East Africa Child Hunger and Famine Relief Fund

Save the Children is on the ground in South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya providing lifesaving support to children. We are working closely with governments, the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies to reach children and families who desperately need our help. Our priority is to reach children under age 5, who are less able to withstand acute malnutrition and are more susceptible to diseases.

South Sudan:

Save the Children is the lead health and nutrition provider in six of 10 states. We run 45 outpatient therapeutic centers and 58 feeding program sites for infants and young children in the East Equatoria region. We guard children and their families against communicable diseases and increase access to lifesaving drugs, protect children from harm and provide access to education. As cholera spreads, we are also opening cholera treatment units and prepositioned medical supplies, water and sanitation equipment to save lives. 

Uganda: 

With approximately 1.3 million refugees, Uganda has more refugees than any other African nation. Some 970,750 of those who have arrived are from South Sudan. During the month of June, an average of 770 South Sudanese children and adults entered Uganda every day. Uganda also hosts drought-affected Kenyans who have arrived in desperate search of water and grazing for livestock.

Our support is ongoing in five camps and includes both fixed and mobile health units that provide basic health and reproductive health services. We also run over 30 child-friendly spaces and have started accelerated learning programs and classroom construction projects so that children can catch up on their education. Our child protection teams reunite children who were separated from their families, monitor the status of unaccompanied children and train case workers and our partners on important practices to ensure that children are safe from abuse and their rights are protected.  

 Somalia: 

We are trucking water to the worst-affected communities, providing cash transfers to thousands of vulnerable families and running nutrition screening and feeding programs for children and pregnant and lactating women. We established a cholera task force and are training local doctors and nurses to expand treatment services. Our aid has reached 1.3 million people.   

Ethiopia: 

Save the Children is currently running 300 outpatient therapeutic feeding sites, 40 nutrition stabilization sites and deploying 11 mobile health and nutrition teams across the Somali region, making us the largest provider of community-based malnutrition work in the country. We have also stablished diarrhea treatment centers, truck water to places where internally displaced people have settled and install water tanks. We provide child protection services for refugees at the border in Dollo Ado, as well as school feeding programs inside the Dollo Ado refugee camp. Our livelihoods staff are helping families find alternative incomes – crucial for those whose livestock has died. To date, we have reached more than 393,000 people with aid.

Kenya:

In four of the driest counties in the north, we are conducting nutritional screenings and treatment in 149 sites. Alongside these screenings, we provide children with curative and preventive health services. In Turkana County, we have a supplemental feeding program in partnership with the World Food Program. In addition, we are helping keep schools and health facilities open by trucking clean water and providing technical assistance in water well and storage systems.