In the face of seemingly intractable social challenges, it can be hard to believe in change. But to a frontline health worker like Beatrice Essebe, International Medical Corps’ Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Supervisor in Cameroon, change is not only possible, it is an inevitability and provides a purpose. Says Beatrice: “There is nothing greater than when …
July 2018 marks one year since Iraqi forces and their allies retook the city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), after three years of occupation. As many as 1 million people fled the city due to the conflict, but today 870,000 have already returned to their hometown. Hiba, Mental …
Jameel Mohammed, aged 63 years, was forced to leave his home in Syria as a result of the war. The dire humanitarian situation inside the country is among the worst crises in recent history, and has forced some 5.6 million Syrians to seek refuge in neighboring countries. In Iraq alone, almost 250,000 Syrians are registered …
Zaid was only a young boy when air strikes and artillery fire began to plague his hometown in Syria. Originally from Daraa, the city where the war once began, Zaid, his siblings and their mother were left with no choice but to flee the country. Although they eventually found safe haven in Ajloun, Jordan, the …
Is home where your heart is, as the popular saying goes? Or is it, as Webster’s dictionary defines it, just “one’s place of residence”? What does home mean to the more than 65 million people displaced globally because of war, violence, natural disaster and persecution? They live in temporary, uncertain and often chaotic conditions, far …
With every new day, families fleeing hunger and violence continue to pour into Baidoa, the capital of Somalia’s Bay region, desperately seeking refuge and assistance. Baidoa hosts more than 300 camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on its outskirts, and in these temporary settlements are more than 400,000 people. Families set up temporary shelters made …
At the center of this emergency lies Syria. Since the conflict started, more than 5.5 million people have left the country. The majority of them have found shelter in neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Inside Syria, 6.6 million are internally displaced and an unimaginable 13 million people need humanitarian aid. What would …
Nadifu, a 35-year-old mother of seven, lives in an internally displaced person (IDP) camp in Harahar village in Somalia’s Galkayo region. Harhar village hosts more than 15 IDP camps. Nadifu and her children now call this home—a home where their house is a makeshift shelter made from pieces of clothes. The unforgiving drought wiped out …
International Medical Corps recently deployed an emergency response team to Ituri in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where inter-communal tensions have exploded into brutal violence in communities once considered relatively stable. More than 300,000 people have fled their homes to escape gangs wielding machetes, guns and other weapons. We …
With decades of experience, International Medical Corps’ medical professionals know a lot about the human body: how to perform lifesaving operations, treat chronic illnesses, address and prevent infectious diseases, and bring children back from the brink of starvation. But matters of the mind and heart can be more mysterious. Says Hadeel, “When you work with …