As the global challenges of conflict and climate change continue to make a severe impact across the world, Concern Worldwide (UK) has launched a new appeal to reach those most in need.
Food in a Fragile World, a three month appeal, will establish a new programme in Burundi which will aim to improve the health of over 40,000 children. The project will improve health systems to identify and treat sick and malnourished children and help families to grow and prepare nutritious food.
The UK government will double all donations meaning that the charity will be able to ensure more people get the food, water and healthcare they need to survive and reach their full potential.
Rose Caldwell, Executive Director of Concern Worldwide (UK) said:
We are launching this appeal because millions of vulnerable people experience fear, uncertainty and violence every day but they also face a hidden enemy – dangerous levels of hunger and malnutrition.
International Development Secretary Priti Patel said:
Concern Worldwide (UK) is providing lifesaving support to thousands of malnourished children across the world who are struggling to survive. The Food in a Fragile World appeal will ensure Concern can continue to get vital food, water and medicine to thousands of children in Burundi ensuring they can grow to their full, healthy potential. Every donation made by the generous British public to the Fragile World appeal will be matched pound for pound by the UK Government, meaning we will double the difference Britons can make to those children in desperate need.
It will help mothers like Espérence Ndayishimiye, from Burundi, who is bringing up her young children on her own after her husband abandoned her. Her three-year-old son Blaise is acutely malnourished and weighs only 6.2 kilos.
Espérence said:
Blaise can only eat when there is food. But there are many times we don’t have anything and we go to sleep without eating. We can only eat when I find casual work. Sometimes a whole week passes without finding anything – and all we can do is eat cassava leaves.
This is the third appeal run by Concern that the UK government has matched. Pervious appeals have enabled the organisation to launch new programmes tackling hunger in Zambia and helping people to recover after the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.
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Notes to editors
Please contact Deborah Underdown at Concern Worldwide:
E [email protected]
T: +44 (0)20 7801 1857
About Concern Worldwide:
Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. www.concern.og.uk
About UK Aid Match:
UK Aid Match brings charities, the British public and the UK government together to collectively change the lives of some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
It is designed to provide opportunities for the UK public to engage with international development issues and have a say in how UK aid is spent, whilst boosting the impact of the very best civil society projects to reach the poorest people in developing countries.
For every £1 donated to a UK Aid Match charity appeal, the government will also contribute £1 of UK aid, to help these projects go further in changing and saving lives.
