CanDo

Date of post - Friday 17^th of May 2019

This Wednesday a Children’s Hospital in South Idlib (Syria) was hit by an airstrike and completely destroyed.

Number of injured or casualties reported? Zero.

The hospital had been evacuated ahead of time due to the heavy targeting of medical facilities in the region. It is the 19^th medical facility bombed in 20 days.

Imagine a world where you take sick babies out of incubators as you are too scared to keep them in a hospital?

Over the past three weeks, hundreds of civilians have been killed, including 23 children as young as five years old, due to an escalation of airstrikes, indiscriminate barrel bomb attacks and artillery strikes on the Hama and Idlib countryside. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their homes and fled to open fields. They remain trapped in the horror of this.

We cannot stop the bombing, but we can support local medics and relief workers who are on the ground, tirelessly saving lives by providing their communities with critical access to health care, food and shelter.

And thats exactly what we do at CanDo. We empower local responders to save more lives by connecting them to supporters and philanthropists across the globe.

Exciting news! CanDo is 2 years old!!

We are celebrating with a new improved crowdfunding platform supporting 3 locally-led, live-saving projects to:

• Keep over 800 newly displaced Syrian families safe from preventable diseases like scabies with #Give Health Give Life

• Support 12,000 Syrian children in understanding their rights and coping during times of violence with #Kites Not Shells

• Ensure that thousands of Syrian babies are born safely by supporting 80 midwives training where they are critically needed with #Midwives Save Lives

Our campaigns are all or nothing, we raised already 50% … help us reach the target!!

You can support the campaings or find more information here: https://www.candoaction.org/campaigns

Together, we empower local humanitarians to save more lives.

Federica, from the CanDo team

“After I read about unexploded bombs in the magazine and how this could be dangerous, I understood why my family have prevented me from playing outside and in the farm.” Ahmed, 13.

Dear Work for Good community

The days are getting shorter and the nights chillier in my northern hemisphere home, yet I’m more hopeful, grateful and excited than ever. Why? Because of you.

You and our community of CanDo supportes have achieved so much in the past 18 months, allowing us to build, grow and plan new projects that are currently in the pipeline – I’ll tell you more about them soon…

Before I do, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate with you five key successes that our local partners in Syria have achieved with the support of CanDoers. Our partners are the beacons of light in the darkness of war and together, we’re helping their light shine brighter.

Thank you for supporting these crucial campaigns.

Rola

CEO and Founder

CanDoers helped children to protect themselves

Situation

Since the war began in Syria, an estimated 2.8 million children have been displaced from their homes. Teachers have few tools to help them teach young children.

Action

Hurras is a group of Syrian volunteers who produce and distribute a child protection magazine called Tayara Warak. The magazine aims to develop skills and teach children strategies to protect themselves and cope during times of shelling, bombing and violence. The CanDo Community funded the development, printing and distribution of three new issues of the magazine that focus on safety from shelling and unexploded mines.

Result

These new issues have reached an additional 11,600 children like 13-year-old Ahmed, who told us:

“After I read about unexploded bombs in the magazine and how this could be dangerous, I understood why my family have prevented me from playing outside and in the farm.”

CanDoers supported sustainable food aid

Situation

The Syrian region of Eastern Ghouta has been surrounded and under siege since 2013. Due to continuous shelling, the trapped population was receiving limited food and many were suffering from severe malnutrition and starvation.

Action

Humanitarian group Ghiras Al Nahda came up with a groundbreaking initiative to farm edible mushrooms as a lifesaving source of food. CanDoers funded Ghiras Al Nahda to develop a mushroom growing toolkit specifically suited for the conditions of the region. The community also supported the delivery of mushroom growing workshops for the unemployed to encourage making a living from the mushrooms.

Result

Mushrooms have provided vital sustenance and income to over 7,000 people in Eastern Ghouta since 2015.

CanDoers helped women cope in conflict

Situation

Women living in besieged areas of Syria are dealing with some of the harshest living conditions. Confined to their homes, or forced to move to refugee camps, many have taken the lead as both primary caregivers and breadwinners to support their families. At the same time, these women are experiencing their own emotional trauma and grief.

Action

Insan is a non-profit organisation that offers psychosocial support to Syrian refugees and training for those working in refugee camps. With funding and support from the CanDo community, Insan was able to train their female field team to deliver a psychosocial counselling programme for women recovering from the effects of war. The programme provides women with strategies to process and cope with emotional and physical trauma, to plan whilst living through war, and to help them grow and support others around them.

Result

Insan’s trained field team is supporting and counselling approximately 200 women every 12 weeks in group counselling sessions.

CanDoers crowdfunded a children’s hospital – twice

Situation

The last children’s hospital in the Aleppo region of Northern Syria was brutally bombed in 2016, leaving children in the area without medical aid.

Action

CanDo led a campaign to crowdfund for a replacement hospital. In just two weeks, CanDoers raised £250,000 for the Independent Doctors Association who, three months later, opened the new medical facility: Hope Hospital. Then in 2018, with Hope Hospital in danger of closing due to a critical lack of funds, the CanDo community once again stepped up to the challenge and raised a further £450,000 to keep the hospital operational for an additional 12 months.

Result

So far, Hope Hospital provided life-saving medical support for 79,971 children!