News & Media

Oxfam prepares response to Beirut blast – Lebanon

August 7, 2020

Oxfam is working with local partners to assess how it can help those who have lost their homes and livelihoods in the Beirut explosion.

Oxfam is extremely concerned about the ability of communities in Beirut, and the rest of Lebanon, to recover from the latest crisis. Even before the blast, Lebanon was at breaking point, with people struggling to cope with multiple, complex crises of economic collapse and a global pandemic. The scale and magnitude of the disaster means hundreds of thousands of people now need immediate aid including food, shelter, water, fuel, protection, as well as support to rebuild their lives and livelihoods well into the future.

Oxfam Lebanon Policy Lead, Bachir Ayoub said this ‘crisis on crises’ creates huge challenges for people in Lebanon for years to come:

“Lebanon was already struggling to cope. The economy has been in a tailspin, the local currency has lost approximately 80 percent of its value, and the last month has seen a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases with hospitals already under pressure.

“People whose homes have been damaged or completely destroyed will not be able to access their money to start to repair or rebuild, and essential items like wheat and medicine will soon be scarce, as the Port of Beirut, the major storage and supply point, has been obliterated. A massive effort will be required to recover.

“The devastation in Beirut is unimaginable, and the road to recovery will be long and hard. Like all of Beirut, Oxfam staff have been affected. Some have had homes completely destroyed, others have sustained injuries. Thankfully, all are safe. We stand in solidarity with all have been affected as we work together to rebuild.”

Oxfam New Zealand’s response to the deadly Beirut blast is focused on supporting the people most vulnerable to imminent food and medicine shortages, particularly Syrian refugees living in Lebanon and their host communities who were already facing economic crisis and long-term food and livelihood insecurity. Donate here: www.oxfam.org.nz/beirut

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For further information and interviews please contact:

Kelsey-Rae Taylor | [email protected] | +64 21 298 9854

NOTES TO EDITORS

· Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993 providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by conflict, and promoting economic development, good governance at a local and national level, and women’s rights through work with local partners. Oxfam also works with local partners to contribute to the protection and empowerment of marginalised women and men.

· Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita in the world: 1 out of every 4 people. In response to the Syria crisis, Oxfam has been providing water and sanitation, and emergency cash assistance for refugees and poor Lebanese, helping refugees with legal protection issues, and supporting small businesses and private-sector job creation. Oxfam is currently working in North Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, South Lebanon, and in Palestinian camps and gatherings.

Oxfam concerned with the recent spike in PNG COVID-19 cases

August 2, 2020

Oxfam in PNG with its local partners is deeply concerned with the recent spike in the number of COVID-19 cases reported in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The recent increase within the communities exposes many people, particularly the most vulnerable, to the risk of possibly contracting the virus.

Oxfam PNG Country Director, Anand Das, explained that in response to the alarming number of new COVID-19 cases Oxfam remains committed to supporting the work being done by Government in ensuring the safety of its citizens especially in vulnerable communities by re-enforcing the need to adhere to COVID-19 protocols and preventative measures.

“We have observed that there is still a large number of people who are not adhering or are unable to adhere to the preventative measures enforced by Government and this is extremely worrying. The National Department of Health has also reported seeing community transmission in the National Central District, making our work in amplifying our awareness messages even more vital at this point,” said Mr Das.

PNG lifted its COVID-19 Pandemic State of Emergency on 2 June 2020 and in the first week of July three more cases were confirmed. Thereafter, the total number of reported cases increased to 31 and then 62 within just a few days. As of 1 August, total cases have now increased to 91; including 51 active cases and two deaths.

The PNG government has taken immediate action by restricting domestic travel, increasing provincial border checks, and making wearing of masks mandatory, restricting public gatherings, imposing of curfews and intensifying contact tracing efforts.

“Testing clinics have also been set-up in various centres and the St John’s Ambulance is also providing testing services at a small fee to assist. We encourage people to take advantage of this service and most importantly to adhere to the protocols,” said Mr Das.

