Your Impact
This is what it looks like when you choose to live with less so they can live with more. This is your impact in 2018.
*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.
4,198
Patients Treated.
Rural communities are benefitting from the increasing standard of healthcare provided by local health workers through Lay Tong Ku Health Center.
1,707
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.
580
Refugee and migrant students supported.
For children who have suffered from the effects of war and poverty, the community-based care you help provide means they have the chance to go to school.
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.
151,529
Instances of relief delivered.
That's the number of separate times in 2018 that help was given across Myanmar, otherwise known as 151,529 times you delivered love.
2,172
Children in Education Initiatives.
That's 2,172 kids who will grow up educated and able to provide for their families, potentially breaking the cycle of poverty that conflict and oppression create.
307
Agricultural training attendees.
That means there are now 307 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.
2,400
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.
6,504
Family food packs delivered.
That is enough to feed roughly 32,500 people for weeks. You paid that ginormous grocery bill.
98
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.
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.
41,600
People served hot meals. In cold weather, nothing tastes better, except maybe your mother’s chicken soup. And to a hungry child, all food is comfort food.
924
Students back in one rebuilt school.
What ISIS destroyed with hate and closed for five whole years, you rebuilt with love that will keep multiplying every single year.
6,100
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
Yemen
Described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, the impact of Yemen’s civil war is beyond comprehension, with 8 million children going hungry every day. Although just a drop in an ocean of great need, you entered into this crisis with us to provide food to hundreds of starving families.
3,693
Food Parcels Distributed.
Sustainable development is always the goal. But when people are hungry, they just really need to eat. We find the hungry and show up with big bags of groceries.
great loss. Read Sameeh’s story.
Iraq
As the last strongholds of ISIS fell, you were there to bring healing and hope to communities who have been left deeply scared. You met those still displaced with food parcels and trained trauma counselors to begin healing the hearts of the youngest victims of a brutal conflict.
236
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.
50
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.
Thank You. 344,621 times.
2018 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 with children and communities affected by conflict and oppression.
Gee Sam
Gee Sam is from Kachin State, Myanmar and has been training in our sewing program. In four months, she went from not knowing how to sew at all to making her own dresses and bags.
So how did this happen? After being forced to flee her home due to conflict with the Myanmar Army, Gee Sam spent seven years living in a camp for internally displaced people. But even then, she wasn’t safe. One day soldiers arrived at the camp to force the young people to become soldiers, so she ran again, this time to the China border where she tried to find work. But then you entered her story.
You helped provide the opportunity and funds for her to travel to Partners’ sewing training center in Thailand to learn how to sew. After completing her training, our team equipped her with fabric, materials and sewing machines to take to Kachin State to begin a sewing project where she will train others from the IDP camps.
Gee Sam shares, “It has been very good for me to learn how to sew. I am very happy to go back and train people in the Kachin IDP Camp. Thank you, Partners, for this opportunity.”
This is how women thrive - and not merely survive - in less-than-ideal circumstances, and we are proud of them.
Saw Lay Taw
Saw Lay Taw loves playing piano, excels at studying English but finds geography a bit of a challenge.
He’s one of hundreds of disadvantaged children who have been given access to education because of the community-based homes you help support in Karen State, Myanmar.
Saw Lay Taw came to ‘Beautiful Home’, a community-based home you support, in 2012 because his parents were financially stressed and unable to support him to complete his secondary education. But thanks to you, Saw Lay Taw is just about to finish school and is dreaming about what’s next. “I would like to study about medicine for my future to be able to help my people.”
So many children in Karen State like Saw Lay Taw are disadvantaged because of the effects of decades of conflict with the Myanmar Army. But with safe housing, proper clothing, nutrition, hygiene, and love, these children have the chance to complete their studies. And that’s exactly what community-based homes like ‘Beautiful Home’ provide to these children, opening the door to a brighter future.
“I would like to thank Partners who provide the shelter and provide our living support at the dormitory to be able to continue our education. Lots of people have passed their school here and some of them go back and work in their community and some of them go to further study. Because of your support we can receive further education. We thank every one of you very much and God be with you.”
We believe children everywhere deserve the chance to receive a full education, even if they’re growing up in a conflict zone. That’s why we’re so excited when we see a student like Saw Lay Taw finish school and continue on to pursue their dreams.
