You work all over the world. So how has the end of USAID and the federal cuts to foreign aid affected your programs?
It’s been certainly a challenging year. Alight works with forcibly displaced people and refugees in about 20 countries. And earlier in the year, we lost our funding in Myanmar and in South Sudan. Those were U.S. government grants that ended.
We have been able to retain the U.S. government support that we have both for our work in Minnesota as well as our work in Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.
So, you know, really pretty dire implications in terms of the folks that were no longer able to serve. And continued questions remain in terms of continued support for the really critical life-saving the work that we're continuing to do in Sudan, Uganda and Somalia.
I understand you started a new program in Sudan. Can you tell me about that and where the money came from?
So we were able to, over the weekend, secure a six-month emergency grant to deliver life-saving food assistance to families fleeing violence in North Darfur. The conflict has really escalated in the past couple weeks.
Alight has a team on the ground. We’ve been working in Darfur for about the last 20 years. And we are mobilizing a rapid response.
This funding actually came from supporters in the Gulf, and we are distributing now 2,000 metric tons of food to families fleeing violence. We have 20 trucks that are already on the way. They’re carrying dry goods and cooking oil.
