Helping communities to live with uncertainty

On Monday 19th August we celebrate World Humanitarian Day - a day that means a lot to us who work for World Vision and we're sure a day that will mean a lot to you and our other wonderful supporters. World Humanitarian Day aims to raise awareness for people affected by humanitarian crises. At World Vision we often see these crises, some of our staff see it in the flesh. It's heartbreaking, but around the globe we're able to make a difference because of our supporters. Maggie Ibrahim is a World Vision UK resilience manager, and recently she has taken a look at how World Vision’s development programming has been evolving to build resilience of communities that we serve, so that humanitarian crises can become a thing of the past. 

Resilience-blog-image-web.jpgBy Maggie Ibrahim, World Vision UK

Two years ago the Horn of Africa saw its worst drought for 25 years leaving people needing emergency healthcare, food and water. As a resilience manager, my job is to improve our development programming to tackle drivers of risks - both natural or man-made - and advocate for resilience to be part of the post 2015 agenda. One question that comes up time and time again for me and my co-workers is how can development programming work to reduce the need for emergency assistance? When I ask this question I also think of what we need to do to ensure that development interventions are working with uncertainty and changing risks? Working in resilience isn't just about immediate fixes - it's about empowering people and communities to find long term solutions.

I've been working with Josh Folkema of World Vision Canada and Dr Emily Wilkinson of the Overseas Development Institute, to address these questions. Based on our experiences in Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, and Somalia, we've put together our thoughts and share recommendations of how development programming needs to move forward. Tackling drivers of risk and empowering communities means that our interventions need to be based on current vulnerability and capacities and consider changing risks. We are moving forward the way that we work in order to deal to empower communities so that droughts like those seen two year ago in the Horn of Africa do not lead to future humanitarian crises. You can find out more about our report here.

As a resilience manager, it's great to share our findings with readers of this blog - if you have any comments, please do feel free to email me.

  • Children In Emergencies
  • Humanitarian

Indonesia tsunami: The children who have lost everything

Ten-year-old Olivia lost everything she owned during the Indonesia earthquake and tsunami - including her favourite toy.

Indonesia tsunami: Aid worker's diary of desperation and hope

"Living in a disaster-prone country like Indonesia, I’m not a stranger to scenes of grief, but the devastation brought by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Palu was unbearable to fathom."

Back to school: From binding books to reading them

Day in and day out, 12-year-old Mohsin would work 10-hour shifts hauling around huge piles of books, desperate to know what was written inside of them.

Tania's story: Head of the family but still a child

Instead of going to school, Tania spent many of her days peeling piles of icy shrimp - squatting for eight-hour shifts at a local fish depot.