Yemen is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. This is almost entirely due to the Yemen civil war, a conflict raging since 2014. The war has affected every single part of the country, including the capital city of Sana’a, an area that housed nearly 2.5 million people at the start of the war. As a result of the conflict largely taking place in urban centers, staggering numbers of Yemeni people had to leave their homes. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that about 4.5 million people have endured displacement since the start of the conflict. The Greengate Trust’s Yemen Project aims to improve the lives of struggling Yemeni people.
Humanitarian Impacts of War
Within Yemen, UNICEF estimates that almost 18 million people, many of them children, lack access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. The health situation in Yemen has also turned dire, with the population routinely suffering outbreaks of “cholera, measles, diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” UNICEF says.
About 11 million children in Yemen require humanitarian aid and about 2.2 million children are suffering from acute levels of malnutrition, which has far-reaching impacts on children’s development. The destruction of school facilities and medical centers means Yemeni people lack access to critical health care and education. UNICEF reports that more than 2.5 million children in Yemen are not attending school. Overall, a minimum of 21.6 million Yemeni people require humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs.
The Yemen Project
The Greengate Trust, a United Kingdom-based charity that raises money for a variety of causes in Yemen, started the Yemen Project. The Yemen Project is currently gathering support through donations to set up a clinic near Aden, Yemen, specifically catering to malnourished children. The clinic will provide “immediate treatment, food, malnutrition screening and cash assistance to the most vulnerable children and their families,” the Greengate Trust website says.
Equally as important as the clinic is the Yemen Project’s campaign to build solar-powered wells in Yemen’s most disadvantaged communities. So far, these solar-powered wells have supplied 500 households across eight villages, providing clean water to at least 10,000 individuals who otherwise would not have access to safe drinking water. The campaign to provide the people of Yemen with clean drinking water goes hand-in-hand with Greengate Trust’s efforts to provide nutritious meals across Yemen. The organization’s website says, “A small donation of just £50 for [one] Food Pack could provide a Yemeni family with enough food for an entire month of Ramadan.”
The Yemen Project has also provided food in the country through the Al-Tayyibat Bakery, a bakery that, for upward of three years, has provided free bread to anyone who needed it. The bakery was burned down in a tragic accident, but the Yemen Project is in the process of raising donations via the Trust’s website to reopen the bakery and provide food for some of the 16 million people in Yemen that cannot meet their food needs.
Even though the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is dire, the efforts of humanitarian organizations and foundations like the Greengate Trust bring hope to millions of Yemeni people struggling to meet their basic needs amid conflict and violence.
– Ezra Bernstein
Photo: Flickr