Ibrahim
Meet Ibrahim, who is 9 years old and his sister Nurankis, 11. He loves to play cricket and she loves to eat oranges.
They could be like any other children. Except they are Rohingya. And like so many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, life is a daily struggle just to survive. With their father having passed away, their mother works at a nearby restaurant 13 hours a day, 7 days a week and earns just $45 a month.
Thankfully, both Ibrahim and Nurankis were able to attend a local school in 2018 because what you want for your own children, you want for them. Partners provided funding to their school to provide lunch for every student each day. This may seem a small gesture, but think about how hard it is for children to learn when they are hungry; the lunch you provide changes that because with full bellies, they’re able to focus more on their work and earn higher grades.
Greater still, you provided the families of children attending their school with food packs that gave them a whole month of meals. In fact, Ibrahim and his sister were able to bring home one of those parcels to their mother!
Our prayer is that these children can continue to learn and realize their dreams. As Rohingya, their path is filled with many challenges. But today, Ibrahim, Nurankis and their classmates have full tummies and a hope for their future, which brings us joy.
Majd
Majd is one of five children. His mother became a widow when his father was killed in an air strike in the battle to take control of Tapqah, Syria.
Our team met Majd's family when they arrived to distribute food parcels to 1,635 families displaced by the bombings. With the wounds he received in the airstrike still clearly visible, our team heard from his mother how she and her children remained stranded without shelter, living in half of a house remaining in one of the buildings that was bombed.
She could barely speak because of the extreme cold and was sad because of the hunger they suffered from and the lack of any help since they had fled. This was the case of most of the widows we met in this community. This is not ok; nobody should live through a winter without heat in half a house without any food. Nobody. But Majd and his family received food because you fed them. Your donations go to real people in real crises and give real and necessary help.
Sameeh
When you invest in the lives of children and families displaced by violence, we believe you should know the impact that your gift has had.
And while we can show you your impact in numbers, there’s something special about reading the name and seeing the face of someone special that you’ve helped.
This is Sameeh, who is one of the nearly 8 million children in Yemen who face hunger each day because of the country’s 3 year long war. Sameeh tragically lost his father when an air strike hit a wedding he was attending. But through our local partners, you provided help for Sameeh and other children like him. When our partners went to his home in al-Raqeh area of Bani Quiss in Hajjeh, they were able to deliver a food parcel that was paid for by you. Feeding Sameeh is just one instance of thousands where you responded to a need and demonstrated once again what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Because no child, no matter where they’re growing up, should ever go hungry.
Thank you for giving Sameeh food to eat, but also for reminding families ripped apart by the war in Yemen that they are loved and not forgotten.
Hinda
Right from the start, seven-year-old Hinda and her five-year-old brother Kayro stood out from the crowd of 50 children who had arrived to attend a trauma care workshop for children affected by ISIS’s brutal occupation of Northern Iraq.
Standing hand in hand, they were dressed nicely and continued to always keeps an eye on one another. But seldom did they smile.
Our team had the opportunity to meet their mother, Hajar, who shared with them the harrowing journey their family had faced over the past 10 years. Victims of a terrorist attack in Sinjar mountain in 2007, the family had faced great hardship due to the injuries her husband sustained. But the real tragedy began in August 2014 when ISIS came and took their villages. They killed, tortured and kidnapped so many. The family had no time to collect their belongings before escaping in their car, but soon realized even that was too dangerous. After parking their car, they walked seven days to another village where safety wasn’t to be found. So began another seven-day journey on foot to a refugee camp in Syria.
It wasn’t long though before bad men infiltrated the camps and began recruiting. Once again, the family was forced to flee. When they finally arrived at a refugee camp in Duhok, Hinda’s family had been on the move for a whole year.
As if they hadn’t faced enough, her father soon become unwell and began to deteriorate rapidly. At the hospital in town they were told that dad had cancer. Hinda and her siblings went to work selling flowers on the street and doing any small task that would provide income in order to pay for the expensive surgery. But it was too late. He passed away during the surgery they had all worked so hard toward.
No child should have to go through what Hinda and her family have. But these are the kinds of experiences that are intertwined in the stories of countless children across the Middle East. And it’s why we’re so thankful that you are partnering with us to heal the broken hearted by supporting this trauma care service in Northern Iraq.
The inner strength of Hinda’s mother and the dignity with which they live their lives gives us great hope for the future of these children.