He explained that there is growing concern also with the lack of understanding by the public on the need to utilise these clinics and the laxity in adhering to the preventative measures. “There is a need for more coordinated communication to re-enforce the messaging and this is where civil society organisations, NGOs and local partners can assist in reaching out to the people.”

Oxfam has initiated its COVID-19 Response Plan with support from the Australian Humanitarian Partnership Disaster Ready (DFAT) programme to spread community awareness through different forms of local and international media. Assistance received from the New Zealand Government (through MFAT) is also being initiated with an integrated approach of public health projects, awareness on COVID protocols, addressing food and income security of vulnerable populations and supporting district and provincial administration in the response.

“With the restrictions, our immediate concern is the safety and well-being of our staff and their families as well. We are also concerned with the safety of our partners in the communities and we may consider scaling down some of our programs on the ground and focus more on risk communication and community engagement by providing more COVID-19 awareness through the media,” explained Das.

Das also added that cases are expected to increase, and Oxfam in PNG will focus on community outreach and awareness on COVID-19 protocols throughout the next 12-18 months, while concentrating on building resilience of communities through food security and nutritional activities, hand hygiene and safe sanitation, and gender and inclusion, including addressing gender relations and women’s increased workloads in the long run and supporting district and provincial administration in finalising their COVID-19 Response Plans.

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For interviews or more information please contact: 
Kelsey-Rae Taylor | [email protected] | +64 21 298 9854

5 reasons why people are doing Oxfam Trailwalker

July 30, 2020

Since our launch last month, we have seen an incredible response with people stepping up to take on the Oxfam Trailwalker challenge. Already more than HALF of participant spots are filled and we want to make sure you don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Don’t miss out!

During the past month, we’ve been on the phones answering your questions as well as chatting to people about the event. We’ve heard so many great reasons why people are getting involved and want to share them with you…

1. Explore New Zealand’s finest: For the first time in its history, Oxfam Trailwalker will take place in the stunning Taranaki region. It’s an opportunity after the lockdown period to get out, support domestic tourism and experience a brand-new trail – exclusive only to Oxfam Trailwalker participants.

2. Tick it off your bucket list: You probably know someone who’s taken on the Oxfam Trailwalker challenge – and had the blisters to prove it! Oxfam Trailwalker might have been on your bucket list for some time and this is your year to conquer it. There’s no time like the present!

3. A physical challenge we’re up for: People from all fitness levels are stepping up to take on the trail. Whether it’s to get fitter, push yourself out of your comfort zone, or be a great role model for your children, Oxfam Trailwalker is sure to push you to your limits for an incredibly rewarding experience.

4. Bond with friends and colleagues: It’s a great excuse to round up your mates, get active and make memories with those you are closest with. Past participants have told us it’s a memory they reflect back on often and something their friend group will cherish for a lifetime.

5. Do your bit to help make the world a better place: With the world in its current state, we all should pitch in and lend a helping hand. When you participate in Oxfam Trailwalker, you’ll give families living in poverty access to basic water and sanitation while providing a safe environment for them to thrive.

Start your adventure today!

Don’t forget – early bird pricing ends 31 August so take advantage of the discounted rates while you can!

We are here to help you smash your goals and would love to hear from you. Do give us a call on 0800 600 700 or email us at [email protected] if you have any questions.

COVID-19: First cases confirmed in the Sahrawi camps, 173,000 refugees at risk

July 27, 2020

Coronavirus has breached the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, putting over 170,000 chronically vulnerable refugees at significant risk, Oxfam said today.

The rates of preexisting health conditions in the camps is gravely concerning and could make this outbreak particularly dangerous. Fifty-two per cent of women living in the camps are anemic, over 11 per cent of adults have diabetes, and six per cent live with coeliac disease, the highest prevalence in the world.

