Take Action – How you can help Covid-19 victims

Guest blog from Caroline Dyer, Partnerships Manager, Action Against Hunger and chair of pro-manchester’s Hospitality committee.

Covid 19 poses a grave danger, especially in countries with fragile health systems and vulnerable communities who lack access to clean water and nutritious food.

Action Against Hunger has been supported for many years by the incredible generosity of the food & hospitality industry and their customers. Here in Manchester, and across the UK, they allow us to respond extremely rapidly as and when new crises or urgent needs occur anywhere in the world. But the food & hospitality industry is now in crisis too and the losses we face as a result could add up to millions, at a time when people need us most.

It’s almost too painful to think about how catastrophic Covid 19 will be to the countries where we work. Lack of access to clean water, poorly equipped health centres and widespread food insecurity – It is the perfect breeding ground for a humanitarian catastrophe. We work in the world’s largest refugee camp, Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Last week we learnt that it had reached the camps where 855,000 people live and our colleagues predict that nearly everyone will get it.

With one child already dying every 13 seconds of hunger-related disease and weak immunity, our work will be more vital than ever as coronavirus spreads. So, in the coming months, our ability to deliver life-saving programmes is going to be more important than ever.

We desperately need to scale up our water, sanitation and hygiene programmes, teach handwashing and other hygiene practices that are crucial for preventing the spread of coronavirus. We need to improve access to clean water and lead community sessions to teach mothers about handwashing, clean food practices, and safe infant practices.

So, just like our friends in the hospitality world, we need to innovate quickly.

Our team is ready to explore creative new meaningful partnerships. If that company is yours, or you have connections to a company who may be in a position to give, you would be partnering with the global leaders in ending child hunger. You would be saving the lives of millions of malnourished children in nearly 50 countries. You would be ensuring communities can access clean water, hygiene, sanitation and healthcare.

To overcome this global crisis, it is vital we respond together. Not as people in the UK supporting the most vulnerable, but as a global community responding to a shared, global threat.

We are a charity that vulnerable children and their families around the world cannot afford to lose. If you can help, either through an introduction, an idea or through your company please act now.

As an Indian Doctor recently wrote:

‘Social distancing is a privilege, it means you live in a house large enough to practise it. Hand washing is a privilege too, it means you have access to running water. Hand sanitisers are a privilege, it means you have money to buy them. Lockdowns are a privilege, it means you can afford to be at home. Most of the ways to ward the Coronavirus off are accessible only to the affluent’

Please contact Caroline Dyer if you are able to help. You can also donate personally here to their emergency appeal