Nigeria Ngala: The humanitarian situation in Borno is catastrophic and more assistance is needed, both in remote and accessible areas in Borno. MSF teams have done a cross-border assessment in Ngala and Gambaru in Nigeria where over 200.000 people are living in disastrous conditions and are in desperate need of food and aid. The situation there is similar to what has already been seen in enclaves like Bama, Banki and Gwoza and shows the devastating impact on the population of the conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military forces. Disastrous living conditions and lack of food are killing more people than violence. MSF teams provided food and medical care and are scaling up assistance. September 2016, copyright : Silas Adamou Moussa/MSF

By IKEA Foundation
LEIDEN, The Netherlands, Dec 2 2016 (IPS)

As hundreds of thousands flee their homes in northeastern Nigeria to seek safety from intensifying conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military, the IKEA Foundation has given Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) €1 million to provide lifesaving medical assistance.

The conflict in Northeastern Nigeria started in 2009, as a result of the fighting, countless families have been force to flee their homes and sought safety in overcrowded cities or camps for displaced people Tragically, many are losing their lives and their loved ones to illness, hunger and violence.

MSF is working tirelessly to help displaced survive the biggest killers inside the camps: measles, diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition.

The IKEA Foundation is leading the way with a €1 million grant and hopes that other funders will step forward to help MSF save even more lives.

MSF is using the funding to implement a range of health activities for the most vulnerable.

More than 7,500 children under five have been vaccinated against measles and have been provided with emergency food rations. Fourteen per cent of children screened for malnutrition were suffering from the deadliest form of malnutrition and received therapeutic food and treatment. MSF is also providing antenatal care for pregnant women, referring critical patients for hospital care and is delivering large quantities of clean water.

Shining a light on unseen emergencies
Around the world, MSF gives medical care to thousands of people suffering from emergencies that receive little or no international assistance.

Thanks to a special agreement with the IKEA Foundation signed only a couple of weeks ago, MSF can quickly access grants to help children and their families survive these emergencies.

“Through this grant, the IKEA Foundation is giving a financial boost for our emergency action on the ground and is also working with us to shine a light on this crisis,” says Bruno Jochum, General Director of MSF.

“When our teams first arrived in Banki in July, we discovered some 25,000 people living in catastrophic conditions in a camp without access to food, water and medical care. The health and humanitarian situation was beyond critical with mortality rates three times above the emergency threshold. Fourteen per cent of the children screened by MSF were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and nearly one in three children was malnourished. Since then, we have been providing regular assistance in Banki, and we now see an improvement in the health situation. This shows the positive impact of humanitarian aid, although much more remains to be done.” Said Hugues Robert, MSF Programme Manager for Nigeria.

“This emergency has not received the kind of international attention it deserves considering the scale of suffering going on,” he continues. “The IKEA Foundation’s support of our lifesaving medical action is a recognition that more needs to be done, and fast.”

Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation, agrees. “Children and their families have the right to health and protection, which is why the IKEA Foundation is proud to support MSF’s lifesaving services during unseen emergencies and calls on other funders to do the same.”

Ngala, Nigeria: Emergency aid to victims of violence and displacement, On 13 November, MSF teams from Cameroon managed to access Ngala in Nigeria for the second time.
Some 78,000 internally displaced people live there in a camp and receive little external assistance. MSF provided food, relief items and medical care, and screened over 7,000 of children for malnutrition and vaccinated them against measles.
Over twenty per cent of the children were found to suffer from malnutrition. MSF teams also started to improve the water supply.
In the town of Gambaru, a few kilometers from Ngala, MSF teams vaccinated over 8,000 children under the age of five against measles and also screened them for malnutrition. Ten per cent were malnourished and received food aid and medical care. The town’s estimated 70,000 residents lack basic food supplies and have no access to healthcare.
The only health centre was burnt down, and the road is too dangerous for people to leave to seek care elsewhere.
October 2016, copyright : Sylvain Cherkaoui/COSMOS

