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World Renew Gets the News Out on 'Massive Emergencies'

August 23, 2017
A torrent of water flows through a flooded neighbourhood in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone Monday, Aug. 14, 2017.

A torrent of water flows through a flooded neighbourhood in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone Monday, Aug. 14, 2017.

AP, Manika Kamara

News of this week’s total eclipse, ongoing political controversy in the United States, and the flood of asylum seekers into Canada, have kept the important news of devastating, ongoing floods in South Asia off the front pages and missing from newscasts.

The crisis of landslides in Sierra Leone, along with ongoing food shortages and famine in East Africa, have also failed to capture the attention of journalists in recent days. Subsequently, articles about disasters are way down on the story list, said Jacqueline Koster, associate director of disaster response for World Renew.

“We continue to see massive amounts of suffering in places such as South Asia,” said Koster. “Two weeks ago, the monsoon season hit especially hard in Nepal and North India and those rains caused water to run down into Bangladesh, which is a low-lying area that is now flooded.”

Given that more than 16 million people have been affected across the South Asia, World Renew has made responding to the flooding in South Asia a high priority

According to the United Nations, beginning on Aug. 11, Nepal has experienced its worst rains in 15 years, resulting in large-scale impacts on life, livelihood and infrastructure.

“Our response is focused on Nepal, where we have ongoing work from the earthquake in 2015, and in India, where we are working in collaboration with members of the Integral Alliance” said Koster. 

In Nepal, flooding has had a devastating impact on many families who had also been affected by the massive earthquake that struck the country in April 2015. Many of these families still have not recovered from that disaster.

“World Renew has worked closely with Crossway Community Church since the earthquake, and is now providing support as they help families affected by the recent flooding.”

In the coming days, she said, Crossway — a church in Kathmandu with which World Renew has built a relationship — will provide emergency food and non-food items to 500 people in immediate need.

In Bangladesh, World Renew's longstanding partner, PARI Development Trust, is working in areas most severely affected by flooding and is monitoring the situation as water levels in 23 rivers are already above the danger level.

Along with its partners, World Renew will be working to provide food, blankets, shelter and other items to those who have been affected. World Renew currently has a team on the ground in Bangladesh assessing the damage.

Meanwhile, said Koster, Sierra Leone is facing one of the worst disasters in its history as mudslides in the capital city of Freetown and in the northeast part of the country have killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands of others – and this has hardly made a blip on the radar of news coming through to North America.

Nonetheless, World Renew supporters are making it possible to respond to needs in Sierra Leone.

This work is being done through ongoing local partnerships with the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone and Christian Extension Services.

As Koster and others work to respond to these disasters, they continually realize that a portion of the general public – many of whom get their news from social media – either doesn’t pay attention or simply is uninformed about what is happening around the world.

“Unfortunately today our attention spans seem to get shorter and shorter with all of the information coming at us. It becomes hard to process,” said Koster. "Fortunately, World Renew is blessed to have a strong support community that is willing to step up to help when they hear about needs"

For instance, a teacher at a high school in Canada earlier this year decided to highlight the ongoing food shortage in South Sudan and she and her students got involved in raising awareness of and funds to help ease the situation in that country.

“On the one hand you can feel very frustrated (that people don’t seem to have the time or interest to learn more about disasters), but on the other hand there are the people who respond, even if they have a lot going on in their lives, to help those in need,” said Koster.

Lately, it has seemed as if disaster after disaster has piled up – and this makes it ever more important for World Renew and other aid organizations to break through the news cycle of politics and other stories that grab people’s interest, often for a minute or so before they move on to something else.

“We want to get the word out that right now we are responding to a lot of massive emergencies. It is certainly a busy time with many humanitarian crises – both protracted and quickly emerging,” she said.

All donations made to World Renew’s International Rapid Response Fund will go towards responding to these urgent needs, providing hope and relief as families recover and rebuild their lives.

Click here to help World Renew.