Saving lives in emergencies

Age International is providing healthcare outreach for older refugees who are unable to leave their shelters and cataract operations to help restore people's sight. 

We are also supporting 'age-friendly spaces' in the Bangladesh refugee camps. In these spaces, which are exclusively for older men and women, refugees can visit specialist doctors about their age-related health conditions and spend time with their peers - helping them to recover from trauma. 

73-year-old Dima receives cooking oil

To combat drought and hunger, Age International delivered water, food packs, drought-resistant seeds and livestock to older farmers living in remote hard-to-reach rural communities. Read more about the East Africa Crisis on our blog.    

East Africa Crisis Blogs  

Working with partners, we helped medical vans travel to hard-to-reach areas, delivering essential healthcare and medicines to people who were cut-off from other services.

Immediately the disaster Age International made sure older people had food, water, shelter, blankets - and even solar lamps to prevent falls at night.

In the later stages, we gave out cash so families could buy food and medicines, and provided glasses and cataract operations for those who needed them.

Finally, we helped people to rebuild stronger, better homes. And we made sure people could get back to work and earn a living again - by investing in their shops and farms.

Staff in Gaza deliver hygiene kits to a disabled older woman who was trapped in her home

During the Gaza Crisis, some older people were unable to leave their homes.

Age International delivered emergency hygiene kits – which contained soap, incontinence pads and other essentials. We also delivered mobility aids like wheelchairs & walking sticks.  

Finally, we created a day centre where people could come to feel safe and recover from trauma. The centre ran numerous group activities - including a literacy class where a number of older people learnt to read for the very first time.  

One of our age-friendly food packs in the Philippines - plastic bags are easy to open with arthritic hands

After the Philippines Typhoon, Age International worked with partners to reach extremely remote communities of older people with aid.

We gave people food, shelter and helped them to get back to their jobs. In cases where people couldn't return to work because their crops were destroyed and would take years to re-grow (as is the case with coconut farmers) we trained them in new skills and invested in their new work.

Finally, we supplied solar-powered radios to remote island communities - so that older people will have fair warning if disaster strikes again.