All in a year's work

RANJANA - THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE

When you’ve lost everything in a disaster, it is often the little things that can help make life that much better.

“In all the materials we received today, I liked the comb the most! I have not combed my hair since we left home on Saturday when the floods hit. I also liked the toothbrush”, said 10-year-old Ranjana.

Ranjana, her four siblings and mother were lucky to escape devastating floods this past August. The worst in over a decade, the floods claimed the lives of thousands of people and affected millions more across Nepal, India and Bangladesh.

Unable to save their home or any of their possessions, Ranjana and her family found temporary safety in a makeshift shelter with hundreds of their neighbours. Tired, hungry, and with Ranjana’s little sister battling a fever, they worried about how they’d get through the next few days.

Fortunately, because of the help of supporters like you, our emergency teams were on the ground responding to the floods.

We distributed hundreds of tarpaulins and ropes to help families like Ranjana’s build their own shelters; “Having a new shelter means bigger space and some privacy”, explained Ranjana’s mother Sonita.

As well as shelter materials, Save the Children also supplied hygiene kits – full of those little but ultimately very important items like toothbrushes and water purifying tablets that helped to keep Ranjana and her family safe from waterborne diseases.

ASHA – JUST ONE IN A MILLION

It was midnight when four-year-old Asha* fell ill in the camp where she lives with her mother, siblings and grandmother.

Frail after weeks of little food, she was vomiting and had severe diarrhoea. Little Asha needed immediate help to survive and her grandmother Sulekha* feared the worst.

Sulekha quickly brought Asha to Save the Children’s Cholera Treatment Centre at Bayhaw Hospital in Baidoa, Somalia.

Thanks to your support, our dedicated medical team had the resources to provide her with rapid rehydration, and after two days of treatment Asha’s condition had stabilized and she was beginning to gain weight again.

Sulekha told us, “The cholera broke out at our neighbour’s home and then it was transmitted to us. I was giving Asha oral rehydration salts until we got to the hospital.”

Asha survived, but only just. With your support, our Emergency Health Unit set up Cholera Treatment Centres across Somalia, working with local doctors and nurses to respond to the growing emergency.

As the drought and ensuing food crisis grew worse, we screened thousands of children for severe malnutrition and provided parents with a weekly portion of high-calorie paste (Plumpy‘nut) to nurse their children back to health.

By May of this year, four months after this emergency unfolded, you had helped our teams to reach over one million children and adults with life-saving malnutrition, cholera and health interventions in East Africa.