My Name is Dr Lama Mouakea. I am the Executive Director for the Syrian Family Planning Association. We are now in the fifth year since the start of unrest in Syria, the situation continues to worsen. With half million people being killed and more than ten million having fled their homes, the conflict has now escalated, violently affecting the people in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. We still are in Aleppo. The situation is difficult. We are struggling to survive. People are coming here because they are not safe. Thousands have left East Aleppo in fear. It is cold. People walk long distances. There is so much crowding and for my staff the hours are very long. There are too many people. Everywhere is crowded and this limits where we can find spaces to provide our services. The security situation in the city means that we are trying to deliver services and see as many people as we can. We know that who we treat today we may not see again. We are providing the highest number of services from mobile clinics, to contraceptive supplies, to essential medicines including vitamins. We have medical teams and volunteers providing sexual and reproductive health services, psychosocial and paediatric through a range of mobile clinics and mobile teams so we can reach people. The risks for women and girls from sexual violence is high. We have seen many cases in our psychosocial support of violence that this kind of displacement exposes them to. We provide tailored support to the survivors of sexual violence, which has increased enormously during the war. There isn't enough services for the people. The demand is high and we need more assistance. With such high numbers and suffering, our internally displaced need urgent help. My staff are also suffering. We cannot keep up and want to survive. We won't leave because our place is here to help our people. I can only hope that the world can hear me. Please consider the Syrian people and what we are going through. We need money to give hope to people and help them survive and save lives. Support IPPF's work in Aleppo   DR LAMA MOUAKEA | Executive Director, the Syrian Family Planning Association Mrs. Lama Mouakea has been the Executive Director of the Syrian Family Planning Association (SFPA) for the last 19 years and has a long history of working with sexual and reproductive health services. Currently she is responsible for supervision of 114 staff and coordination of 600 volunteers. Under her leadership the SFPA has played a major role in responding to the emergency situation in Syria, providing sexual and reproductive health services to people who are internally displaced due to the on-going conflict, with a focus on mother and child care and nutrition, psychosocial support, first aid and training of health personnel in the provision of clinical management for rape survivors and coverage of the minimum initial service package among a lot of other things.

One month on from Cyclone Winston, IPPF has helped hundreds of families, including new mothers and pregnant women. Thousands of people are disaplaced and 43 have now been confirmed dead in the worst tropical super-storm to have ever hit the Pacific.  IPPF’s humanitarian wing, the SPRINT Initiative, is solely funded by the Australian Government to provide life-saving sexual and reproductive health services following a humanitarian crisis. The Australian Government provided an additional AUD $100,000 to ensure SPRINT could respond to the worst affected populations.   IPPF’s assistance includes distributing hygiene and dignity kits to pregnant women and new mothers, providing maternal and neonatal healthcare, providing family planning and prevention programs to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.  There has been an urgent need to respond to the immediate sexual and reproductive health needs of communities, specifically vulnerable groups such as pregnant and lactating women and women & girls at risk of gender-based violence. In crisis settings rates of gender-based violence drastically increase, and SPRINT has provided survivors with emergency care and services. IPPF-SPRINT has reproductive health missions in the provinces of Nataleira, Natalecake, Vadravadra. The Ministry of Health, under the Fiji Government, has also committed their medical staff to IPPF's medical camps. A key partner to the humanitarian repsonse is IPPF's local member association, the Reproductive and Family Health Association of Fiji (RFHAF). The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Honourable Julie Bishop paid a visit to IPPF-SPRINT’s SRH mission in early March to observe the work of the Australian-funded response. The Minister also distributed hygiene kits to the affected population in Rakiraki hospital in western Fiji. Apart from providing key sexual reproductive services, IPPF-SPRINT is also providing basic medical assistance to those affected.  

