We all need networks to get vital information — whether it's our network of family, friends, and coworkers, or the various news sources we access.

But we can lose these networks instantly in the chaotic aftermath of disaster, like the March 2011 triple disaster in Japan. Over six months since the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, survivors consistently say that their recovery is hampered by the difficulty of getting reliable information about how and where to access assistance, services, and protection.

Now, imagine you're a survivor of the disaster, and you don't speak Japanese. Perhaps you're an immigrant worker from Latin America or a Filipina woman married to a rural Japanese man. Your networks are dispersed, and you don't know where to turn for information you can understand and trust.

Enter the FACIL Multi-Language Center. After the 2005 Kobe earthquake, FACIL formed to help non-Japanese-speaking survivors. Today, FACIL is producing multilingual radio programs that inform listeners how to access services, assistance, and potential employment. The radio programs also encourage listeners to call in and help educate Japanese people about the immigrant community.

With UUSC's support, FACIL is developing and broadcasting fun and helpful radio programs, forming self-help groups within the immigrant community, and distributing solar-powered radios. Ultimately, UUSC and FACIL are helping disaster-effected immigrants in Japan rebuild their networks, restore their hope, and recover their lives.

UUSC partners in southern Pakistan are responding to the current monsoon floods [PDF] that are devastating hundreds of communities — the same communities ravaged by last year's massive flooding. To date, over two million people have been affected.

Our partner the Participatory Village Development Program (PVDP) tells us that the flooding has hit landless farmers the hardest. These farmers are sharecroppers and livestock herders for large landowners. These farmers have no resources or assets to sustain them in times of crisis — like now. Where PVDP works, many of the affected communities are members of the low-caste Hindu community and are regularly discriminated against both socially and economically.

According to our partner, these communities "ordinarily live hand-to-mouth. Today, most of their homes have been submerged by water and families are forced to sit on the roadsides or in schools without food, water, or bathrooms. They must drink the dirty rainwater, which is causing many children to fall ill. The floodwaters are attracting many mosquitoes, which increase the risk of disease."

PVDP has put together an emergency response team that includes 20 staff members and 100 volunteers, along with 4-wheel-drive vehicles that can help move much needed aid. The team is preparing lists of affected people to ensure that people get the aid they need — regardless of their caste.

Consider supporting UUSC's work with Pakistan partners who have been responding to last year's massive floods and are now helping communities minimize the devastation of this year's flooding. Find out more about our work in Pakistan. 

Wanted to take a minute to update you on the situation in East Africa. Minimal aid has reached the most affected communities in southern Somalia due to insecurity caused by Al-Shabaab, the armed group controlling much of the area. However, U.N. agencies and relief organizations are reaching areas under Al-Shabaab control along the Kenya and Ethiopia borders. Aid groups have also begun relief work in areas of Mogadishu controlled by the Transitional Federal Government, where many people have moved to seek help. 

Meanwhile, over a quarter-million Somalis have sought refuge in neighboring countries so far this year, adding to a total Somali refugee population of 863,500 people. Kenya remains the largest host country, with thousands of people arriving by foot each day to the vast Dadaab camp complex — the world's largest refugee camp. Somali refugees are also fleeing to Ethiopia, many arriving at the Dollo Ado camp complex.  Many refugees have walked for days, weeks, and even months, facing attacks from armed groups along the way. Many children do not survive the trek. Aid workers in the camps say the overall health of new arrivals, especially children, is deteriorating — reflecting the worsening drought and hunger situations inside Somalia.

Sadly, reaching areas where aid is being distributed, including Mogadishu and the camps, does not guarantee safety and relief. Aid is not keeping pace with the enormous need, and the very weak conditions of new arrivals puts them at greater risk of infectious diseases such as measles. While they wait to be registered, a process that can take days and weeks, the refugees — the vast majority of whom are women and children — must find their own shelter and food. Women have been raped, and many have had their supplies stolen.

Nevertheless, many people are getting aid despite very limited resources. And we believe that it is indeed possible to help the Somali refugees; their host communities in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti; and people throughout the region who are suffering from insecurity, drought, and hunger. We're working out the details of our response right now, with a local employee on the ground conducting an assessment. Keep up to date on our relief efforts and please consider donating to the UUSC Somalia and East Africa Fund — we need your support to bring aid to people suffering from this catastrophic famine. 

Catastrophic famine was declared in three new areas of southern Somalia on Wednesday, August 3. The world saw it coming, and we've been warned it will expand and deepen over the coming months.

Famine is a specific label. Bluntly, grimly — a famine is a particular kind of humanitarian crisis, with its own set of measurements and thresholds. The scale for measuring food (in)security is called the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) scale. It ranges from Level 1A (Generally food secure) to Level 5 (famine/humanitarian catastrophe).

We're at Level 5 now in five areas of Somalia. Much of the rest of the country — and significant parts of Ethiopia and Kenya — is at Level 4, "Humanitarian Emergency."  

No other humanitarian crisis in the world today measures quite like this one. Malnutrition and mortality rates across the Horn of Africa are alarmingly high and climbing. Some 12 - 13 million people require humanitarian assistance to address or prevent famine. Only 20% of people needing life-saving food aid now — to prevent death — have access to it.

