Strengthening Communities through Pandemic Relief Efforts

In addition to structural reform, direct action and efforts by various NGOs and ministries when the pandemic struck provided immediate relief to families and children. For example, in March of 2020, World Vision launched the largest emergency response in its 70-year history. Over a year, the agency reached 59 million people, including 25.4 million children, by teaching proper hygiene, providing personal protective equipment to medical personnel, and offering educational resources, emergency food, access to clean water, and financial support for parents.

In South Asia, GFA World entered “all-out crisis mode” during the pandemic to offer immediate help to the most destitute, such as daily laborers out of work, those living on the street, and others in risk of starvation. This outreach stretched into 2021; last spring GFA workers distributed 450 hygiene kits to families in need in one area after heavy rains and flooding touched off by a cyclone.

Among those affected were a woman named Verbena and her husband, who both lost their jobs due to shutdowns, leaving them without an income to provide for their family of 10. “We are struggling,” Verbena said. “We indeed needed a hygiene kit, and I am thankful to the leaders for coming to my home and giving this kit to us.”[1]


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