The camp clinics have no ventilators, too few beds, and drastic shortages of medical supplies and protective equipment.

Oxfam Country Director in Algeria, Haissam Minkara, said: “This is the news people here have been fearing. Sahrawi refugees have been displaced for 45 years in the harsh Algerian Sahara, where food and water are incredibly scarce and so many suffer from pre-existing vulnerabilities. The health infrastructure in the camps is too fragile to cope with the potential catastrophe that COVID-19 could bring.”

Despite a joint appeal for $14 million launched in April by Oxfam and eight other humanitarian agencies operating in the refugee camps to mitigate the worst effects of the pandemic and adapt programs in the health, WaSH, food, and education sectors to address emerging challenges, the COVID-response remains drastically underfunded. Local authorities and organizations remain extremely underprepared to protect people.

Oxfam Is distributing protective equipment and hygiene items to 33 public health facilities and clinics in the camps, improving people’s access to clean water, increasing distributions of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as gluten-free flour, and promoting proper hygiene practices among the community.

“The Sahrawi refugee crisis has been overlooked by the international community for over four decades and now the stakes couldn’t be higher. Organizations like Oxfam are mobilizing resources, but it will not be enough. The international community must support local authorities and agencies to deal with this outbreak or the outcome could be catastrophic,” said Mr. Minkara.

Notes to Editors:

Since 1975 Algeria has hosted a large proportion of the Sahrawi population in refugee camps near the city of Tindouf, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid to sustain basic needs such as access to food, water, and shelter. The camps are situated in a particularly hostile environment, with temperatures reaching up to 55 degrees Celsius in July and August, frequent sandstorms, constant drought and rare but devastating torrential rains. As a result, refugees suffer from persistent levels of food insecurity and malnutrition and have limited opportunities for self-reliance.

Oxfam has been active in the camps since 1975, and over the years, our work has evolved from emergency aid to the multifaceted provision of humanitarian support, resilience and capacity building activities.

For more on Oxfam in the Sahrawi refugee camps: https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/countries/algeria

Joint-COVID-19 submission for refugees from Western Sahara in camps in Algeria: https://reliefweb.int/report/algeria/comprehensive-needs-covid-19-prevention-and-response-refugees-western-sahara-tindouf

For more information contact:

Anna Samulski | [email protected] | +1 718 644 8511

World at a crossroads: Extra billion dollars required in time of unprecedented need – NZ aid agencies

July 22, 2020

A group of New Zealand’s leading international aid agencies have launched a joint campaign today, calling for New Zealand to dramatically increase its aid funding and climate finance for poorer countries.

Oxfam, World Vision and Christian World Service, with the backing of ten other agencies, have organised a petition for the government to adopt a Collective Resilience Plan – a three-year roadmap to boost New Zealand aid and climate finance.

As the coronavirus pandemic threatens to undo decades of progress in the fight against poverty, the Collective Resilience Plan outlines critical steps to improve New Zealand’s action to solve global problems, including:

A 20% boost to the overall aid budget, equating to approximately $500 million over three years, focused on healthcare, social protection and community resilience
A doubling of finance for overseas climate action for frontline countries from new and additional sources, equating to approximately $500 million
A timeline for increasing New Zealand’s aid spend to meet the global target of 0.7% of Gross National Income by 2030

Executive director of Oxfam New Zealand Rachael Le Mesurier said while New Zealand had so far successfully managed the coronavirus pandemic the rest of the world had been hit incredibly hard by the crisis.

“We are facing unprecedented global health and economic crises,” said Le Mesurier. “The stark reality is that, as we speak, decades of progress against poverty and inequality is being unravelled. We are at a crucial tipping point with millions more people being pushed into poverty, and countries already grappling with the threat of climate breakdown now facing the economic downturn of the century driven by the global pandemic,” she said.

