RUBIA PROVIDES HUNGER RELIEF TO AFGHAN FAMILIES

Many of you have contacted Rubia about yesterday’s cover story in the New York Times.

“What is Rubia doing to mitigate hunger and malnutrition in Afghanistan?”

In  October, Rubia began sending sustenance funds to the families of our Afghan  colleagues (140 people). We have sent $200 (the maximum Afghan banks and Western Union will allow each week) to each family in three different regions of Afghanistan. Our current information indicates that our partners in Afghanistan are unlikely to be evacuated soon. Our focus now is on identifying ways to help them remain safe, warm and fed while we work with the government to get them out of Afghanistan.

Rubia is grateful to you, our donors, who have contributed so generously to the Afghanistan Evacuation and Resettlement Fund.

The UN’s World Food Program has found that a staggering 23 million Afghans (% of the population) are in need of urgent food assistance.

According to Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP’s Afghanistan Country Director:  

 This includes more than three million children who are at risk of severe hunger and the life-threatening consequences of malnutrition. . . .The people of Afghanistan, the innocent people of Afghanistan, the children of Afghanistan who have had their lives upended through no fault of their own, cannot be condemned to hunger and starvation just because of the lottery of geopolitics and the lottery of birth.”  

 Ms. McGroarty feared this is just the tipping point as winter looms ahead:   “We are only in November, and this is what we are already seeing before we go into the heart of winter? And these are the children that are making it to the hospitals. How many more are behind them, that their families are unable to bring them to the hospital?”  

Rubia will continue to send funds to needy Afghans throughout the winter.