Al-Imdaad Foundation partners with ONSUR
06 Jan 2015
Flour Distribution Project
Loaf of Bread Project
18 Feb 2015As part of the Al-Imdaad Foundation's partnership with ONSUR, a ten day distribution of bread was conducted over 10 days to displaced Syrians who had been escaping the conflict.
As part of an international convoy of Trucks setting out from Turkey for Syria the Al-Imdaad Foundation partnered with the ONSUR organization for Relief and Development to distribute a number of containers of critical aid materials including, medical supplies, food aid, baby kits, and manual hand pumps to be installed in wells situated in IDP and refugee camps . The convoy aimed to address these key areas to help the Syrian people, now entering the fourth year of the crisis, with the humanitarian toll which is becoming a larger and larger burden.
The cities and countryside of Syria suffer from a severe scarcity of medical supplies and personnel resulting in more than 55% of public hospitals incapable of serving the population. Even where medical facilities are in operation they are often so far away from the affected communities that access is severely limited. Due to the constant targeting of civilians and the difficulty in accessing hospitals and medical points, the rapid transport of the injured becomes a fundamental part of saving lives. Because of this it is of great need to provide ambulance vehicles to save the lives of the injured and wounded and help transport them to the nearest hospital to allow necessary medical services.
In addition to the needs of the wounded and injured, children are also greatly affected by wars and crises, because of the greater need during the early developmental stages for proper nutritional intake, which is often difficult to maintain during times of war. Children also require an environment of security and stability in order to develop healthy bodies and minds. As part of the project the needs of children in the early childhood phase between their birth and the age of two years were directly addressed. These needs included adequate supplies of infant milk formula, diapers and children’s' biscuits. To help with these needs up to 600 child-baskets were distributed to IDP and refugee mothers.
The suffering of the Syrian people is such that even a piece of bread which is the staple food of Syria has become a luxury due to the wheat scarcities and the inflated prices in most Syrian cities and rural areas. At the same time, most residents have very low levels of purchasing ability due to high unemployment and the loss of resources creating a situation where a bread loaf has become the dream of whole families. As part of the ONSUR initiative a bread loaf project supplied bakeries across Syrian provinces with flour and other bread ingredients in order to distribute the bread at cost price to the citizens.
Even more essential than daily bread is a regular supply of pure water which has been affected due to the damage of infrastructure during the conflict. The scarcity of electricity and long periods of cut-off supply in addition to the high prices of fuel make it extra difficult as people cannot depend on either electric pumps or those operated by fuel to get water from the wells. In a bid to address this problem and to help the suffering of citizens in besieged areas, manual hand pumps, known as pressers, that can draw one liter of water per press have been installed directly onto wells. One presser pump can cover the need of one district enabling the population easy access to water even in the absence of fuel or electricity.
By addressing these four areas, the Al-Imdaad Foundation through its partnership with ONSUR has helped the Syrian people to deal with many of the critical problems that they have had to deal with on a daily basis as a result of the conflict thereby making their difficult lives a little more bearable.