Nigeria Ngala, MSF teams provided food and medical care and are scaling up assistance.
September 2016, copyright : Silas Adamou Moussa/MSF

Nigeria Ngala ,People in the camp reported having less than half a litre of water per person per day.
September 2016, copyright : Silas Adamou Moussa/MSF

Nigeria Ngala ,People in the camp reported having less than half a litre of water per person per day.
September 2016, copyright : Silas Adamou Moussa/MSF

Ngala: Teams have been able to offer medical consultations to the population in Gambaru inside a tent that was put up in health center that has been burnt down.
September 2016, copyright : Silas Adamou Moussa/MSF

The desperate living conditions in Borno state show the devastating impact of the ongoing conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military. In several locations, people have sought refuge in towns or camps controlled by the military, and are entirely reliant on outside aid that does not reach them. “Although a nutrition emergency was declared three months ago, there has been a serious failure to help the people of Borno,” said Hugues Robert, head of MSF’s emergency response. “And we are again calling for a massive relief effort to be deployed now.”
October 2016, copyright: Stéphane Reynier de Montlaux/MSF

Conflict-affected populations in Banki
October 2016, copyright: Stéphane Reynier de Montlaux/MSF

During the second week of July 2016, MSF organised an exploratory mission and an emergency distribution for more than 15,000 displaced people leaving in dire conditions in the city of Banki, in Borno State – Nigeria.
July 2016, copyright: Naoufel Dridi/MSF

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Notes to editors
For more information about the IKEA Foundation’s emergency-grant agreement with MSF: https://www.ikeafoundation.org/stories/helping-save-children-msf-save-thousands-childrens-lives-catastrophic-disasters/

The IKEA Foundation and MSF have partnered since 2013 to bring lifesaving medical care to people suffering in conflicts and disasters. The IKEA Foundation has donated more than EIUR 20 million to MSF since 2013. In 2014, IKEA Foundation provided EUR 5 million to fight the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa.

About the IKEA Foundation
The IKEA Foundation (Stichting IKEA Foundation) is the philanthropic arm of INGKA Foundation, the owner of the IKEA Group of companies. We aim to improve opportunities for children and youth in some of the world’s poorest communities by funding holistic, long-term programmes that can create substantial, lasting change. The IKEA Foundation works with strong strategic partners applying innovative approaches to achieve large-scale results in four fundamental areas of a child’s life: a place to call home; a healthy start in life; a quality education; and a sustainable family income, while helping these communities fight and cope with climate change.

Learn more at www.ikeafoundation.org and www.facebook.com/IKEAfoundation.

About MSF
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF offers assistance to people based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.
Learn more at www.msf.org/en/about-msf

For further information, please contact:
Radu Dumitrascu: Tel +31 6 5569 8570, Radu.Dumitrascu@IKEAfoundation.org
Emma Amadò : Tel +41 79 240 08 71, emma.amado@geneva.msf.org

This article has been provided by IKEA Foundation as part of an agreement with IPS

Excerpt:

Courtesy of IKEA Foundation

By IKEA Foundation
LEIDEN, The Netherlands, Oct 24 2016 (IPS)

When disasters strike, children are among the most vulnerable, and humanitarian aid agencies need to be able to respond immediately to save their lives.

In order to help save thousands of children’s lives during catastrophic disasters, the IKEA Foundation has signed agreements with two of the world’s foremost humanitarian aid organisations.

For this purpose, the Foundation on 17 October signed framework agreements with Save the Children and Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) that will enable the organisations to access the funding they need right after a disaster strikes.

Protecting children in the deadliest disasters

As climate change wreaks bigger and more frequent disasters, Save the Children’s teams are working around the world to help children access their rights to protection, healthcare, education, and child-friendly spaces in which to play.

