4.17am. It’s a time I hear again and again. 4.17am. A time that usually comes and goes, quietly and unnoticed. But this 4.17am was different, this 4.17am left its indelible mark, in every sense.

Enjoy reading our World Jewish Relief @90 brochure

On Monday 16th January at 6.30pm, our Chief Executive Paul Anticoni, Chair Maurice Helfgott and Head of Impact and Livelihoods Ekaterina Mitiaev gave us an update live from Ukraine.

His work for a women’s reproductive health NGO made him a target, as it opposed Taliban values. Escaping to the UK on a British military plane with his wife and four children, he arrived in as an asylum-seeker having left almost everything behind.

Thanks to the supporters of World Jewish Relief and the START Fund we have been able to respond to two instances of devastating floods across the country in the last six months; supporting in the short-term with food packages and sanitation kits through our tireless local partners Abbacol.

The climate crisis is global and interconnected. It is bigger than any individual, community, religion, or nation. Yet every individual, organisation, religion, and nation will be affected and must take a role in addressing it. At World Jewish Relief, it has become ever clearer that our work in low and middle income countries, in which many of the world’s most vulnerable people live, is dramatically affected by the climate crisis.

This Rosh Hashanah, World Jewish Relief is shining a light on the Abayudaya Jewish community of Uganda. With your help, the charity will continue its 6-year long engagement with local NGO Jewish Response Uganda (JRU), whom they helped establish in 2016.