Disaster Relief

Our Global Rapid Response Team brings together international disaster relief experts from around the world. They are deployed within hours of a major emergency to support local teams and communities.

The team includes specialists in health and nutrition, human resources, finance, logistics, security, food aid, child protection, information technology, and communications. They all work as a team to provide effective aid.

In a large-scale response, World Vision collaborates with the United Nations and other local aid agencies. This collaboration maximizes the effectiveness of the response, helping ensure all needs are met while reducing duplication of efforts.

While disaster relief is critical for saving lives, it’s not enough. Communities need to rebuild – emotionally, physically and practically. This is complicated when large-scale disasters can leave hundreds of thousands of people homeless and vulnerable. 

World Vision is the “last out” of a community, meaning we walk with people for the long haul. We help survivors recover and rebuild. This means helping with permanent housing, clean water systems, sustainable sources of food, access to education and re-established livelihoods. Sometimes, these things can be rebuilt from existing infrastructure. In other cases, they must be created all over again.

We work to help communities build back “better and stronger.” The homes we built in the Philippines, after Typhoon Haiyan tore through the region in 2013, are just one example.

Our global pre-positioning resource network ensures that World Vision is always prepared to respond to any disaster, anywhere in the world. The team pre-positions the supplies and develops preparedness plans, programming standards, logistic assessments and logistic plans.

The supplies are ready to go in seven different warehouses, strategically located around the world. These relief supplies are ready for up to 225,000 beneficiaries at any time. This helps ensure our ability to reach survivors with emergency supplies as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Our global staff are trained and prepared to drop everything when a major disaster strikes. In our national offices around the world – like the one in Mississauga, Canada – staff work tirelessly to communicate with Canadians with updates from the disaster region overseas, including details about the needs on the ground.

Civil conflict is one of the variables contributing to what we call a “fragile region.” In a fragile region, a government either can’t, or won’t, act on its responsibility to protect the rights of its population. These are incredibly challenging places to live. Unlike people in stable countries facing a natural disaster, families in fragile regions experience a near-constant state of emergency.

Children often face great danger in countries like this, and many don’t live beyond early childhood. The risk of malnutrition and disease are a constant threat. In these parts of the world, exploitation – like trafficking or forcing children to serve as soldiers – is a terrible reality.

Currently, we have identified seven fragile countries for our focus: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. In these contexts, we provide emergency relief that includes things like:

• Access to nutritious food, clean water and health care
• Improving local skills and abilities to respond effectively
• Peace building
• Livelihood rehabilitation
• Education

Our goal is to help fragile countries become safer, more stable places where children and their families can grow, learn, live and enjoy the prospect of a long, healthy future.