World Vision has reached 60 million people with COVI-19 aid, as it continues the biggest humanitarian response in its history. The aid agency is responding in 70 countries and eventually aims to reach more than 70 million people, including those in some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.

World Vision’s objectives over the past year have been:

• Prevention measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. Education around handwashing and other hygiene measures, distributing soap and cleaning kits, constructing handwashing stations and latrines in places where clean water can be scarce.
• Supporting health systems and workers. Training community health workers, providing PPE, setting up and supporting quarantine or isolation facilities, supporting medical facilities.
• Supporting families affected by COVID-19. Cash and/or emergency food assistance for families who have lost their income, training for those families in new ways to make a livelihood, training teachers and providing education materials for children unable to go to school, psychosocial support for affected children.
• Advocating to ensure vulnerable children are protected. Calling for more aid from developed countries to those most affected by the pandemic and the lockdowns, advocating for an end to violence against children in places hardest hit by COVID-19, advocating for an end to the exploitation of children – including early marriage and child labour – made worse by the pandemic and lockdowns.

Over the past year World Vision has also produced a series of reports into the secondary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns. Findings include that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to 30 million more children suffering or even dying from diseases other than COVID-19, more than 10 million more girls could be forced into early marriage and millions more children are already out of school and being sent to work.

The impacts are far reaching, but aid organisations like World Vision are doing incredible work to reach those most in need.

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