The IKEA Foundation’s new agreement will give Save the Children access to up to 2 million euro within 72 hours of a category-one disaster—an extraordinary emergency affecting more than one million children and causing widespread destruction.

Save the Children will use the funding to quickly and efficiently help children and their families survive the unthinkable and begin to recover in the months that follow.

“Save the Children is tremendously excited to deepen our relationship with the IKEA Foundation, and even more so, to further our mutual commitment to do whatever it takes to save children’s lives in emergencies around the world. Quite simply, rapid response save children’s lives,” said Daniele Timarco, Humanitarian Director Save the Children.

“This partnership, allowing for substantial and immediate funding of emergency response, allows us the flexibility to immediately begin our work on the ground, Timarco added.

Courtesy of IKEA Foundation

Providing medical care during “unseen” disasters

Around the world, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) gives medical care to thousands of families suffering from disasters that receive little or no international media attention and for which it is difficult to raise support.

Thanks to this new agreement with the IKEA Foundation, MSF will be able to access emergency grants of up to 3 million euro to help children and their families survive these disasters.

“Emergency humanitarian action often happens in places the world seems to have forgotten, in places that are hard to reach for journalists,” explains Bruno Jochum, General Director of Médecins Sans Frontières.

“The IKEA Foundation grants will help our teams provide lifesaving medical care and, in so doing, show the families caught in these crises that we’re trying to support them in their time of greatest need.”

Save the Children is one of the IKEA Foundation’s longest-running partnerships, and the two organisations have teamed up to help children enjoy their rights in dozens of countries, including during disasters such as typhoons and flooding in the Philippines and the Nepal earthquake in 2015.

The IKEA Foundation and MSF have partnered since 2013 to bring lifesaving medical care to people suffering in conflicts and disasters, including those wounded in Syria. The IKEA Foundation gave its largest single emergency donation ever—5 million euro—to Médecins Sans Frontières to fight the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa in 2014.

Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation, said: “We’re working toward a world where children living in poverty have more opportunities to create a better future for themselves and their families.

Providing funding in crisis areas and tackling climate change are critical to achieving this goal. That’s why it’s crucial that we give organisations such as Save the Children the resources they need to save children’s lives and help families rebuild in the wake of catastrophes.

“Our agreement with MSF is a unique way of ensuring families trying to survive unseen emergencies can get the medical care they desperately need. We know there are huge gaps in humanitarian funding, and those gaps are more than simply academic; they cost people their lives,” he added.

“With our funding, we hope not only to help MSF save lives but also to create visibility for disasters that receive little or no international media attention and to mobilise other donors to support children who need it the most.”

Read more about the IKEA Foundation’s support for children in emergencies.

*This article has been provided by IKEA Foundation as part of an agreement with IPS.

Courtesy of IKEA Foundation

By IKEA Foundation
LEIDEN, The Netherlands, Aug 17 2016 (IPS)

With more than 65 million people forced to flee their homes due to violence and armed conflicts, this year’s Wold Humanitarian Day on August 19 will call on all governments and social sectors to work together to tackle this unprecedented human crisis.

The IKEA Foundation believes that businesses and foundations have an important role to play in strengthening the global response to refugee crises worldwide.

On this, Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation, says: “The corporate sector must come together to support those caught up in one of the biggest displacements of people in history. It’s not just up to governments and aid agencies. Businesses also have a responsibility to respond in their own way.”

“Financial support, through giving grants to organisations working directly with refugees, is certainly one way they can help. But we believe businesses have much more to offer. Their expertise and ability to innovate can help make life better for refugees, and they can use their influence to galvanise others to help,” Heggenes adds.

Focus on Innovation and Creativity

The Foundation supports refugee children and their families around the world through the UN Refugees agency (UNHCR) and other leading international organisations. The IKEA business makes good use of its creativity and problem-solving skills to find practical ways to help refugees.

Together with social enterprise Better Shelter and UNHCR, the Foundation has created a flat-pack shelter, which is safer and more durable than a tent.

