MADRE's Emergency and Disaster Relief Fund

Crisis Response that Advances Women's Human Rights

One of MADRE's strengths is our ability to meet the urgent needs of women and families as we work towards a long-term vision of social justice. To enhance our capacity to respond to crises, MADRE has launched an Emergency and Disaster Relief Fund. The Fund will enable us to act immediately and effectively when disasters strike, bringing urgently needed resources directly to the women and families most in need.

Women are often hardest hit when disaster strikes because they are over-represented among the poor and often have no safety net. Women are also primarily responsible for those made most vulnerable by disaster—children, the elderly, and people who are ill or disabled. That's why it's crucial that women not only receive aid, but that women at the community level are integral to designing and carrying out relief efforts. The experiences of relief agencies show that when emergency aid is distributed by community women, it has the best chance of reaching those most in need.

While international relief agencies have a critical role to play when disaster strikes, large-scale relief operations are not always best suited to meet the needs of those most impacted by disaster. MADRE believes that women who are affected by disaster have a clear understanding of what kind of support they need, but they usually lack the resources to meet those needs.

That's why MADRE supports and strengthens community women's efforts in times of crisis. By partnering directly with local women's organizations, MADRE is able to mobilize resources quickly and efficiently and carry out relief efforts in ways that are responsive to the priorities and perspectives of local communities.

For example, in 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated Nicaragua's North Atlantic Coast. Decades of government neglect pushed some Indigenous communities off the map of relief operations. Responders didn't know where these villages were, much less how to reach them in flood conditions. But MADRE delivered aid directly to women in the region. They knew where every family lived, which households had new babies or disabled elders, and how to reach remote communities by canoe.

Rather than replicating the work of existing organizations, MADRE's relief and reconstruction programs leave resources and training in the hands of community women who become equipped to rebuild their lives and communities on a stronger foundation.