The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns impacted farmers in the Kyrgyz Republic. Seeds were unavailable at the market because of the closed borders, which prevented almost 25% of farmers from starting the planting season on time. 

Local Impact, a new partnership between the Aga Khan Foundation and USAID, worked with the Kyrgyz Republic’s Ministry of Labor and Social Development (MLSD) to respond to the crisis, collaborating on a vulnerability mapping tool that helped village leaders identify households that needed the most help. AKF and MLSD distributed food supplies and 167 kilograms of winter wheat seeds provided by Local Impact to 874 vulnerable families. AKF also connected the farmers to an agronomist, who shared information with farmers about planting techniques and yield optimization. More Information

Uasin Gishu County Youth Bunge Forum (UGCYB), a community-based organization in Kenya’s Uasin Gishu County, works to support youth employment opportunities and community engagement.

In 2020, as UGCYB sought to meet community needs during the pandemic, they called upon skills developed by participating in the Yetu Initiative’s bootcamp. The Yetu Initiative, a partnership between the Aga Khan Foundation and USAID, hosts bootcamps to build the capacity of local organizations to raise Kenyan resources for Kenyan needs. The bootcamps offer practical training, coaching, mentoring, and peer learning to help organizations successfully launch local fundraising campaigns.

The bootcamp helped UGCYB establish partnerships with corporations and the county government, which allowed them to distribute more than 20,000 masks in low-income areas of their county, including informal settlements. More Information 

As COVID-19 cases spread in Tajikistan, people in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) grew increasingly worried about their health, their finances, and their future. People with COVID-19 symptoms living in this remote and mountainous area had limited accessibility to health centers because of difficult terrain and poor roads.

The Aga Khan Foundation and USAID's Thrive Tajikistan project stepped in to assist by supporting a virtual helpline. The helpline connected community members to healthcare and provided mental health support to both community members and healthcare professionals. Thrive Tajikistan and the Aga Khan Health Services also launched a mobile health initiative with Tcell, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in Tajikistan, to reach 1,672 community members with text messages on COVID-19, nutrition, and sanitation. More Information 

For nearly a decade, HAI has worked in the D.R. documenting and responding to the urgent needs and vulnerabilities of stateless populations and those at risk of statelessness. Working across 11 provinces, HAI provides legal and psychosocial services to help stateless individuals obtain nationality and reintegrate into Dominican society.

“I thank God that I was able to get my documents with the help of Heartland Alliance.” Said Anita, 24. “With those documents, I was able to register my youngest child as Dominican, and I was able to get insurance for both of us. I’m very happy because now I can afford doctors’ visits and medical tests because the insurance covers a big percentage.” More Information

Although many individuals and families have returned home since the end of the war with ISIS in 2017, approximately 1.2 million people remain internally displaced. Of the total number of internally displaced, more than half sought refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), where HAI is active across several provinces. In the region, we focus on a number of areas, including supporting displaced people, minorities, and victims of trafficking, addressing violence against women, improving mental health infrastructure, and providing juveniles access to justice.

Millions of Iraqis who fled their homes during the war have to start over from nothing. But they don’t have to start over alone. More Information

In late spring 2021, CARE launched a social behavior change campaign (SBCC) in partnership with Facebook to improve our shared understanding of how to apply social and behavior change communication strategies to social media campaigns and drive positive public health outcomes in the channel.  As the Delta variant spreads, and COVID cases spike to levels not seen since last winter, we have looked to community leaders to help remind their constituents that COVID vaccines are safe and effective ways to stave off community spread and severe illness. More Information

After noticing how attitudes toward waste were affecting his small community, Ismail and a group of friends set out to clean up the streets and make their neighborhood greener. More Information 

From the loss of income to disrupted education, COVID-19 has drastically changed the lives of young people around the world. In the southern Yemeni city of Aden, youth are finding innovative ways to help their communities cope with this new reality. More Information

Over 1,000 fruit trees were planted in two communities in Sierra Leone along with completed construction of 120 meters of canal to mitigate heavy flooding in a climate resilience intervention implemented by World Hope International in partnership with National Skill Pool and funded by Engineers without Borders Denmark. In addition to tree planting and canal building, waste clearing and awareness-raising activities were key activities in the communities during this project's implementation. The two communities also received COVID-19 support for sanitation and hygiene. A collaborative meeting was held recently for the communities with representatives from Office of National Security (ON Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Community stakeholders, Climate Resilience Community (CRC) members, women, youth, teachers, health officials, the Freetown city council health superintendent, and the Freetown city council sanitation director. More Information