UNHCR has already ordered thousands of shelters to house refugee families in Greece, Iraq, Serbia, Chad and Djibouti. The shelter will be on show at Insecurities:Tracing Displacement and Shelter, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1 October 2016 to 22 January 2017.

“This is a great example of how IKEA’s democratic design principles—of making good design available to the many people—have also influenced innovation in the humanitarian sector,” says Heggenes.

“The shelters are helping people who have been forced to flee their homes to live a better everyday life while in displacement.”

Build Unlikely Collaborations

The IKEA Foundation also recently teamed up with Amsterdam-based design platform What Design Can Do and UNHCR to harness the creative power of the design community.

The What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge called on designers and creative thinkers to come up with new concepts to make life better for refugee families living in urban areas.

The challenge attracted more than 600 entries, with the five winners announced on 1 July. Winners received 10,000 euro and expert support to develop their ideas.

“The great participation in the Refugee Challenge showed that people in the design community really want to use their skills to create better everyday lives for refugee children and families,” says Jonathan Spampinato, Head of Communications at the IKEA Foundation.

“Our role was to create a platform for them to showcase their ideas and provide funding to develop the best concepts. We believe that other professional communities may be equally motivated and that leading businesses can activate this desire to help.”

Courtesy of IKEA Foundation

How Products Can Make a Difference

As well as looking for innovative design solutions, the Foundation provides financial support and donates IKEA products to partner organisations working in humanitarian crises.

“We’re really proud of how we are able to support our partners in times of disasters and conflict,” says Jonathan Spampinato. “On World Humanitarian Day, we’d like to say a huge thank you to our humanitarian partners, especially to their staff and volunteers who work on the frontline in emergencies.”

To support refugee children and families living in Iraq, the Foundation has donated 400,000 mattresses, quilts and blankets to UNHCR over three years.

Since 2013, it has also been donating IKEA children’s products to UNICEF for its Early Childhood Development Kits, which support the well-being of children, including those affected by conflicts and emergencies.

Earlier this year, the Foundation gave grants worth a total of 9.4 million euro to Save the Children and Médicins Sans Frontières. The money is supporting children and families affected by the Syrian conflict, in Syria and neighbouring countries.

It will pay for healthcare, education and child protection and help strengthen local organisations working within Syria. Moreover, the Foundation partnered up with War Child to provide quality education to 10,000 Syrian and Sudanese refugee children through the Can’t Wait to Learn e-learning programme.

Support Frontline Efforts

Using a similar approach, the IKEA Foundation is supporting a three-year programme run by Oxfam to strengthen local humanitarian organisations in Bangladesh and Uganda. The 7.3 million euro grant, which was announced at the World Humanitarian Summit in May, marks a major shift in the way the international community views emergency response.

Per Heggenes said: “With vast numbers of people on the move due to conflict and disaster, there’s a lot of pressure on the humanitarian system. Local organisations are often best placed to provide immediate assistance because they are on the ground and understand the community and culture. We’re funding this programme because we believe that strengthening local actors will improve the humanitarian system as a whole, and help it work more efficiently.”

Engaging Customers and Co-workers

Another way businesses can help is by mobilising their staff and customers to support refugees. In 2014-15, IKEA and the IKEA Foundation ran a campaign called Brighter Lives for Refugees. For every lamp or bulb sold in IKEA stores during the three campaign periods, the IKEA Foundation donated 1 euro to UNHCR.

Per Heggenes said: “We’re delighted with the way IKEA co-workers got behind the campaign, and promoted it to customers in their stores. In total, we raised 30.8 million euro to bring light and renewable energy to refugee camps in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.:

As well as raising a lot of money, I think the campaign shows how businesses can be a powerful force for good by engaging all their audiences in this important issue,” Per Heggenes concluded.

*This article has been provided by IKEA Foundation as part of an agreement with IPS.