Shining a light on: Our emergency responses in 2026

Earthquakes in Venezuela. Armed conflict in Lebanon. Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Throughout 2026, our in-country emergency response teams have been first responders in crises of all kinds. When disaster caused families to flee their communities, we served children and their loved ones who’d been pushed far from home.

Life-saving assistance like food, water, shelter supplies and child protection were a big part of those responses. But that doesn’t mean we left the area once those life essentials were distributed.

Not a chance.

When the initial phase of emergency assistance winds down, World Vision teams stick around to help communities recover, rebuild and prepare for future shocks. Often, we have staff permanently working there in the first place.

How do Canadians contribute to emergency response?

Our goal is to help survivors build back stronger in every respect. But responses of great scope and scale can be costly—no question about it.

Donors across Canada help make our emergency response work possible through multiple means, including:

• Child sponsorship, our monthly giving program pairing a donor with a specific child in a development community to fund long-term, community led solutions to poverty.
• Grants from government and groups like Canada's Humanitarian Coalition, to whom we apply and are accountable.
• Donations to our emergency appeals through which we reach out to the public and also our donor base in Canada. We explain the needs and invite donors to help us meet them.
• Gifts-in-kind, physical items like clothing or medical supplies donated by various Canadian corporations or not-for-profit groups.

And, while we’re working to raise donations here in Canada, World Vision offices across our global Partnership are doing the same thing. Gifts from concerned citizens around the world are often pooled together, to make the help go even further.

A single emergency donation from Edmonton or Halifax may rub shoulders with that of a child in Taipei, who gave her allowance because she was moved by scenes of an earthquake. Or a dad in Berlin who read about a child losing his mom in an armed attack.

How Canadian sponsors help fund responses

Perhaps you sponsor a girl in Ethiopia who loves to go to school. Did you know that your sponsorship funds may play a role if disaster strikes in her neighbourhood— excessive rains causing landslides, for example?

Though our sponsorship program wasn’t created specifically for emergency response, it means we already have staff and networks in place should a disaster strike.

Because we partner with sponsored communities for 10 to 15 years, families trust our staff, many of whom grew up in the region themselves. Grassroots organizations in the area work with us for the same reason.

Through sponsorship, our permanent local staff help us understand changing needs in communities (like when drought causes children to walk twice as far for water, or a cholera epidemic breaks out after a tornado).

And through sponsorship, we set aside flexible funds of about $700,000 per year in total, to allocate for responses to certain crises in regions with sponsored children. This allows our program teams to meet urgent needs while staying focused on the families and communities they serve year-round.

How Canadian grants help fund emergency responses

Grants from Global Affairs Canada and institutions like the World Food Programme help us deliver effective, large-scale assistance in some of the world's most challenging contexts.

One example from 2026 was our response to the violence endured by people in Lebanon. Once pooled with the World Vision Partnership’s global response fund, Canadian grants helped provide Lebanese families with:

• 5.6 million hot meals.
• 160,251 nutritious snacks.
• 20,134 cubic metres of trucked water.
• 13,145 family hygiene kits.
• 62,024 girls and boys benefiting from psychosocial support.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a five-month project in response to the Ebola epidemic was funded by Global Affairs Canada and the Humanitarian Coalition. We helped communities prevent disease transmission and access critical support during a rapidly evolving public health emergency.

This Canadian funding contributed to the work of our global Partnership in helping to curtail the spread of a deadly virus, empowering people with know-how.

Together, the World Vision Partnership response reached people at risk of Ebola in the DRC 1.17 million times this year, with health messages around signs and symptoms, modes of transmission, safe handwashing, and other infection prevention and control measures.

Grant projects are often complemented by what we call our nexus programming. In this way, we made a life-changing difference for people in regions of the DRC riddled by conflict and instability.

This year, we supported 38,320 people in two “health zones” (Binza and Tanganyika) through activities which integrated humanitarian, development and peacebuilding activities.

We carried out this work in one of the most complex and insecure places in the world. In such areas, young children and babies are exceptionally vulnerable. In 2026, we focused on nutrition support for children under five, water and sanitation interventions, agricultural livelihoods, and community-level peace structures.

Our teams did this while continuously adapting to the ever-changing circumstances tragically characteristic of unstable regions. These included:

• Armed conflict causing dangerous conditions for staff and communities alike.
• A cholera outbreak which spread in 2026, creating new needs and risks.
• Severe challenges gaining physical access to certain areas due to threats like conflict and flooding.
• Displacement of groups of people fleeing danger in their communities.

How Canadian emergency appeals helped fund emergency responses

You’ll notice it in the news. A crisis on another continent dominates headlines for weeks at a time. The world lifts up the region in prayer. People want to do something to help.

During such times World Vision may issue an emergency appeal, asking Canadians to help us respond to a humanitarian disaster. In the past year, thousands of Canadian donors answered our appeals for help in:

• The Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ebola swept through communities (raising $41,400).
• Gaza, where relentless conflict has affected millions (raising $62,500).
• Haiti, where Hurricane Melissa tore through an already struggling population (raising $132,700).
• Venezuela, where 14,000 people were newly displaced by earthquakes (raising $866,800).

These contributions helped provide food, clean water, shelter, medical support, child protection and education in emergencies—when and where it was needed most. And they helped lay the groundwork for the recovery phase.

How Canadian gifts-in-kind helped fund emergency responses

Warm clothing. Hygiene kits. Ready-to-use use therapeutic food (RUTF). Gifts-in-kind from Canadian corporations allow us to deliver essential relief items directly to families in the aftermath of a disaster. This complements the other essential work we do on the ground.

In 2026 alone, we sent emergency food in the form of RUTF to fragile pockets of Afghanistan, Chad, Somalia and several other countries. Many places received clothing and textiles to replace what they’d lost in crisis—or to help them begin new livelihoods after their own were destroyed. Deworming kits went to Mali, to help stand between children and severe malnutrition.

As 2026 wraps, World Vision Canada is preparing a shipment of family emergency kits destined for Venezuela—an example of how Canada continues assisting survivors months after the original disaster. Each family emergency kit will include a ceramic water purification unit with accessories, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and a solar light.

These kinds of contributions ensure that displaced families facing crisis can help meet their needs with dignity while longer-term recovery efforts ramp up.

As always, we pray that the year ahead is free from humanitarian crises. But we’re ready to go when children and families need us—thanks to the help of donors from across Canada.

We’d welcome the chance to partner with you when disaster strikes. Become an Emergency Response supporter.