Updates from Syria: “We can afford bread once in ten days.”
Published: Jul 11, 2019 Reading time: 2 minutes
Bashira lost her husband in 2011. Since then, she has been raising her four children alone, which is no easy task in Syria’s Idlib province. From one day to the next, she is not sure where to find the money for basics like bread. And she and her family live under constant threat of bombardment.
“We feel afraid,” she told us. “There has been a lot of shelling nearby.” As part of a series of voices from ordinary people in Idlib, we were invited inside Bashira’s home to witness daily life for her family, including the importance of the food vouchers she has been receiving recently. “It has been a great help,” she told us. “We can buy lentils, bulgar, ghee… everything we need at home.”
Watch Bashira’s story here, including her three simple wishes for the future.
In the last year alone, People in Need has given out 31,280 booklets of food vouchers funded by the European Union’s Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO). The vouchers can be used in hundreds of selected local shops across northern Syria, allowing families to choose and cook their own food.
It’s a win-win solution: not only is this a more dignified way of helping families, but it also supports the local economy. The people selected for the project are some of the most vulnerable in Syria: families headed by a woman, a child, or someone disabled or chronically ill, or families where children under 18 are being looked after solely by an elderly person.
Millions of people in Syria are currently in need of food aid, with millions more in danger of joining them. In response, People in Need provides emergency food rations, food vouchers, cash grants, and cash-for-work and supports hundreds of selected bakeries each month. Over the last year, we have distributed food vouchers funded by the European Union to approximately 2,400 vulnerable families each month.
Learn more about our work here.
