"Money will be used to distribute
food and water, and reunify families"
Westport, CT - Save the Children
was awarded a $350,000 grant today from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
to help victims of the devastating floods in Mozambique.
Part of the grant will be used to identify unaccompanied children and reunify them with their families. Save the Children also will use the money to distribute food, water and seeds in Gaza province, where the flooding did some of its worst damage.
Flooding in southern and central Mozambique has driven up to one million people from their homes and thousands are feared dead. Many children who have been separated from their families are now in temporary aid camps, where there is a severe shortage of food and clean water.
"We are grateful to the Gates Foundation for this grant, which will help thousands of Mozambican children and families during this crisis," said Rudolph von Bernuth, Save the Children's Associate Vice President, Division of Humanitarian Response.
The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to improving people's lives by sharing advances in health and learning with the global community.
Save the Children, an international child assistance organization, has been working in Mozambique since 1988. Save the Children operates ongoing health, education and economic programs that benefit nearly 300,000 people in Gaza and Nampula provinces.
Save the Children is a nonprofit organization that works in 46 countries, including the United States. Its mission is to make lasting, positive change in the lives of children in need. Save the Children also is a member of the International Save the Children Alliance, a worldwide network of 26 independent Save the Children organizations working in more than 100 countries.