AMURT & AMURTEL volunteers from the two states along with reinforcements from around India distribute water, dry foods, clothes and blankets. We also provide urgent medical as well as psycho-social care. The operation served up to 10,000 people daily for a month.
The 2011 drought in Kenya was declared a national disaster by President Mwai Kibaki in April of 2011. Access to food and water had become very scarce, millions of livestock have died, and territorial violence had increased drastically as people competed for patches of fertile land. When nourishment could be found, heightened demand raised prices and made staple goods difficult to obtain. On June 28th of that year, the United Nations reported that 3.5 million people weere in need of humanitarian relief.
AMURT's involvement in the North Tongu District of Ghana's Volta Region started in 1990 in Mafi-Dekpoe with an educational campaign to combat the Guinea Worm menace. After employing meetings, house visits and theatre, the AMURT team soon realized that the best way to help the people would be to provide safe drinking water. A dam built by the Russians in the 1960's for agricultural purposes held enough water for a project to serve the ten villages. AMURT was able to build a water treatment plant using the slow sand filter technology to purify the dam water.
AMURT in partnership with Kinder Not Hilfe and Catholic Relief Services run ten Child-Friendly Spaces in Port-au-Prince for 4,000 children. The purpose of the centers is to help children affected by the earthquake restore normalcy and improve overall well-being in their lives with psychosocial and educational support. Besides psychosocial, educational, and creative activities children in the Child-Friendly Spaces program receive nutritional biscuits in addition to a hot meal of rice, beans and vegetables.
In 2011 AMURT responded to the East African drought in northern Kenya's Samburu district.