Five Times Our Emergency Fund Helped When No One Saw a Crisis Coming

While many crises seem to happen overnight, Concern is already planning ahead – in every country where Concern works, each programme team is tasked with mapping out risks, identifying vulnerabilities and setting out a clear course of action so our teams can move as quickly as possible. 

The Concern Worldwide Emergency Fund ensures our teams are always ready to deliver life-saving support to communities. Here are five times Concern stepped up when no one saw a crisis coming. 

In June of this year, Venezuela was struck by two earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitudes, just 39 seconds apart – some of the strongest the country had seen in a century.   

Hundreds of families lost their homes, sleeping in makeshift tents on the street. With roads, power lines and critical infrastructure destroyed, communities were cut off from essential services and supplies.   

In the immediate aftermath, Concern partnered with Acted to provide immediate support including shelter, essential household items, and clean water. We will continue to work with teams on the ground to plan the next phase of our response – shifting from emergency relief to helping communities plan for what’s next and rebuild in the long run.  

An Ebola outbreak in the DRC was confirmed in May 2026. Already, there have been more than 3,000 deaths and over 6,000 confirmed cases. With no approved drug or vaccine for this strain of Ebola, local health facilities are struggling to respond. 

David Jones, Concern’s Country Director in DRC said: “We are mobilising our emergency response capabilities, using the expertise taken from responding to previous outbreaks - whether Ebola, cholera or Covid 19 - and will work tirelessly to ensure that people are informed, protected, and prepared.” 

Concern is aiming to reach over 113,000 people through Ebola-related interventions. Our response is focusing on informing communities about the disease, its symptoms, and how it spreads.  

We are providing communities with the means to prevent the spread of Ebola, including constructing and rehabilitating boreholes so that people have access to clean water, building emergency latrines and showers, and training community leaders on prevention, identification, and referral.  

We are also supporting health clinics by distributing Infection Prevention and Control kits to healthcare staff, supplying handwashing and hygiene kits, and installing handwashing stations. 

Families in Sudan are living through the world’s worst humanitarian and displacement crisis, brought on by conflict and violence that has lasted for over three years. Over 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes, with many seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.  

Last year, Concern’s team reached over 375,000 people in Sudan, providing life-saving and essential services. In Chad and South Sudan, we are supporting approximately 255,000 Sudanese refugees, including Khatir*. Khatir lives in Sira, a village with a population of approximately 800 people. She is solely responsible for three young children. As a vulnerable household, she received cash assistance along with other supports from Concern. 

“The cash assistance has allowed me to supplement our food, care for my children, and meet several essential needs,” said Khatir. She has joined a Village Savings and Loans Association, and hopes to use the money to support her farming. 

As the crisis in Sudan continues to unfold, cuts to humanitarian aid have made the response even more difficult – yet Concern continues to provide vital support. 

In March, Concern’s Country Director in Sudan, John Kilkenny, warned: “The crisis has been exacerbated by drastic cuts to international funding. Time is running out for the international community to respond and prevent this spiralling into an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.” 

Yemen is one of the world’s hungriest countries, with half the population facing hunger and almost two-thirds of households unable to meet their minimum food needs. 

Concern, alongside local partners, is working in the west and south of the country. Reaching over 40,000 people, Concern projects are providing critical health and nutrition services across 13 health facilities. 

This support has made a real difference to mothers like Haj*, whose family was displaced by conflict. She now lives in a displacement camp with her husband and four children and is often only able to cook one meal a day due to a series of setbacks - the price of food has increased, food assistance has been suspended due to funding cuts, and her husband is unable to find regular work.  

Haj and her husband often skipped meals so their children could eat, yet 10-month-old Basam* became malnourished despite their best efforts. When Haj brought her son to a Concern-supported health centre, he weighed less than half of what a healthy baby his age should. 

As a result of being acutely malnourished he suffered from fever, anaemia, pneumonia, and shortness of breath. At the clinic Basam was given antibiotics and put on a course of ready-to-use therapeutic food. 

“We want to return to our homes, live a better life, and wish our children could have a better life, one free from suffering,” Haj said. 

In 2022, the heaviest rains in over a century hit Pakistan. Floods swept through the country, affecting over 33 million people and destroying millions of acres of food crops. Communities struggled to access essential goods and safe shelter, as approximately one million houses, 3,451km of roads and 149 bridges were significantly damaged. 

Concern supported over 500,000 extremely vulnerable people affected by the floods with multi-purpose cash assistance to buy essential items. We also distributed shelter materials, mattresses and blankets and hygiene kits, containing items like soap and period pads, to help protect the health of at-risk communities. 

Since then, we’ve worked with farmers in Pakistan on climate-smart agriculture projects, providing them with the knowledge, resources and training to adapt their techniques so their crops can be more resilient and families can continue to have food and income sources in the face of a changing climate. 

Maulo Dinno, a farmer in Sindh who lost his land and livestock in the floods, said: “They supported us when we could not stand on our own. Before, if we spent money on fertiliser, we would not have money left over for seeds, and if we spent funds ploughing the land or using a tractor, we would not have money for fertiliser, and so on. We had no hope. But Concern removed those problems by giving us material assistance.” 

*Names changed to protect identities