GOAL'S activities in Horn of Africa
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| GOAL's Brian Casey at the refugee camps in Dolo Odo, in the Somali region of Ethiopia |
GOAL is one of a small number of international aid agencies responding to the Somali refugee situation in Ethiopia. As well as dealing with the crisis there, our emergency response teams are also providing aid to refugees streaming across Somalia’s borders into camps in Kenya.
GOAL is also responding to the needs of some of the many Ethiopian and Kenyan people affected by drought in their own countries.
Ethiopia
GOAL has recently commenced operations in the latest refugee camp - the fifth – to open in Dolo Ado in the Somali region of Ethiopia, and is providing nutritional support through supplementary and blanket feeding programmes for some 50,000 Somali refugees. We will be supporting the treatment of severe malnutrition in this camp by establishing outpatient centres, and by actively seeking out cases of malnutrition in the wider community.
GOAL has been responding to the nutrition crisis in the Somali region from January, 2011, with a total of 13,500 children treated for malnutrition there since then. We have provided clean water to 140,000 people and over 90 metric tons of food aid to malnourished Somali women and children in the area. We have supplied core relief items, such as hygiene kits, kitchen sets and plastic sheeting, to over 30,500 people.
We have also been addressing the needs of drought-affected populations within Ethiopia since January, 2011. As a consequence, more than 33,500 children suffering from malnutrition have been treated by GOAL and we have distributed more than 47 million litres of water to 500,000 people.
We are also providing agricultural food security training and resources for more than 36,000 drought-affected people and we are providing therapeutic feeding to 3,000 malnourished children, as well as relief items to 2,500 beneficiaries.
GOAL has undergone a major expansion of our Ethiopia programme and we are now in over 20 locations across four regions. We are currently raising funds to allow effective implementation of the following:
• The direct delivery of nutrition, water, shelter and other support to 120,000 Somali refugees.
• The continued expansion of our community-based nutrition programmes to over 100,000 drought-affected Ethiopian people.
• The implementation of water and sanitation programmes for affected Ethiopian populations of all six regions of GOAL’s area of responsibility.
We have also been monitoring the influx of Sudanese refugees to the Benashangul/Assosa area of Western Ethiopia. We are currently operating a nutrition programme in the region and are ready to respond if there is a surge in refugee numbers to this area.
Kenya
GOAL has distributed large amounts of aid at the Dadaab refugee camps, on Kenya’s border with Somalia, sending 20 truck-loads of life-saving non-food items such as hygiene kits and tents to more than 10,000 refugees.
We are currently building hundreds of latrines in the camp, and intend to provide 10,000 emergency shelters, having already provided this support for more than 1,000 families.
GOAL also responded to the needs of thousands of drought-affected Kenyan people by trucking in water and engaging in cholera-prevention activities in Marsabit in the north of the country.
We are ensuring that there are adequate water and sanitation facilities in place at key health and education institutions in Marsabit to support the treatment of malnutrition, and to reduce the risk of hygiene-related infections amongst children.
If you would like to support GOAL's emergency response to the drought, please click here.
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| Somali-famine refugees queue to gain access to the camps at Dadaab in East Kenya |
A mother and child are treated at the camps in Dadaab, following their journey from Somalia |