‘RTL – Wir helfen Kindern’: More Than €500,000 Raised For East Africa Already

" Stiftung RTL – Wir helfen Kindern " (RTL Foundation – We Help Children) reports €438,593 in donations received from viewers: this was the sum raised for the victims of drought in East Africa by Monday morning. Together with RTL Stiftung’s €100,000 in emergency relief, this means €538,593 has already been made available for aid to East Africa. RTL partner CARE provides life-saving assistance for refugees in camps in Dadaab in northern Kenya.

Now the fundraising campaign is being expanded further: This week RTL and other Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland channels are launching an ad campaign for East Africa. RTL Charity Director Wolfram Kons says: "The scale of the humanitarian disaster in East Africa is drastic. Twelve million people are acutely threatened with starvation. We need to stop this mass dying.”

CARE is currently providing aid to about 400,000 victims of the ongoing drought. Every day more than 1,000 new people pour into the camps in northern Kenya. 70 percent of the people, most of whom have marched through the desert for weeks before reaching the camps, are women and children. CARE says it has been working in Daadab for nearly 20 years and is responsible for education, water and food distribution in three refugee camps (Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera).

The CARE team ensures the distribution of clean water with water trucks as well as by installing new water pipes and repairing existing ones. In addition, CARE organizes the disposal of waste and provides hygiene training. Each day, about 15 gallons of water per person is supplied to 446,000 people. Refugees also receive water containers in order to safely transport the water - a canister costs $5. Newly arrived refugees receive ten liters of water per family. When they register with the UNHCR, new arrivals get a CARE basket containing wheat and maize flour, beans, oil, sugar, salt and a corn-soy mix, as well as blankets, plastic sheeting, mats, buckets and cooking equipment. CARE is the lead partner organization of the World Food Programme (WFP) for distributing these items.