CARE

I was lucky to attend President Carter’s funeral today. As my father said, it felt like “a blessing for the nation”, a touchstone to remind the country of the opportunity to come together. It felt like sacred ground with the light streaming through the Cathedral windows, Amazing Grace, Andrew Young’s inspired Homily, and Jason Carter’s tribute to his grandfather’s life-long service to the “goodness of God.” From human rights and civil rights, to tackling poverty, to climate change, to gender equality, President Carter changed our nation and the world. As one of my colleagues shared with me, “the world will have a huge President Carter hole in it.” All of us have a chance to step up and try and fill it. Mary Robinson said today that Jimmy Carter is still bringing people together for good. Lots of extraordinary change agents ready to extend his pursuit of goodness, peace, and dignity for everyone. I know that the last few days have brought together many people like Mary Robinson, my dad, and Juan Manuel Santos to extend the journey. As Jason said of his grandfather, “His life was a love story from the moment he woke up until he laid his head.”

The #climatecrisis affects us all, no matter where we live or who we are. It knows no borders. We must continue to urge world leaders to take swift action to combat #climatechange.

Thank you, President Jimmy Carter for your unwavering support of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Yesterday, #Nepal was struck with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that was felt across the eastern part of Nepal, including Kathmandu and several districts along the Nepal-China border. CARE is working with partners and local law enforcement to assess humanitarian needs in the areas affected.

"President Carter pointed the way, and his legacy holds continued lessons for each of us about leading with boldness, determination, and humility to create change in the world."

Menstruation doesn’t stop during a war or after an earthquake. Yet even outside of crisis settings, lack of menstruation supplies and information forces girls to stop going to school, and workers to stop doing their crucial work. In Gaza, for example, more than 540,000 women and girls of reproductive age struggle to access basic hygiene essentials like sanitary pads, so they resort to unsafe alternatives that risk infections. In Malawi, a third of adult women farmers say they can’t work while they are menstruating. CARE programs integrate menstrual health as essential to improving health and supporting women and girls. In Bangladesh and Malawi, we built rooms where women can wash their pads and dry them in private. At a school in northern Mozambique facing a serious water shortage, we teach girls about menstrual hygiene and provide kits with underwear, washable cloths pads, and a cycle tracker. In Ethiopia, we convinced schools to designate a "Menstrual Hygiene Room" where girls can rest or wash and dry their pads. And in Uganda, we successfully piloted the use of menstrual cups among women in camps for displaced people. CARE is working to ensure that women and girls do not have to feel stress or shame when they have their periods and can thrive in work, play, and school every day of the month. https://ow.ly/h5uy50UBw91

As of December 2024, over 45,000 people have been killed and more than 106,000 injured in Gaza. As winter has arrived, over 1.6 million people are living in makeshift shelters and are in desperate need of food, supplies, and winter clothing. CARE continues to call for an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, and the passage of unfettered humanitarian aid into Gaza. Help us support families in need at care.org/Gaza

We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of a staff member of CARE partner organization MA’AN Development Center in Gaza following this week’s missile attack on a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse operated by MA’AN in Deir Al-Balah. We express our heartfelt solidarity with all humanitarian workers in Gaza, who are the unsung heroes risking their lives every day to help bring much needed relief to a population enduring all kinds of unimaginable suffering for 15 months now. https://ow.ly/WM5m50UB8pM

"What Gazans need to get through this winter is adequate food supply to be available in the market, shelter supplies, winter clothes, clothes for their children, of course healthcare as well." - Jolien Veldwijk, CARE Palestine Country Director Deutsche Welle

It is time to rethink how a famine is defined. "In the chaos of conflict, clinging to unattainable quantitative thresholds isn’t just unrealistic, it’s a fatal oversight that risks abandoning entire populations to suffer and die in silence." - Dalmar Ainashe, CARE Senior Technical Advisor for Food Security, Livelihoods, and Nutrition https://ow.ly/YfWi50Uy5TF