A year.
12 months
365 days
I look back over the past year and I can’t really think off the top of my head what I have achieved. Lots of things I wanted to do are still not done, many not even started. Some have been and then abandoned. Stuff has happened, as stuff always does. At the time it felt important, and some of it was, some of it mattered for an hour, a day, a week, some of it still matters but maybe less so than it did this time last year.
On the opposite side of the world a year ago a major event was happening that changed hundreds of thousands of lives forever, the earthquake in Nepal. You may have forgotten about it. That’s okay. Lots has happened for you too. Lots has happened in the world as well and these events come onto our radar and then slowly drop off again. Just this week there has been another earthquake, this time in Ecuador. World Vision are now helping there too. But that doesn’t mean they stop helping other communities though.
They keep work tirelessly to make sure these events don’t get forgotten. That the people affected by these crises don’t get forgotten. They make videos like this that remind us of just what they have achieved
And produce incredible statistics like this:
- Over the past 12 months at least 386,984 individuals including 171,860 children have been reached across 161 Village Development Committees and 5 municipalities in 10 districts.
- Food-security, livelihood and cash-for-work initiatives benefited more than 165,000 people, including more than 8,000 people, who received emergency food kits within the first one hundred days of the response.
- Up to 20,789 earthquake-affected families were given shelter and non-food items including tarpaulins with rope, iron roofing sheets, shelter tool kits, blankets and sleeping mats.
- Health in emergency interventions reached 72,730 people who benefitted from repairs of health facilities, provision of medical supplies and equipment, clean delivery kits, baby hygiene kits, family and infant winter kits, set-up of women and young children spaces and health education for mothers and health volunteers.
- Water, sanitation and hygiene interventions served 118,420 people providing thousands of families access to clean water. Hygiene kits, mosquito nets, toilet and water system repairs and construction helped to improve sanitation and hygiene practices in affected communities.
- For children in emergencies, 9,534 children benefitted from education interventions while 4,927 were provided with psycho-social support enhancing child protection. Construction of 54 temporary learning spaces with water facilities, hand-washing areas and toilets currently serves 8,214 children while ongoing school repairs and rehabilitation of classrooms and facilities will further help more than 1,500 school children.
- Thousands of children were also encouraged to stay in school by providing them with school kits and learning materials.
- Hundreds of teachers, volunteers and school management committee members were also trained to provide psycho-social support and uphold children’s rights and well-being.
It is easy to forget that once the headlines end the story doesn’t end, isn’t it? That as we focus on what is going on closer to home with either our own lives or current affairs other families are still in desperate need. That more families become in need every day and it is thanks to charities like World Vision who have teams on the ground and disaster plans in place that those in dire need get the help quickly
There will media attention on Nepal today as the first anniversary is marked so any sharing on social media that you see would be hugely appreciated.
And of course any donations you can make would also be amazing too: World Vision