The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.
Thanks to the generosity of IRC supporters, more than 23 million people benefited from IRC programmes and those of our partner organisations in 2015 —nearly 5.5 million more individuals than we were able to reach in 2014.
In 2015, the IRC and our partner organisations:
- Helped more than 21 million people gain access to primary and reproductive health care.
Vaccinated more than 440,000 children under the age of one against measles. - Supported 2,384 clinics and health facilities that helped more than 315,000 women deliver healthy babies.
- Supported more than 13,000 community health workers to treat pneumonia, malaria and diarrhea in children under age 5 and treated 186,000 children under the age of five for acute malnutrition.
- Gave 2.6 million people access to clean drinking water or sanitation.
- Provided schooling and educational opportunities to more than 1.3 million girls and boys; trained more than 54,000 teachers and educators and supported 7,959 schools.
- Provided counselling, care and support to more than 36,800 vulnerable children and trained 9,525 child protection workers.
- Provided 24,555 families with parenting support.
- Created 1,716 village savings and loan associations that benefited more than 38,000 members who saved a total of nearly $1.8 million.
- Provided more than 14,900 farmers with agricultural or agribusiness training and more than 34,700 farmers with agricultural “inputs” and access to markets.
- Provided job-related skills training (entrepreneurship, business and financial literacy, vocational training) to more than 27,000 people.
- Helped support or create 8,760 businesses.
- Provided cash or asset transfers to 75,625 refugee and displaced individuals or households with a cash value of $11.8 million.
- Counselled and provided essential services (healthcare, psycho-social support and legal aid) to more than 11,400 survivors of gender-based violence (GBV); trained more than 33,000 women, men and children in GBV prevention; reached more than 750,300 women, men and children with community-based gender-based violence prevention efforts.
- Offered legal assistance to more than 35,450 people through IRC-supported legal centres and mobile teams; trained 18,267 people in the principles of human rights and protection; offered awareness raising sessions to some 192,000 people on preventing and responding to human rights abuses.
- Trained over 25,800 people in the principles of governance, which means improving governments' ability to provide services and be accountable to the people they serve. Offered awareness raising sessions on governance and governance-related topics to more than 168,400 people.
- In the United States, the IRC helped resettle 9,961 newly arrived refugees and provided services to promote self-reliance and integration to over 36,000 refugees, asylees, victims of human trafficking and other immigrants.
- Through our Resettlement Support Centre in Thailand, the IRC assisted 18,151 refugees who departed from camps and cities in East Asia to enter the United States and build new lives with help from the IRC and sister resettlement agencies.
International Rescue Committee aid workers from the field share a moment from their day. From Tanzania to Afghanistan to Greece to Salt Lake City, here's a glimpse of the breadth of IRC programmes around the world.