Goldman Sachs Gives
© UNHCR/Aikaterini Kitidi
In 2015, UNHCR partnered with Goldman Sachs Gives to provide £2 million’s worth of emergency relief to thousands of refugee families and vulnerable children in the Mediterranean, Syria and neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
The generous response from Goldman Sachs Gives has enabled us to protect and save the lives of thousands of families fleeing terror, war and persecution, and support them in seeking refuge and safety.
The support from Goldman Sachs Gives towards the refugee crisis enabled UNHCR to provide over 320,000 blankets, 100,000 items of warm clothing, almost 26 tonnes of food, 170,000 litres of water and a range of sleeping bags, mats and warm clothing to help refugees through the winter months.
For those refugees that risked the journey to Europe, we deployed more than 600 members of our highly trained staff across 20 locations in Greece and Italy, who have provided over 200,000 hours of protection‐monitoring borders, providing accurate advice, offering a friendly face and a sense of safety ‐ all whilst ensuring that international law protecting refugees is observed.
We have also been targeting and protecting 480+ highly vulnerable Syrian children living on the streets of Beirut through a specialist outreach programme, not only reducing the likelihood of them risking their lives to travel onwards to Europe, unaccompanied, but also reducing the threat of child trafficking and exploitation.
In the final quarter of 2015, the support of donors such as Goldman Sachs Gives enabled us to register 13,000 Syrians for resettlement to safe countries and refer 5,000 to Canada under their leading Humanitarian Transfer programme, offering a durable solution to the violence and persecution these refugees have fled.
Press Release