In 2023, we began setting up new programmes in Puntland, a far reaching of Somalia.
Puntland is a beautiful coastal region. Fishing used to be a major source of livelihood for families, and yes, years ago it also was a popular dock for pirates.
Present day 2024, communities live amidst climate uncertainty, drought has wiped out so many people's cattle and livelihoods. Forced to desert their homes, many trek through dry desert-like terrain to be closer to regional towns, hoping to find work or support.
Humanitarian support is vital to thousands of families and children.
After scrolling through this story, no doubt you'll be encouraged.
Your gift is helping this Somalian A-team deliver practical impact to children and families.
Here is just a snippet of some of their amazing work to date...
Head to an NFI distribution...
Childhood Rescue is driven by community consultation and engagement. The programme activities are designed with the community and that is something we are really proud of.
It means, some weeks our teams are busy, trekking over extremely bumpy roads to distribute immediate 'need' items, such as food packages, cash vouchers, agricultural seeds, tools or water collecting buckets.
Then on other weeks, the teams will focus on community workshops and reflection sessions. This aims to deepen community understanding of key issues that have the potential to deeply affect a child's future.
This month the team delivered some key 'need' items but also engaged in a lot of community activities.
Some of the key workshops were:
- Reflective sessions addressing the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
- Gender-based violence (GBV) workshops with both women and key religious leaders
- Positive Parenting workshops
- Nutrition, Education and Awareness sessions
A joint community clean-up campaign in a local IDP camp helped prepare the community for an upcoming re-greening initiative that aims to increase vegetation, grow shading trees and prepare potential crop sites that are better suited to survive the effects of changing climate and weather.
Investing in women means positive progress for all communities! Here are a range of culturally appropriate engagement workshops and learning classes conducted over the past few months, including, nutrition and health education, Gender Based Violence reflection groups, Positive Parenting classes and FGM reflection sessions.
The Somalia team is incredible and the team and communities have some amazing plans to achieve this year.
As you can see, they mean business...
In Puntland, hunger and the effects are climate are two of the biggest causes of fragility.
In the upcoming months, the team will engage in:
- Food and cash distributions
- Distributing agricultural seeds and tools
- Planning and sourcing goats and livestock for distributions
- Continue with livelihoods and income-generating activities
This NFI distribution is a vital part of helping communities and children survive. Having the ability to collect water, soap to keep clean and mosquito nets is an integrated approach to combatting, thirst, health and disease, and helps families with watering crops. The team conducted multiple distributions across the region.
Community consultations and workshops happen in a lot of places. Often, key religious leaders and community figureheads will meet with local officials in more formal settings, such as a hired conference room. But many times, the team meet people in locations most accessible to them, such as a makeshift tent, a local community clinic, or the verandah of a school. Here you can see some official GBV and FGM reflection sessions taking place and a local nutrition and education class with mothers in a local clinic.
Not sure how you're year has started, but if it looks anything as productive as the Somalia team, it's going to be amazing.
And you can be sure your gift this year is going to help even more children, survive, recover and build a future.
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