“Kiwis worked together to keep each other safe,” she said. “Now it’s time to help our global neighbours, who have been standing strong in the fight against climate breakdown but now face compounding immediate dangers – hunger and a deadly virus.”

National director of World Vision New Zealand, Grant Bayldon said: “Without decisive collective action, the poorest people will pay the highest price. People who have to work hard for their food every day, and do not have the same social welfare safety nets available that we do, now cannot go out to earn a living. Imagine facing that impossible dilemma – put food on the table for your family, or risk their health and your own, by being exposed to the virus?”

The NGO group is also asking for a concrete timeline for New Zealand to meet global targets for aid spending as a proportion of GNI by 2030, saying although we as a country have already committed to the targets, successive governments have so far made slow progress towards implementing them.

“When it comes to overseas aid, countries like the UK, Germany and Denmark contribute more than double the share of their national income than we currently do,” said Bayldon. “Meanwhile we languish near the bottom of the pack of wealthy countries for our funding of overseas climate action. New Zealand can and should be doing more.”

Christian World Service national director Pauline McKay said containing the pandemic required a united, global approach to keep everyone safe, especially the most vulnerable. “As we saw with Ebola, dealing with global health challenges requires that countries work together by investing in the safety nets and services necessary to look after everyone through this time.”

“The admirable way Kiwis have looked after some of our most vulnerable here in New Zealand shows what we can achieve when communities work together,” said McKay. “This pandemic has highlighted just how connected we all are, and it’s crucial we stand together with our international neighbours, now when it’s most critically needed.”

A recent Oxfam briefing revealed how the social and economic fallout of the pandemic could kill more people from hunger than from the disease itself, as a result of mass unemployment, disruption to food production and supplies, and declining aid.

“We are at a global crossroads,” Le Mesurier said. “Without countries pulling together to provide crucial aid, the world will endure many long, rolling years of hardship and disease that will have both direct and indirect impact on us all, wherever we live.

“We urge New Zealanders to join our call for big hearts and a connected world, and sign the petition to build a stronger global community.”

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Notes to editors:

· Oxfam, World Vision and Christian World Service are leading the year-long campaign at www.bighearts.org.nz, with CARE, Christian Blind Mission, Engineers Without Borders New Zealand, FairTrade Australia NZ, New Zealand Family Planning, Hagar New Zealand, Rotary New Zealand World Community Service, Tearfund, Trade Aid, and UnionAID

· New Zealand currently gives approximately 0.28% of Gross National Income to overseas aid. The internationally agreed target is 0.7% of GNI to overseas aid.

· New Zealand ranks 19th out of 23 Annex I countries in climate-specific finance per capita given to developing countries, based on the latest summary data from the UNFCCC.

· OECD data shows that rich countries only committed 0.30 percent of their combined gross national income (GNI) to development aid, down from 0.31 percent in 2018, and well below the 0.7 percent they promised back in 1970.

· The campaign comes after the release of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World by the United Nations (UN), which estimates between 778 million and 828 million people globally may go hungry this year.

· The recent Oxfam briefing ‘The Hunger Virus’ found that the social and economic fallout of the pandemic could kill more people from hunger than from the disease itself.

· On 30 March 2020, the UN called for a US$2.5 trillion coronavirus crisis package for developing countries. This includes: US$1 trillion liquidity injections to be made available through the expanded use of special drawing rights; the cancellation of US$1 trillion of debts owed by developing countries this year; and US$500 billion in overseas aid to fund a Marshall Plan for health recovery and dispersed as grants.

For images, interviews or more information please contact:
Kelsey-Rae Taylor | [email protected] | 021 298 9854

A family struck by hunger

July 20, 2020

A Mother of Eight Narrates Ordeal in Covid-19

Written by Bettie Kemah Johnson-Mbayo, Oxfam in Liberia

Before the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, Bone Kortie, 43 years, was a petty business trader in Paynesville city, one of the cities surrounding Liberia’s densely populated capital city of Monrovia.

