in Education Initiatives.
That's 7,429 kids who will grow up educated and able to provide for their families, potentially breaking the cycle of poverty that conflict and oppression create.
461
Agricultural training attendees.
That means there are now 461 farmers who who are using what they learned to feed their families and training their neighbors to do the same.
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."Helen Keller
Bangladesh
As almost a million Rohingya are still living in limbo in some of the largest refugee camps in the world, you’re still there providing life-saving relief, medical care and education support to families who have lost almost everything.
1,943
Infant Nutrition Packs Distributed.
From red (severely malnourished), right past yellow (slightly malnourished) through to green: healthy baby! That is our goal. These nutrition packs get us there.
1,554
Family food packs delivered.
That is enough to feed roughly 7,770 people for weeks. You paid that ginormous grocery bill.
39
Sanitation Solutions Installed.
Ever wonder where thousands of people in a refugee camp use the bathroom? Privately and with dignity, wherever you've helped install one of these, that’s where.
You smashed #GivingTuesday. Again.
We thought our US$60,000 goal was outrageous. But you met it with outrageous generosity, raising US$93,717 so that 30,000 people in eastern Myanmar can have better access to healthcare for their children.
Syria
Care for children orphaned by war, food for the victims of bombings, schools destroyed by ISIS rebuilt and reopened. These were just some of the ways you brought God’s love into one of the world’s most devastating conflicts.
4.9
Million meals served. In cold weather, nothing tastes better, except maybe your mother’s chicken soup. And to a hungry child, all food is comfort food.
1,012
Students back in 2 rebuilt schools.
What ISIS destroyed with hate and closed for years, you rebuilt with love that will keep multiplying every single year.
war zone. Read Loreen’s story.
40,500
People given access to health care.
The newly-rebuilt clinic has a queue of patients out the door almost daily and our hospitainer is on the road. And with one of the only dental clinics for miles, your love makes people smile. Literally.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.Isaiah 1:17
Iraq
You were there to bring healing and hope to communities who have been left deeply scared by years of war. You met those still displaced with food parcels, trained trauma counselors to begin healing the hearts of the youngest victims of a brutal conflict and reopened a school that will leave a lasting impact.
82
Family food packs distributed.
Even on the run or in a refugee camp, when a family can cook a meal and eat it together, they are reminded of home, and that they belong to each other.
class again. Read Omar’s story.
150
Children provided trauma care
This is Hard with a capital “H”. And Hopeful too. Kids traumatized by the violence done to them by ISIS go through 3 months of trauma care with professionals and come out on the other side talking, smiling a bit more, even playing.
146
Students back in one refurbished school.
What conflict destroyed, you rebuilt with love that will keep multiplying with every single student that can now attend school.
Thank You. 317,650 times.
2019 was an incredible year that was only made possible becasue of our amazing global support community. Thank you for giving, praying and fundraising to fuel our work.
Naw Tamular
In 2008, Naw Tamular arrived at Mae La Refugee camp with her sister to study in a safer environment, eventually moving into a community-based home supported by Partners.
She would go on to complete her high school education while living in the home. “I will never forget my time living in the Karen Refugee camp”, she shares. In the home, Tamular could study and pursue her faith and hobbies with the security of knowing she was cared for and safe from the violence happening in Karen State.
After high school, Tamular went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Education and worked as a teacher. However, she saw gaps in the education system that she longed to fill and decided to pursue further studies. “When I look at myself, I realize that I’m not qualified to share my knowledge with my community. Because I worked in education, I want to help my Karen people to have a better quality of education.”
Because Tamular’s bachelor’s degree is unrecognized by Myanmar’s government, she needs to pass the GED exam to pursue higher education in a recognized University. Partners’ GED program is helping make this dream a reality. Tamular began the program in June 2019 and aims to pass the GED test in the Spring, after which she will and attend Asia Pacific International University.
“God has guided my path and given me a charge to work for my people. In everything I do, before I do it, I ask God first. God is telling me to teach and work in education.”
Saw Alexer
Saw Alexer is a husband and father of four responsible for leading the Parent-Teacher Association at his children’s school in Karen State, Myanmar.
