Syria (MNN) — Pressure builds on nonprofits as the United Nations fails to meet its fundraising goals for the Syrian crisis.
At a virtual fundraising conference last week, the UN gave its biggest appeal yet – $10 billion dollars to help people inside Syria and Syrian refugees in the region. Global donors came just short of the halfway mark for this year, pledging $4.4 billion for 2021 and another $2 billion for 2022 and beyond.
“To cut funding will cut resources so that you cannot adequately take care of the refugees, or the people inside Syria,” Heart for Lebanon’s Tom Atema says.
“It puts a lot of pressure on us because the needs are greater.”
Needs rose 20-percent last year. More than 23 million people inside of Syria and surrounding countries need humanitarian aid. That’s the highest number since the conflict started a decade ago.
A Syrian refugee carries the aid she received from Heart for Lebanon while her small children follow nearby.
(Photo courtesy of Heart for Lebanon)
Dependency on foreign aid springs from failing infrastructure in Syria and Lebanon, the largest host of Syrian refugees. “You have riots inside grocery stores now in Lebanon because people need food. The economy is in bad shape and it’s not being fixed anytime soon,” Atema says.
“It is even worse, the economy, inside Syria,”
If Syrians cannot receive help from the UN, they will turn to non-governmental organizations and nonprofits like Heart for Lebanon. There, Syrians receive help for today and hope for tomorrow. Learn more here.
“While the money is important, those of us in the faith-based world can go the extra step,” Atema notes.
Help Syrian refugees through Heart for Lebanon here. “That gift helps us provide physical help or emotional care, and the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that will last forever,” Atema says.
Pray God will open the storehouses of heaven so believers can help more people in need.
“We don’t think there’s any end to these many crises, but God knows the beginning from the end. He knows where this is all headed.”
Header image courtesy of Heart for Lebanon.
