Emergency updates
Whenever a disaster strikes, children are the most vulnerable. Save the Children responds quickly in an emergency to save lives and help families cope after a disaster. But we can't do it without you.
Across East Africa thousands of children face starvation. Children like Umi, who is three months old and weighs just 3.7lbs. Without help they will die. But we can save them if with your help we act now. Umi (above) is one of the lucky ones – she has made it to a Save the Children health centre in Kenya and will get life-saving treatment. A deadly combination of drought and rising food prices have left 9 million people facing a devastating food crisis across the region. Families have lost their incomes and food supplies. Millions of children are hungry, thirsty and desperate. They are in danger of becoming critically malnourished and, without help, many in the worst hit areas could die. Save the Children is already on the ground saving lives. We’re providing food, water, medicine and crucial support to families who have lost their incomes. With your help we can stop this crisis becoming far worse. These children don’t have to die – but to save them we need your help to act now. Please donate to our East Africa Appeal The expected rains across large areas of the region (including north-east Kenya and large parts of Somalia) have failed, leading to widespread devastation of farmland, failed harvests and livestock deaths – up to 60% of cattle have perished in some areas. Families have lost their crops, livestock, and food supplies. Food and water prices have soared. Families are struggling to get even one meal a day. Thousands of children across the region face starvation. And those who survive can be damaged for life by lack of food when they’re little. Thousands of families, including around 70,000 children, have been forced to flee their drought-stricken homes to survive, with many joining overcrowded refugee camps. Save the Children was already on the ground and able to respond quickly. But we urgently need funds to save many more children’s lives, and to stop the crisis getting even worse. Please donate to our East Africa Appeal We're helping families break the cycle of drought and hunger. We were already working in the region, and saw the early warning signs that the drought was coming. So we’ve been able to respond very quickly and save many lives as a result. But the scale of the crisis demands that we and other aid agencies go further to get support to all those who need it. In Kenya we’ve been working with communities to prepare for this drought – for example in Mandera (a heavily affected region) we have been giving 12,000 families cash to help build their resilience to the coming drought. That’s 12,000 people who are significantly less likely to fall into food crisis now. We don’t want to create dependency on food aid, so we’re working to respond to the immediate needs and long term needs in a sustainable way. We’ve changed the traditional food aid package – transferring food distributions to local traders instead of aid organisations, and then substituting part of the imported food aid with local, fresh, healthy produce. In doing so, we are helping the local market, local traders and local communities to flourish. East Africa Appeal
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The longer term