The devastation of Hurricane Maria revealed the longstanding and historical traumas faced by many Puerto Rican communities. Now the pandemic and its complex web of impacts have further built upon and exacerbated these traumas. A critical question has emerged: What does a just recovery mean for Puerto Rico?

Your donation to the Puerto Rico & Caribbean Hurricane Relief Fund has ensured that our incredible nonprofit partners across Puerto Rico are able to help answer this question through their critical work in service of communities across the island every single day.

Here’s a brief look at how your donation has helped one of our key partners, Mentes Puertorriqueñas en Acción (MPA), contribute its own unique answer to this important question.

For the past 10 years, MPA has been at the forefront of inspiring the next generation of citizen leaders to transform Puerto Rico. The MPA team works directly with college students and young professionals to provide them with the skills and connections they need to advance social causes that build a fair, just, and participatory society.

MPA’s flagship program is called the Program for the Empowerment and Retention of Agents of Change (PARACa). Through PARACa, their team provides intensive training every year to a cohort of about 20 youth leaders and places these new leaders in internships with community-based organizations driving social change across Puerto Rico.

After Hurricane Maria, MPA adapted the program to have the youth leaders focus on relief and recovery efforts. This contributed to the long-term resilience of impacted communities and tackled systemic issues that amplified the outsized impacts of the hurricane.

The pandemic caused MPA to make significant changes to the structure of the program, but the organization maintained its core promise of preparing more than 20 young Puerto Rican leaders (even though Zoom!) to excel in the social impact sector. Thanks to your support, GlobalGiving was able to invest in the success of MPA’s 2020 PARACa program and, by extension, in the next generation of citizen leaders in Puerto Rico. Your donation helped shape the answer of what a just recovery looks like in practice: providing the opportunity for Puerto Rican youth to chart a course for their own self-defined, locally-relevant recovery.

Imagining and achieving a just recovery for Puerto Rico will continue to require many unique approaches, voices, and perspectives. Thank you for joining with GlobalGiving and MPA to continue pushing towards that just recovery.

As we’ve done over the last three years, GlobalGiving will continue to keep you updated in the months ahead about how your generosity and support have powered community-led disaster recovery in Puerto Rico.

Be safe and well.

With gratitude,
Chase + the GlobalGiving Team

GlobalGiving launched the Coronavirus Relief Fund on Jan. 27, 2020. Later that week, I boarded a flight to Geneva to attend a humanitarian conference. The World Health Organization, headquartered nearby, had placed signs around the conference center with basic information about the virus, but no one was wearing masks or socially distancing. These gatherings are a great opportunity to network, share, and generate ideas while connecting with old friends and colleagues we’ve worked with around the world. Needless to say, there was lots of hugging and handshaking. That feels like a lifetime ago. 

For the past year, you’ve been an inspiration to me and the entire GlobalGiving team. While you’ve been busy adapting to new realities of the pandemic and caring for loved ones, you also made time to share your resources and help deliver COVID-19 relief to frontline workers and families around the world.  

With your support, last week we awarded 89 emergency grants totaling more than $2 million to nonprofit organizations helping communities in more than 25 countries. 

You can find the entire list of grantees at the end of this update. Here’s a snapshot of how these hardworking teams are continuing to serve their communities through the pandemic.

• The Partnerships with Native Americans team is working across tribal lands to bring food, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and other emergency relief supplies to tribes, many of whom are still experiencing lockdowns and precarious conditions. 

• Port Elizabeth Mental Health is delivering critical mental health support to children, and youth and their families in the Port Elizabeth region of South Africa, which has been at the center of the latest surge of COVID-19 cases. 

• International Medical Corps’ teams are supporting vaccination efforts in refugee camps in Jordan. In the Azraq refugee camp, they are the main provider of health care services. 

• Fresh Spirit Wellness for Women is assisting women in Texas who have been verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. They operate a women's shelter and an out-care program for women from all walks of life who are in search of healing and support.

• LIFE ElderCare is delivering meals, groceries, and essential supplies for people age 60 and older in California.

• Abraham’s Oasis is providing residential care for abandoned children and support for surrounding communities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which is affected by both COVID-19 and impacts from the conflict that’s escalated there in recent months. 

Since January 2020, your contributions powered:

• $8.4 million in funding for vetted nonprofit organizations
• 355 emergency grants 
• Relief for communities in more than 70 countries

Some hopeful news has come to light since I last wrote to you. Globally, reported COVID-19 cases have decreased for the third week in a row. And four types of vaccines have been approved in different parts of the world and are slowly becoming available and being administered (my colleague Sami Adler outlined vaccine distribution efforts in this helpful article). 

The many reasons that have moved you to give your time and money to meet needs created by this pandemic are what makes the GlobalGiving community so special. Thank you.

In gratitude and solidarity,

Sandrina + the GlobalGiving Team

List of Grantees:

Abraham's Oasis

Akhuwat USA

Alaska Sudan Medical Project

Alawite Islamic Charity Association

American Friends of the Spafford Children's Center

AnneGift Foundation

Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation, Inc.

