QRCS Provides Winter Aid For Displaced

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula

Doha, Qatar: Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) is implementing its Warm Winter campaign 2023-2024, under the theme“Humanity First: Hope for Warmth”, which involves a wide range of winterisation projects and aid for the benefit of more than 230,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), refugees, and poor people in 13 countries (Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Niger, Lebanon, Jordan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kosovo).

These operations are carried out by QRCS's foreign representation offices/missions, under the supervision of the headquarters in Doha, and in coordination with the National Societies and local partners in the host countries.

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This year's campaign has a higher fundraising target than the past years (QR15m), given the increasing needs and suffering of millions of people affected by disasters and conflicts. They face the harsh winter with the least available means of living, hardly enough to protect against low temperatures.

The victims of the ongoing humanitarian crises remain homeless, with no food, shelter, or heating. This is detrimental to the health and lives of thousands of vulnerable people, especially children, patients, and older persons.

Director of Relief and International Development Division at QRCS Dr. Mohamed Salah Ibrahim stated,“When it comes to climate change, nobody is safe. The biggest impact is always on poor and displaced people, who suffer even more from the extremely low temperature during the winter, when it is difficult to get the clothing, food, and heating they need to survive the bitter cold.”

“Realising their critical situation, we have launched our annual Warm Winter campaign. With the donations of the benevolent people of Qatar, we will be able to give vulnerable people hope, satisfaction, warmth, and better living conditions.”

Currently, several winterisation aid projects are in progress. As part of the Qatari humanitarian airlift for the war-affected people of Gaza, mostly displaced to other parts of the blockade to escape the bombing, while the winter is looming, QRCS was actively engaged in these efforts, by providing shelter items to support homeless people in the face of cold weather. With funding from Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD), QRCS's office in Gaza provided blankets, winter clothes, firewood, self-heating meals, food parcels, and other forms of aid that would hopefully alleviate their suffering.

The materials were purchased and are being supplied to the Palestine Red Crescent Society's (PRCS) warehouses in Jenin. A total of QR313,818 winter parcels (each containing two blankets, two mattresses, two pillows, one rug, one lamp, and two hot water bags) will be distributed to 490 families, or 2,940 people.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) distributed 7,750 blankets to 1,550 displaced families (five blankets each), or 10,850 people whose homes were damaged by the Herat earthquake in October. The $100,000 distributions took place in Zinda Jan, Rabat Sanji, Sar-e Biland, and the outskirts of Herat City.

In cooperation with Jordan National Red Crescent Society (JNRCS), heating fuel vouchers worth QR182,244 were purchased and delivered, and the lists of beneficiaries are under inspection, including 640 families, or 3,200 Syrian refugees and poor Jordanians across the country.

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