Where to give it

Gaza: aid for children

It’s estimated that 80 per cent of civilians in Gaza are now displaced, while more than 90 per cent of children there have no access to clean water. The Save the Children Gaza Emergency Appeal is distributing food baskets, potable water and educational, family-hygiene, and emergency first-aid parcels throughout the besieged enclave. In Egypt, STC is routing support to hospitals and emergency medical teams to receive and treat evacuees, including premature infants. It is aiming to create temporary learning and play centres, and to distribute blankets and warm clothes (urgently needed, with winter closing in).

A £50 donation will buy four “school-in-a-bag” kits or one full food basket to feed a family for a month; £250 will furnish 11 families with hygiene packs. Meanwhile, the International Rescue Committee has guaranteed to triple-match all donations to its own Gaza Crisis relief fund until midnight on 31 December. The money will go towards getting much-needed supplies across the border from Egypt into southern Gaza. savethechildren.org.uk; rescue.org. Donate through IRC’s Crisis in Gaza page

Afghanistan: earthquake relief

On the same day as Hamas’s assault on Israel on 7 October, a devastating earthquake struck Herat Province in western Afghanistan, followed by a series of major aftershocks that together killed more than 2,000 people by UN estimates – around 90 per cent of them women and children. The California-based charitable fund Uplift Afghanistan, which identifies and supports grassroots and independent organisations working in development and aid capacities across the country, established an earthquake relief fund days after the disaster. In 2022 it delivered almost $1,550,000 in aid, a significant chunk of that – around 40 per cent – to female-led households, so it has form with getting money to those who need it.

Having focused donations on emergency relief throughout October – rescue efforts for villages reduced to rubble (as many as 20 villages across the province were affected) and ensuring access to clean drinking water – it’s now directing them largely towards building permanent climate-protective housing. In collaboration with its local partner, the Community Driven Development Organisation, Uplift is funding the building of permanent housing that’s earthquake-resistant and eco-friendly with earthbag homes. They’re designed by local engineers, with environmental impact and cost-effectiveness measures in mind. upliftafghanistan.org

Greece: wildfire recovery

The wildfires that burned across mainland Greece and its islands this summer were unprecedented in their scale: the one that destroyed around 90,000 hectares in Dadia National Park, in the country’s north-east, was the largest ever recorded in the EU; another, on Rhodes, required Greece’s largest-ever evacuation. Private citizens, singly or in collectives, have responded by funding everything from observation drones to fire protection plans.

The grassroots non-profit act4mati, created in the wake of the country’s smaller but even more deadly 2018 Attica fires, publicises guerrilla-style relief drives and events when natural disasters strike. Meanwhile, your donation to the Hellenic Red Cross (the Greek arm of the international humanitarian network, and the largest NGO operating in the country) is still routing relief funds to those rebuilding livelihoods that were destroyed or severely affected last summer – predominantly the farmers whose livestock perished in significant numbers, and the olive-oil producers who lost tens of thousands of olive trees. @act4mati; redcross.gr

Morocco: earthquake relief

The idea for Education for All Morocco came almost 20 years ago, when John Wood, founder of Room To Read, stayed a night at Kasbah du Toubkal, high in the Atlas. He and owner Mike McHugo share a belief that whole generations can be changed when girls are educated. Cut to 2023, and EFA has built and is running half a dozen boarding houses close to secondary schools across the High Atlas region, underwriting living costs for girls from its remote mountain villages to continue their education.

“Many of the girls’ villages were devastated by the [9 September] quake, and many have lost their homes, or family members,” says EFA’s CEO, Sonia Omar. “The disruption was huge” – every one of the boarding houses was badly damaged, including the largest and most recently constructed in the village of Talat N’Yaaqoub. Now “as far as getting their education back up and running, there’s a huge ripple effect, through school, through the communities”, Omar says. “This is why we created a general crisis appeal; we need to rebuild the boarding houses, but also provide funds for the girls and their communities.” EFA students have been transferred to schools in Marrakech, and all donated funds are held in a secure deposit account while EFA awaits news on where and when the rebuilding will take place. Donate through EFA’s Global Giving page

Libya: flood appeal

The International Rescue Committee was one of the first, and most effective, agencies on the ground in north-eastern Libya after Storm Daniel dropped eight months’ worth of rain in just over two days this September, causing dams to collapse and catastrophic flooding of cities in the region.

Now, three months after the disaster, it’s still working to help provide assistance to the thousands of displaced families whose homes – or in the case of Derna and its environs, entire towns – were destroyed. The IRC is still on the ground in flood-affected areas, providing health service support to five health facilities in Derna and Sousa, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and operating protection activities for women and children in Derna, Al Bayda, Shahat, and Sousa. rescue-uk.org