Ask The Paediatricians Foundation

Association for Dalit Women's Advancement of Nepal

Autismo en Voz Alta

Bahini Educare Foundation

Baobá - Fundo para Equidade Racial

Basildon Concord

Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR)

British Red Cross

Carers Network

Casa de la Amistad para Niños con Cáncer

Charity Foundation 'Change One Life'

Civic Assistance Committee

Color of Change

Community Foundation of West Texas

Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim

Customs Health Care Society

Dako Foundation For Rural Healthcare And Education

DAKTARI

DCWC Nepal - Development of Children and Women Center

Direct Relief

Downtown Women's Center

El Centro Popular para América Latina de Comunicación

Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness

FASOL- Fondo Acción Solidaria, AC

Favela Inc.

First Nations Development Institute

FirstLight Trust

Footprints 4 Sam

Fresh Spirit Wellness for Women Inc.

Friends of Burkina Faso

Fundación Madre María Luisa Casar

Fundación San Genaro

Fundación Pro Eco Azuero

Fundo Casa Socioambiental (CASA)

Global Hope Network International

Global Need Burkina

GoodWeave International

Great Plains Tribal Health Board

Hadleigh Castle Trust Fund

Health Opportunity Partnership and Empowerment in Africa

Himalayan Life Switzerland

iDE

Infinite Family

International Medical Corps

IsraAID

IXIM, AC

Joy Foundation

Karachi Down Syndrome Program

Karama Organisation for Women and Children's Development

KOSHISH

LIFE ElderCare

Mali Health

Mt. Calvary Center for Leadership Development

My Friend's House, Inc

National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics

Native American Advancement Foundation

Near East Foundation

Nepal Youth Foundation (NYF)

Our Sansar

Pak Mission Society

Palliative Care Education and Research Consortium

Partnerships With Native Americans

PHASE Nepal

Port Elizabeth Mental Health

POWER- People Organized for Westside Renewal

Proyecto Impacto Consultores, AC

Reach Out and Feed Philippines

Rebuilding Alliance

Samaritans (Central London Branch)

St. Mungo’s

Starfish Greathearts Foundation

TARGET Hunger

Teens Unite Fighting Cancer

Texas Low Income Housing Information Services

Thanda UK

The DO MORE FOUNDATION Trust

The Rotary Club of Chelmer Bridge

The Small World

Tomorrow's Youth Organization

Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET)

Union of Health Work Committees

Women's Health Specialists of California

Links:

• See where we sent the latest Coronavirus Relief Fund grants.

Last November, devastating back-to-back hurricanes Eta and Iota struck communities across Central America as residents were trying to manage the burden of COVID-19. Hurricane Eta, a Category 4 storm, and Hurricane Iota, a Category 5 storm, both came ashore in Nicaragua, ultimately impacting about 7 million people in a wide area from Mexico to Colombia. Communities in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala bore the brunt of the impacts. 

Thanks to your generous donation to GlobalGiving’s Hurricane Eta Relief Fund, we have been able to provide immediate and ongoing financial support directly to our local, trusted nonprofit partners working in storm-impacted communities. Here is a snapshot of how GlobalGiving’s nonprofit partners have been making a difference since Hurricane Eta made landfall:

• Limitless Horizons IXIL has a long history of serving Indigenous youth, women, and families in Chajul, Guatemala. When hurricanes Eta and Iota struck, the organization immediately began providing emergency relief to the Indigenous communities that saw their homes and livelihoods destroyed.

• EcoViva NFP is providing ongoing emergency relief in Honduras with its local partner, Red COMAL. Through this partnership, EcoViva NFP delivered emergency supplies, including food packs and hygiene kits, to impacted families in the areas of Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, La Paz, and Comayagua.

• Highland Support Project immediately responded to the storms by supporting impacted Indigenous families in Guatemala. Their focus was on providing women in Mixlaj, a community outside of Huehuetenango, with feminine hygiene kits, baby formula, vitamins, and other essentials.

• Habitat for Humanity International leveraged its local presence in Nicaragua and Honduras to begin offering emergency relief items and housing support for families that lost their homes as a result of the storm. 

• Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim quickly distributed basic food supplies and medicine to more than 800 families that are grappling with the extensive damage of Eta and Iota in Maya territory in northwest Guatemala.

• Fabretto Children’s Foundation has more than 20 years of experience supporting underserved children and their families in Nicaragua. In the immediate aftermath of the storms, the organization mobilized emergency relief in the form of food, hygiene kits, and household supplies. The organization has shifted its focus to supporting farming families that have seen their entire season of crops destroyed by Eta and Iota.

GlobalGiving is now closing the Hurricane Eta Relief Fund, but we will continue to manage the Hurricane Iota Relief Fund over the coming weeks in support of our nonprofit partners in Central America. The need remains enormous for communities across the region. We encourage you to follow our continued work in response to these tragic storms through our Hurricane Iota Relief Fund.

Thank you again for your generosity and support of community-led disaster recovery.

With gratitude, 

Chase + the GlobalGiving Team