Facilitating a relief assessment in Nairobi
In December 2007, FOCUS assisted in a humanitarian needs assessment in Kenya. The assessment was conducted as a result of the effects of conflict following controversy during the national elections. During the crisis, over 1,000 people died and 300,000 were displaced. A collaborative effort by
Aga Khan University Hospital, Kenya Red Cross Society and the Kenyan Ministry of Health, resulted in the provision of healthcare through an emergency measles vaccination programme.
This extended programme was aimed at the significantly high numbers of children in the central camp at the Jamhuri showground on the outskirts of Nairobi, which housed 6,000 internally displaced persons in total. For a period of about three weeks towards the end of January, Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) sent teachers to a displaced persons camp in Limuru to provide educational and recreational activities for children.
As part of this effort, AKES also donated food, exercise books as well as textbooks during the intervention. In addition, children and staff at AKES schools raised Kshs 1.27 million ($20,000) for donation to the Kenya Red Cross and UNICEF for their ongoing programmes to assist internally displaced persons.
http://www.akdn.org/news/focus/spring2008.htm
Focus Humanitarian Assistance is an international group of agencies established in Europe, North America and South Asia to complement the provision of emergency relief, principally in the developing world. It helps people in need reduce their dependence on humanitarian aid and facilitates their transition to sustainable self-reliant, long-term development. Focus Humanitarian Assistance is affiliated with the Aga Khan Development Network, a group of institutions working to improve opportunities and living conditions, for people of all faiths and origins, in specific regions of the developing world. Underlying the establishment of FOCUS by the Ismaili Muslim community is a history of successful initiatives to assist people struck by natural and man-made disasters in South and Central Asia, and Africa.
Ismailimail 