The situation is dire. And the response isn't simple, nor does it soley entail getting food and water to people. Building Africa's food production capabilities for the long term is essential, as political science professor Robert Paarlberg points out in his recent, thought-provoking article in the Atlantic. Paarlberg calls on the United States to deliver on its promised support for African farmers.

UUSC is readying work with our existing and new partner organizations in countries affected by the ongoing drought and changing weather patterns to help them access the food they need now and to build up their resilience to looming food insecurity. Donate to the UUSC Somalia and East Africa Relief Fund today.

One year ago, massive monsoon flooding inundated Pakistan. Today, people are still trying to recover. We've been working to ensure that this recovery is free from exploitation — especially for people traditionally relegated to the margins of society and progress.

Through one of our partners, Doaba Foundation, we are supporting the recovery of a community of 30 flood-affected, seminomadic families. This includes assisting them in becoming self-reliant and helping them access their rights so that they can live with dignity and prosperity.

Doaba is facilitating the acquisition of permanent land for the entire community and building environmentally appropriate, flood-resilient, raised-mud homes (see photo).

There are many aspects of Doaba's work that I find really exciting. Just two of those:  

1. Doaba is working with the communities (both the target community as well as the surrounding communities) to advocate with local and district governments to provide the land for this community. Actually getting the land may be a long shot, but this is the first time such a community-led effort has been made. Already, the request for land has been passed up through a few layers of government. If this effort is successful, it will serve as a model for other communities. (If it's not successful, Doaba and its partner communities will find other ways to acquire the needed land.)


2. The land and the homes will be jointly registered in both husbands' and wives' names. When we first raised this question, Doaba spoke with community members and they agreed joint ownership, which does not always happen in Pakistan, was important. This is a good example of impact — of the impact our questions can have on partners and communities as well as the impact that our disaster-response work can have on long-term transformation.

Thousands of homes and buildings were damaged and destroyed in Israel's 2008-9 attack on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead. The majority remain in ruins due to a severe Israeli-imposed blockade that keeps out most of the materials needed for large-scale construction.

In response, UUSC began working with youth in Gaza to reconstruct their communities and homes. This small-scale repair project grew into a detailed evaluation of the most common and critical damage to residential homes, followed by suggestions for viable, safe, and dignified repair options using locally available tools and resources.

On Monday, January 24, we presented our evaluation — Gaza Repair Strategies — to a gathering of international organizations working on shelter solutions. This group, the U.N. Shelter Cluster, heard about our focus on dignity, rather than simply on the costs of damages and repairs, and discussed how to prioritize repairs from a humanitarian perspective.

We continue to share our information and experiences with organizations that have the resources to support this work on the ground. We are also exploring partnerships that will continue to positively engage young people in the recovery of their communities.

It took mere hours to destroy the homes of nearly 22,200 people. When monsoon floodwaters ripped through the Azakhel refugee camp in northwest Pakistan this past August, 6,000 Afghan refugee families were made instantly homeless. With no place to go and hearing that the camp would not be rebuilt, survivors began to displace to other camps, made the heart-wrenching decision to return to Afghanistan, or sought out options in cities and towns throughout Pakistan.

For a group of 74 families, the decision to try to settle in the town of Attock — a couple hours west on the Grand Trunk Road — was motivated by the fact that they knew people there. These families are Turkmen Afghans, and many Turkmen already live in Attock town. Attock is also the home of one of UUSC's partner organizations, Barakat, which helps Afghan refugee families get quality education.

I visited the flood-affected Afghan refugees in Attock in December. I went to Barakat schools and met the students. I spoke with their fathers, and then with their mothers. I visited their rented homes, including the home of the Murad family, which left the devastated Azakhel camp in the aftermath of the flooding.

Mr. Murad, in his late 30s and the father of seven children — one in the womb — fled to Attock with his wife, their children, and his elderly father. Life is bittersweet for Mr. Murad and his family right now. On the one hand, he is among a larger community that is doing what it can to look after his welfare. His Turkmen Afghan neighbors have helped his family find a small place to rent for about $30 a month and work as a subcontracted carpet weaver. Barakat has given Mr. Murad's family, and all of the other 74 flood-displaced families, two small disbursals of cash to help meet their daily housing, food, and health-care needs. Barakat has encouraged the newcomers to send their children to Barakat schools, free of charge.

On the other hand, their recovery is arduous. Back in the Azakhel camp, all of the Murad children attended school. Mr. Murad worked as a carpenter, and that was enough to support his family. But in Attock, making ends meet means that the Murad kids, along with Mrs. Murad, have to stay home to help weave carpets. Mr. Murad goes out in search of daily labor jobs. If he's lucky, he'll earn about $2.40 a day, but a recent injury to his hand has kept him home of late. The Murads are worried about their situation. They want their kids to attend school, and Mr. Murad's father's health is failing.

The Murads' situation — and others like it — reinforces the importance of the partnership that UUSC and Barakat have formed to help flood-affected Afghan refugee families in Attock reestablish their livelihoods and become proprietors of their own businesses. With support for capital investments, the newly arrived families from Azakhel camp will be able to use their existing expertise to reestablish their lives in Attock and send their kids back to school.

Learn more about UUSC's response to the devastating monsoon flooding in Pakistan.