“I have never experienced such a strong cyclone in my 77 years of life.” Jokaveti Bavou lives in the village of Drauniivi, in the Fijian province of Ra. It was right in the path of Cyclone Winston, the strongest storm to ever strike the Southern Hemisphere. A week on from the disaster, Jokaveti, her son Jim and her grandchildren are safe. But there is no longer a roof on her house, and precious little left inside. In a village of 910 people, 75 houses were completed destroyed and about 65 damaged. Jokaveti was in her house with her grandchildren when Cyclone Winston arrived. “On Saturday night the winds started to increase. I told Jim that I was not sure of the house; I didn’t believe that it would be able to keep us safe. I told him that if the house started to collapse, we would run to his house for safety.” “The wind was getting stronger and when I looked at the back door, it had blown open. I took a hammer and nail to it. But when I got back to the other room, the main door had blown open and the wind was really strong. Then the wind took the roof off my house.”  “I told my granddaughter that everything was terrifying and we needed to go and hide somewhere. It was not safe to be in the house because of the flying debris.” “I got out and my son called out from his house and told us that we should go and hide underneath our house. He tried to come out of his house to save us, but the wind was so strong and roofing iron was flying around.” “I went underneath my house with my grandchildren holding a lamp and stayed there until the wind died. My son’s eyes never left us. Luckily for us a corrugated roofing iron flew and covered where we were hiding. I just cried and continued to thank God for keeping us safe.” “I could sense fear from all of us including my grandchildren. They were crying too. My son kept on calling to check on us until the wind died down.” Miraculously, no-one from Jokaveti’s family or the village was killed or seriously injured. IPPF is establishing centers in the Northern and Western parts of Fiji to provide medical services, especially those that deal with maternal and child health and sexual and reproductive health.  It is working closely with the Reproductive and Family Health Association of Fiji (IPPF’s member in Fiji), UNFPA Pacific, Empower Pacific, Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services. Donate now!  

Today, the Danish Family Planning Association (DFPA) together with the Danish All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened a conference with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) on the challenges of sexual and reproductive health and  rights (SRHR) in humanitarian crises. HRH the Crown Princess of Denmark and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) were also in attendance. HKHK Mary: women are not vulnerable in hum crises because they are weak but because they lack equality #SRHRinCrises pic.twitter.com/EOhV38IpBi — Mette Gjerskov (@MetteGjerskov) February 4, 2016 More than 100 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. It is estimated that 26 million are women and adolescent girls of reproductive age of which 500 die every day from complications related to  pregnancy and childbirths. For example, the Syrian civil war has resulted in a 39% rise in maternal mortality since 2010 and gender-based violence is affecting at least 7 out of 10 women in some crisis settings. This shows a great need for humanitarian actors to ensure that the human rights of women and girls are protected and able to access sexual and reproductive healthcare.   // IPPF: saving lives in crises Right now more than 250,000 women and girls need help. IPPF provides the emergency response needed, like family planning, which can reduce maternal deaths by 33%. SEXUAL & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES SAVES LIVES. AND IS A HUMAN RIGHT. Posted by IPPF on Thursday, 4 February 2016 The increasing number of humanitarian crises calls for serious rethinking of the current humanitarian response. The status of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) violations in humanitarian crises must be confronted and prevented. Over the past decade, IPPF has reached millions of people during floods, conflicts, earthquakes, cyclones when health care often collapsed, IPPF Member Associations continued to serve the unreachable particularly women which make three quarters of IPPF clients. We have an organizational strategy to address sexual and reproductive needs before, during and after humanitarian crises.  IPPF starts with its Minimum Initial Service Package, which is life-saving, and transition to its Integrated Package of Essential services, which is life-changing. This ensure that a sxual and reproductive health situation is better after the crisis than before. @LcrTrc Crown Princess & @ippf CEO champion #women's #health & #rights in #humanitarian crisis settings pic.twitter.com/4ajLr0rkXg — Matthew Lindley (@t__box) February 4, 2016 Director general, Tewodros Melesse said, "Access to these services,especially in the midst of war or natural disaster, is a human right which does not only saves lives in the short run, but also helps build resilience amongst refugees and displaced people. It’s one of the most important aspects of humanitarian assistance that is often forgotten when disaster and conflicts strike."