Three big ways we responded to emergencies in 2025

Throughout 2025, armed conflict, natural disasters and economic shocks pounded communities without mercy. World Vision was there, meeting urgent needs and helping children and families recover and rebuild.

This emergency response work was only possible with our donors’ support through three main channels:

1. Child sponsorship
2. Grants
3. Cash gifts

How child sponsorship supported emergency responses in 2025

World Vision is a trusted partner in communities where Canadians sponsor children. When emergencies arise within our program areas, we can be quick to the scene—delivering life-saving assistance and assessing what families need for the weeks and months ahead.

Here are some examples:

• In September 2024, monsoon rains and landslides devastated eastern Nepal, including the sponsored community of Sindhuli. More than 13,300 people were displaced throughout the region. We supported livelihood recovery in Sindhuli by providing pigs and goats to affected families, and repaired schools and sanitation facilities at health posts.
• In March 2025, Cyclone Jude struck Nampula province, Mozambique, including the sponsored communities of Itoculo and Netia Sede. The storm unleashed winds and torrential rain, severely impacting some 375,000 people and heightening cholera risks. In Itoculo and Netia Sede, we helped families to rehabilitate their homes, providing supplies like roofing sheets, wire and nails. We gave technical assistance for shelter construction—especially for child and female-headed households, elderly people, widows and people with disabilities.
• In January 2025, widespread floods and landslides wreaked havoc across Ecuador, including the sponsored community of Santa Ana. Nearly 60,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, along with highways, bridges and schools. In Santa Ana, World Vision distributed food kits, installed 20 community water points, and provided 1,340 families with safe water kits.

Without the year-round support that our sponsorship programs offer, people in crisis may choose to flee their communities to find assistance or safety elsewhere. World Vision sponsors help keep families rooted during emergencies.

How grants supported emergency responses in 2025

Many disasters occur in places too unstable for sponsorship programs. In these areas, populations can change all the time, as people flee from one area to the next in search of food and shelter.

That’s where grants from bodies such as Global Affairs Canada—a valued partner for many years—are so critical. In 2025, Global Affairs Canada grants helped us make a difference for thousands of displaced children and their families in places like Afghanistan, Lebanon and eastern Chad.

For families fleeing Sudan for eastern Chad

Our grant-funded project provides emergency relief and supports long-term recovery. The focus is on shelter, water and sanitation, and child protection, with a strong commitment to the safety and dignity of women and girls. Here are some highlights, as of October 2025:

• 600 emergency shelters have been constructed.
• 200 emergency latrines were installed to help prevent cholera outbreaks before families move in.
• Ten community hygiene committees have reached more than 3,600 people with sanitation and hygiene messages.
• 80 community leaders —including 35 women—have been trained in construction and safe building practices.
• 889 children—including those with disabilities—are receiving care and psychosocial support in the safe, welcoming environment of our child-friendly spaces.

Thanks to the support of Global Affairs Canada and the dedication of local teams, families affected by this crisis are finding safety, stability and renewed hope.

For families battling to survive in Afghanistan and Lebanon

People in these countries are facing the devastating effects of ongoing conflict, rising food prices and recurring climate-related disasters. These challenges deepened in 2024 and 2025 while humanitarian response plans—especially for health—remained severely underfunded.

Today, both countries are hotspots of acute food insecurity, with increasing health risks. Women and children are particularly vulnerable. With the generous support of Global Affairs Canada, World Vision is responding through a multi-sectoral project across both countries that will reach 77,948 people—including women, girls, boys and men—with critical health and protection services.

• Two health centres have been rehabilitated in Afghanistan, where long winters cut off access to care in remote districts.
• Two additional centres have been restored in Lebanon, where conflict has displaced over one million people and forced many health centres to close.
• 5,428 people in Afghanistan and 2,855 people in Lebanon have received primary health consultations.
• Twenty-five Afghan health staff have been trained in priority health topics to improve care and strengthen local systems.

In places where healthcare systems have broken down, these investments are restoring dignity and improving lives.

How cash gifts supported emergency responses in 2025

As newsrooms shrink—and major news organizations close bureaus around the world—fewer international disasters are making headlines. But that doesn’t change the degree of suffering faced by people in disaster contexts.