Bone is famously called by regular clients as ‘cold milk’ – a name she earned from the tasty cold milk she sold prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Liberia.

Bone is a mother of eight children between the ages of three and 16 years. Like so many other women across Liberia, she takes care of the extended family too. Bone is the biological parent of five children, while the others are those of her late sister who died tragically in a car crash in 2017.

Bone takes care of these children all by herself since the father of last child disappeared three years ago: “My son’s father asked for the money we were saving for the family to go do business, but since he left I have no idea if he is alive or dead.”

People are afraid to buy milk

Since the start of Covid-19, Bone’s business has faltered, and she has exhausted all her earnings from the sale of cold milk, which is the only source of income she has to feed her entire family.

“Since the start of the sickness, the people are afraid to buy the milk, nobody wants to buy, and I was losing, so I resolved to not sell it anymore,” she said.

Life for Bone and her children is unbearable according to her. She is now doing casual labour, collecting and piling dirt for a house foundation. Three of the children are selling plastic bags in the streets while the oldest son is doing yard work to help the family survive.

“I am currently helping someone to fill their house foundation. I get paid L$150.00 [about 75 cents] a day and at least 10 loads must be taken to the site in a day. The money we raise from the sales of plastic and the filling of the foundation, is what keeps us alive right now.

“Sometimes when I think about my suffering I just want to commit suicide, my life now is not easy, the condition I find myself in, I can’t explain,” she said.

The “no food days” of the week

Prior to Covid-19, Bone and her children ate two meals a day, but now, it is either one meal a day or none.

With tears running down her cheeks, she said, “This Saturday we didn’t eat but we ate Sunday, thanks to the help of a neighbour. I kept little of the food for Monday…I told the children if they eat early Monday morning there will be no food in the evening. So, you see, I can starve the children because I don’t have food and sometimes they don’t understand. Even on Monday they ate at 4pm but the food wasn’t enough, I made them drink enough water. I don’t know if they were okay, but they slept until Tuesday.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday Bone went to work and returned home with five cups of rice, which she steamed, and the children ate without any soup nor oil.

Thursday was a “no food day” for Bone and her children because of the heavy rain that resulted in no work for her and her sons selling the plastics. Now that Liberia has entered the rainy season, there will likely be more no food days to come.

“Today [Thursday] until now no food, the plan I have is, when it is late evening I will go to the lady that I can wash for to give me the clothes to wash, I know she will pay but going for the clothes is an assurance that we will eat Friday because tonight, I am hoping that someone can help me for the children not to sleep hungry again.”

Despite the struggle for food, Bone is also faced with an increase in the rent of her one-bedroom apartment where she and the eight children live. “The landlord said the rent has increased, where am I going to take the money from?” she asks.

Cash transfer: a dream come true

Luckily, Bone is now one of the 300 project participants for the social protection project funded by Oxfam and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (Danida). The project is locally led by two partners: Community Healthcare Initiative (CHI) and West Point Women for Health and Development Organization, both largely focused on women rights.

The project aims to minimize the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on women and girls in six urban poor or slum communities, and it was pre-designed to address their basic food and non-food needs by providing a digital cash transfer via mobile phone.

However, not everyone has a mobile phone, explains Mohammed Massalay, the Oxfam Covid-19 focal point for the project: “after the selection process we noticed that 50% (150 households) of the project participants did not have mobile phones and no mobile money account due to age and some level of vulnerability. We procured phones and SIM cards for these 50% participants and registered a mobile money account of their own.”

Each project participant received $109.50 to their mobile money accounts.

Currently, Bone with a smile beaming across her face, displays the text showing receipt of payment on her phone via mobile money.

“I am going to buy food for the house and start selling charcoal, I do not know when this sickness will go, and I can’t use all the money to buy food,” she said.

The transfer is a dream come through, my children and I can’t say much but to say thank you for coming to our rescue, now we can eat daily.” She said.