In 2018 the association asked Partners to start a Sustainable Schools program at their school. The Sustainable Schools program helps schools become self-sufficient by providing funding to start a small business or other income-generating project. Parents, students, and the community work together to manage the business, and the profits are used to pay teachers, keep the school running, and give students the education they deserve.
This cycle benefits the entire community. Agriculture and livestock operations teach methods of farming that are healthy for the environment. Those working in the small businesses that support the school learn vocational skills, and the people living around the school benefit from the goods and services provided by the projects.
Conflict and oppression may be ongoing in Karen state, but no child should miss out on education because of their circumstances. That’s why Saw Alexer’s family is deeply involved in caring for their children’s school. He operates the school farm that sells produce at the market, and his wife looks after the sustainable school shop. The profits earned from these projects generate the income that keeps their children’s school thriving. For the 2019-2020 academic year there are 730 students and 33 teachers at the school.
Thus, the process continues, and grows, sustaining generations of education and keeping communities healthy in spite of conflict.
Mamun
Mamun is a young boy who has seen what no young boy should. In 2018, his village in Myanmar was attacked and his family had to run for their lives.
Tragically, his Mom and Dad did not make it. Mamun was literally left for dead face down in the mud and water near the river. At the age of just 6 years old he had been beaten by people filled with hate and left to die.
When another Rohingya family was passing by, the father stopped to check on this little body in the mud. Mamun was still alive. That family, complete strangers, took Mamun into their family and saved his life. Fast-forward almost two years and one of our local partners in Bangladesh was looking for children in need of education who could not afford to attend school. Mamun was found again.
Seeing the photo of such a smiling face, one would never know what he has endured. But it was love that reached out and pulled him out of the mud. And now love has reached out again and reminded him of his value by providing him with the opportunity to go to school and receive an education.
What does the future hold for this young boy? He still suffers physically from the beating he endured. But we believe the future for “the found one” will be far greater than we can ever ask for or think.
Loreen
She may have been one of the youngest of the 300,000+ people displaced as a result of Turkey’s offensive in north-eastern Syria in October 2019.
When our team met her parents, three sisters and two sons at a school where Partners was providing meals to displaced families, they immediately shuffled places, gave our team plates and spoons and invited them to eat dinner with them on the floor of the classroom.
Her parents shared how they'd saved up for 20 years to build a family home. Shortly after it was finished and they had settled in to await the arrival of their baby, the shelling started. So they ran. After sleeping on the desert ground for three days with their five children, they were able to catch a ride with someone who brought them to the shelter. When they finally arrived, Loreen’s mum went into labor and gave birth.
While they made it to safety and baby Loreen is alive and well, her grandfather did not make it. Despite their begging, he had insisted that he would rather die than be forced to flee his home and run for his life. He was shot and killed.
This is what war looks like. It is hell. And it’s why we do what we can for families like these, distributing cooked meals, food parcels, mattresses, blankets, infant formula, diapers and other critical relief items.
Omar
It’s entirely possible that not every kid would think heading back to school is something worth celebrating, but for Omar, starting his school year was a big event.
Omar is 12 years old and lives in a village in Kurdistan whose population is almost entirely made up of internally displaced Yazidi families. Following ISIS’s genocide of Yazidis in Sinjar Mountain in 2014, a great number of families fled to this area. While the village did have a school building, it had been closed due to a lack of funding and was being used to house livestock, meaning there was no place for children like Omar to go to school.
Because we believe that children shouldn’t miss out on an education because of conflict, our team began work in 2019 to help the local community get the school up and running again through The Amar Project. This project identifies schools that have been damaged or destroyed as a result of conflict and partners together with locals to rebuild classrooms and get kids back into school.
And that’s exactly what we were able to do with Omar’s school. Seeing him and 145 other students running excitedly into newly renovated classrooms is cause for celebration.
“Thank you for renovating our school”, Omar said to our team at the school opening. His aim is to one day become a professor. Another in his class wants to be a doctor. All of these kids have dreams about what they want to be when they grow up. Now that is a possibility because they have access to the education they deserve.