Climate change is happening now.
Extreme weather events are occurring with greater frequency and intensity than ever before.
Each destructive weather event has devastating consequences on peoples’ lives and livelihoods, particularly for those who live in the fragile settings where Relief International works.
Often, it is these communities, who already live in vulnerable situations, that are the ones hit hardest by these global crises.
When crisis hits, Relief International teams are among the first responders on the ground. We rely on our staff of local nationals, who are often employed nearby, to deliver critical aid in the form of clean water, food, healthcare, and other services to disaster-affected communities.
However, we do not leave when the crisis is over. We support these communities year round, working to strengthen peoples’ abilities to deal with the shocks and stresses in their daily lives, helping them to adapt to the challenging reality of changing weather through training and development programs.
We do this by looking for opportunities to incorporate green initiatives into the design of all of our programs.
In Ghana, we’ve produced more than 1.9 million clean cookstoves to reduce the emission of green house gases. In South Sudan we are working to conserve the dwindling forests through sustainable woodlots. And in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, our teams worked to launch a thriving eco-tourism industry to protect and promote the area’s rich natural resources.
These programs represent only a fraction of our work to improve communities’ resilience in response to the pervasive effects of climate change.
