World Humanitarian Day

Providing life-saving support and protection during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On World Humanitarian Day, cbm honours all aid and health workers who continue, despite the odds, to provide life-saving support and protection to people most in need.

This year World Humanitarian Day comes as the world continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and faces escalating emergencies from climate change. Aid workers are overcoming unprecedented access hurdles to assist people in humanitarian crises who have been catapulted into humanitarian need by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Lulu, our Country Coordinator in Papua New Guinea writes:

“My heart is breaking as I witness the fall-out from the effects of COVID-19 in our communities. If I had to use just one word to describe people’s state of mind at the moment, it would be ‘fearful’. COVID-19 is spreading faster than the information and hygiene materials needed to keep people safe. People in remote villages are getting sick. They don’t know how serious COVID-19 is, so they don’t practice good hygiene standards or social distancing because they are simply unaware. And the people cbm serves, those who are blind, and those with physical, hearing, visual and intellectual disabilities, they are the most afraid of all. Because they know they will be at the bottom of everyone else’s list of priorities”.

As we remember the many people in the service of others on World Humanitarian Day, we are grateful for their dedication and contribution. We are also grateful for all who support cbm for helping transform the lives of children and adults living with disabilities in the world’s poorest places.