Your Gift at Work
Your support has an immediate impact by helping WFP respond to emergencies around the world and deliver life-saving food assistance. Here is just one example of how your gift is bringing help and hope to the world’s hungry.
In early May 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, sweeping through the Ayeyarwady Delta region. One disaster victim, Myint Myint San, fled her home and boarded a boat with other villagers. Despite their efforts to escape the storm, the winds and waves were too strong, and the villagers were thrown from the boat. The swirling waters carried Myint Myint San toward a tree, where she and five other villagers grabbed onto the branches. All night, they held on against the wind and water, yelling to each other in the darkness to check that they were all still alive. By dawn, when the wind had died down and the water receded, only three were left on the tree.
Myint Myint San has started to rebuild her life. She has set up a tiny shop at the front of the temporary shack she and her husband built. Despite her best efforts, she does not make enough money to support herself yet. She relies on WFP food rations to survive. Gifts like yours are helping to keep Myint Myint San and others alive – and are giving them hope for a better future.
At any given time, WFP is working in around 80 countries worldwide. Your gift can help support these life-saving programs and the people who need them most. Some of our current priorities are highlighted below.
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Greatest Needs
Unrestricted funds will support programs and operations where the need is the greatest. These gifts are especially important, as they allow WFP to direct resources as priorities change and new needs emerge across the world.
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School Meals/Fill the Cup
WFP's school meals program is simple: Food attracts hungry children to school. More than just food for an empty stomach, school meals help provide education, opportunity and hope to break the cycle of poverty. It takes just 25 cents to fill one of the red cups that WFP uses to give hungry children a school meal of porridge, rice or beans.
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Darfur Crisis
The ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan has had a devastating impact on families who live in the region. WFP has been working tirelessly to bring food assistance to those most at risk. Despite insecurity on the ground, the agency is providing food to as many as 3 million people every month.
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Mother-and-Child Health and Nutrition
A mother’s nutrition determines her baby’s health before and immediately after birth. The first years are critical for a child’s development. Ensuring proper nutrition during the first three years of life can make a significant difference in a child’s future potential. WFP’s Mother-and-Child Health and Nutrition program helps break the vicious cycle of undernutrition by providing supplementary and therapeutic feeding to pregnant and breastfeeding women and babies.
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Disaster Relief
The rising tide of natural disasters, war and civil conflict in the world's poorest nations has led to an explosion in food emergencies – up from an average of 15 per year in the 1980s to more than 30 per year since 2000. With 30 ships on the sea, 70 planes in the air and 5,000 trucks on the ground on any given day, WFP provides urgent food assistance and logistical support to the hungry during disasters. Steady funding for these operations allows WFP to pre-position food where natural disasters strike frequently so that victims can receive relief as soon as possible.
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Right now, WFP especially needs your help responding to these emergencies:
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Haiti Food Crisis
With more than half of the country living on less than $1 per day, many Haitians were pushed deeper into poverty during 2008 by rising food prices and a series of four tropical storms. WFP is responding by sending life-saving food, water and other humanitarian supplies to Haiti by air and sea.
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Myanmar Cyclone
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Myanmar, flattening homes, flooding streets and leaving more than 100,000 dead. Within days, WFP began delivering ready-to-eat food, such as High Energy Biscuits and rice-lentil mix, to the devastated population. Going forward, WFP is providing daily rations of rice, pulses, vegetable oil and salt for 750,000 cyclone victims until they can replenish decimated food sources.
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