When people across Canada make emergency donations, many indicated their funds should be used “Where Most Needed.” These donations help us fund a variety of efforts, like our Nexus programming:

Nexus programming

“Forgotten crises" are the heart of our Nexus programming—an initiative created to revitalize efforts for nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lebanon and Somalia. The fund aims to amplify the speed and effectiveness of:

• Our humanitarian interventions
• Our sustainable development
• Our peacebuilding efforts

Nexus programming enables swift action that addresses root causes, reduces vulnerability, and builds resilience. From peacebuilding and early warning systems to anticipatory action, we empower communities to withstand future shocks while fostering long-term stability.

Building community resilience in the DRC

The DRC remains a hotspot for instability, with millions of people experiencing food insecurity, malnutrition and limited access to essential services like clean water, healthcare, and education. The combined effects of conflict and environmental shocks have contributed to widespread displacement—making recovery and long-term stability particularly challenging.

In the short term, Nexus programming provides emergency food assistance, cash transfers and critical nutrition support to vulnerable communities. These interventions address immediate needs and reduce suffering, particularly in response to food insecurity and malnutrition. To strengthen local economies and promote self-reliance in the DRC, here is some of what we did in 2025:

• Supported 802 households, including 400 women, with climate-resilient seed kits, food seeds, and farming tools to improve food security and diversify livelihoods.
• Formed savings groups that contributed to strengthening the financial resilience of 7,976 people, helping families save, invest, and better manage risks during uncertainty.
• Held 2 life skills sessions on protection and youth engagement, strengthening community resilience.
• Conducted hygiene awareness activities and distributed 1,000 water storage containers to improve safe water access and reduce disease risks.
• Provided protection training and psychological support for war-affected children through 68 counseling sessions, 17 group psychosocial sessions, training 16 facilitators, reintegrating 140 vulnerable youth, and conducting 5 recreational activities to improve child wellbeing.

Supporting and empowering Tripoli, Lebanon

Lebanon is facing a deepening crisis marked by political and economic instability, widespread poverty, rising food insecurity and a growing refugee population.

Tripoli, a city in northern Lebanon, is under immense pressure. It’s home to 500,000 Lebanese people, 70,000 Syrian refugees and 30,000 Palestinian refugees. Long marginalized and under-resourced, the city now faces worsening food insecurity, unemployment, violence and school dropouts.

• To provide quick relief and support, cash-for-work programs offered short-term employment opportunities for 388 vulnerable families, enabling them to meet their basic needs and reduce economic stress.
• To build resilience, we worked with partners to provide market-based training, helping improve job skills and enhance livelihoods. Education retention sessions were held for young people at risk of leaving school. Impact Plus, a core project model used by World Vision International, is reaching adolescents, equipping them with valuable life skill sets to transition to adulthood as empowered citizens.

Building resilience in crisis-affected Somalia

Somalia’s vulnerability has been amplified by prolonged droughts, flooding and internal displacement. As one of the most fragile states in the world, Somalia struggles with ongoing conflict, fragile governance and the impacts of climate change.

In 2025, we aimed to assist people in Hudur (in Somalia’s southwest), Puntland (a semi-autonomous state in the northeast) and Jubaland (in Somalia’s south).

To address immediate critical humanitarian needs, World Vision:

• Provided life-saving cash assistance to 1,800 people, helping reduce hunger and support local markets amid inflation and delayed rains.
• Trained 44 hygiene promoters, strengthening community health and disease prevention.
• Constructed three wells.

Beyond emergency relief, Nexus programming focuses on building long-term resilience by enhancing community-based livelihood strategies. The project fosters longer-term solutions by training village water management and hygiene committees across targeted locations.

To support sustainable development and strengthened livelihoods, our team:

• Reached more than 33,000 people through community awareness sessions on health and hygiene, maximizing local mobilization amid funding cuts.
• Screened children and women for malnutrition through strong community engagement and referrals.
• Supported crop and livestock farmers through training, while providing seeds and tools.

In Somalia’s fragmented and conflict-prone context, peacebuilding is critical for long-term stability. Nexus programming fosters social cohesion through community dialogues, conflict resolution training and advocacy for gender equality and land rights.

To support peacebuilding and social cohesion in 2025, World Vision:

• Trained religious and government community leaders on conflict resolution.
• Reached more than 4,300 people through ongoing dialogue sessions with community members.

In conclusion: World Vision assists children in places that rarely make the news, offering innovative programming for people the world has forgotten about. We’re so grateful for the support of donors, governments and world bodies like the United Nations. Their work doesn’t make headlines—but it certainly changes lives.