Before diving into how your aid impacted families, let’s look at what aid you helped deliver to families fleeing violence.

Families received tarpaulins to support their emergency shelter needs after fleeing violence, and also received rope and other fixings in order to build culturally appropriate shelters. Sleeping mats, warm blankets, and mosquito nets were provided to help families have a good night sleep, safe from the threat of insect-borne diseases. While solar lights and kitchen sets were provided to help families return to normal.

A new addition to ShelterBox aid during the COVID-19 pandemic has been hygiene and wash items. Water carriers were delivered along with buckets and soap to enable better hygiene practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

100% of beneficiaries felt that the kits they received were very useful for their household, and 91% believe the quality of the kits are very good.

Mosquito nets are an important item that protects families from insect-borne disease. While conducting post-distribution monitoring, our partners wanted to check if this item was being used correctly. 79% of mosquito nets were being used as intended! Most of the shelters visited had the nets properly hanging over each bed, meaning more families are safe from Zika virus, West Nile, dengue, and malaria.

Families also received water filters and water carriers as part of their household kits, providing safe and clean drinking water. Our monitoring reports showed that 93.3% of families had clean water storage, and 70% of people told us that they can store more water than before. Having clean drinking water is extremely important. Contaminated water can cause illness and even spread disease, so seeing that most families have safe storage and safe drinking water is amazing and very important.

Shelter is at the core of what we do here at ShelterBox. Your support always ensures families who have been left homeless by disaster or conflict have somewhere to call home.

In Burkina Faso, 94.7% of families thought the quality of the shelter kits were very good, and more than 85% report being better protected from rain, strong winds, and cool night temperatures. It is really important for recovery that families feel safe. Having a shelter that protects you from the elements means one less thing to worry about when trying to rebuild your life.

Shelter is more than just a place to lay your head at night though. 90% of families reported being able to return to household routines, like cooking, praying, and just being able to spend quality family time together. 72% said the shelter aid enabled them to improve their living conditions. Your support makes it possible for families to regain a sense of normalcy, thank you.

COVID-19 has been a concern during all ShelterBox responses over the past year and a half. Many of the countries we work in do not have healthcare capacity to handle an outbreak of the deadly virus. Collective centers and displacement camps could easily allow the virus to quickly spread. We’ve been referring to this as a crisis within a crisis. Families fleeing their homes due to one crisis, but are now at risk of another.

This is why wash items and COVID-19 trainings are so vital right now. When delivering aid, our partners ran trainings on the risks of COVID-19 and ways families could reduce their risks and prevent the spread of the virus.

Assessments after the training showed a big improvement in water safety and storage practices. 81% of families have enhanced COVID-19 hygiene as a result of the items provided. And 95% had enhanced isolation and social distancing practices.

COVID-19 isn’t over until its over everywhere, but your aid and support are helping communities reduce their risks.