Disaster Relief Aid

Islamic Relief aims to be the first on the ground when an emergency strikes, providing emergency relief and helping those affected immediately. When floods, droughts or earthquakes happen, we’re there: providing life-saving food, water, shelter, medicine and toiletries to families who have lost everything. We not only save lives, we rebuild them – we stick around even after the situation has calmed, helping families put their homes back together.

We don’t even stop there – where people are affected by the same disasters over and over, we think about how to lessen the blow before emergency strikes. In flooded countries like Bangladesh, we raise houses on plinths so the water doesn’t reach homes and destroy them, protecting communities for years to come. In drought-stricken countries like Niger, we build long-lasting wells and plant crops which can survive in dry weather, so families won’t starve.

Islamic Relief classifies ‘disaster’ as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society, involving widespread human, material, economic or environment losses and impacts, which exceed the capacity of the affected community to cope. We work to minimise the impact of disaster.

Our disaster resilience work comprises:

• Disaster Risk Reduction : analysing and managing the causes of disasters, including reduced exposure to hazards, and lessened vulnerability of people and property.
• Preparedness : knowledge and capacity of governments, organisations, communities and individuals to anticipate, respond to and recover from hazards.
• Adaptation : adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected hazards.
• Resilience : The ability of a system, community or society to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from hazards in a timely and efficient way.