Disasters Emergency Relief

When the ground shakes, the water rises, or a storm takes the roof, a family can lose everything that keeps them alive before breakfast: the bed the children slept in, the well in the yard, the rice that was meant to last the week. They run with what they can carry. Then they wait. That wait is where your donation to Disasters Emergency Relief matters.

Please give to Disasters Emergency Relief. We will use your gift to get drinking water, food, hygiene kits and temporary shelter to people who have been hit. We work with local partners who know the roads and the families. They buy supplies close to the people who need them, so help arrives faster and the money stays in a community that has already been hurt.

You do not have to travel. You do not have to pack a box. The most useful thing you can do tonight is donate. A gift of £10 can cover drinking water for a family for a week. £50 can cover food for two weeks. £100 can help put a temporary roof over someone’s head. Please give what you can.

After an earthquake, people sleep outside because they are afraid the roof will fall. Water pipes break. After a flood, every well can be spoiled with sewage and debris. After a tsunami or a storm, rice stores are washed away and families sleep in schools or on higher ground. Dirty water then brings disease. Hunger follows a ruined harvest. Shelter is how a child sleeps without rain on their face.

About 80% of illness after a disaster is caused by contaminated water. A child with no access to clean water can develop life-threatening dehydration from diarrhoea within 24 to 48 hours. Children under five and pregnant or breastfeeding women can slide into acute malnutrition within days if food stops. That is why Disasters Emergency Relief exists: the first things, funded before the cameras arrive.

The cameras leave. The need does not. A gift today helps the family still sleeping under a tarpaulin, and the family who will lose their house the next time the weather or the ground turns. Please do not wait for the next headline. Give now to Disasters Emergency Relief.

Earthquakes give a family seconds. The critical window for shelter and water is about 72 hours, before exposure and dirty water compound the shock. Floods spoil wells and destroy harvests. Tsunamis send people running with nothing in their hands. Storms and landslides take homes in a night. When winter then arrives for families still in tents, displaced children face twice the mortality risk in the cold.

Disasters Emergency Relief answers those same first needs after every type of shock. Hygiene kits sit with water because dirty water spreads disease. Winter warmth — blankets and extra tarpaulins — sits with shelter when families are still displaced. We do not run search-and-rescue. We do not rebuild. We fund the meal, the drink and the dry place to sleep.

Please donate so this standing fund is already there. Disasters do not send a fundraising calendar. A gift to Disasters Emergency Relief is a gift to the family who has already lost a house — and the family who has not lost one yet.

Use the form beside this appeal, or open the donate page and choose emergency relief. Keep Disasters Emergency Relief selected. That gift is your donation. We will turn it into drinking water, food rations, hygiene kits and shelter materials for people who have had to leave their homes.

If you can, give every month. Disasters do not wait for a fundraising drive. A regular gift means partners can keep kits ready — water, food, tarpaulins, hygiene supplies — so a family is not left thirsty on a hillside. A one-off gift still matters. Please give today.

If your mosque, church, workplace or friends are collecting, gather what you can and donate it here. Tell them it will buy food, water and shelter for families after disaster. That is the whole of the ask.

Please choose an amount and donate. The figures below are typical partner-quoted costs for emergency kits. They are a guide to what your kindness can buy — a week of water, a hygiene kit, a fortnight of food, materials for a temporary roof. What a family receives will depend on the disaster and on what they need that week.

That is the promise of Disasters Emergency Relief. You give. We turn your money into help for people who have lost their homes. Please do not leave the page without giving if you are able.

You donate. We hold your gift for this appeal. When families need emergency help after a disaster, we release funds to local partners. Those partners buy supplies nearby and put them in people’s hands — a water container, a food parcel, a hygiene kit, a sheet of shelter material.

Buying locally is faster, and it is kinder. A shopkeeper in a damaged town still has a customer. A family does not wait for a container from Europe. Please donate so that chain can start. If you want to give in memory of someone, or as a group, write to us and we will mark the gift for Disasters Emergency Relief.

Money that has already been given can move when a disaster hits. Partners on the ground know the roads. They aim to start distributions within two to three days. Where access is blocked, they use boats, motorbikes or whatever will actually reach a family. Your gift still shortens the wait between the shock and the first clean drink.

Please donate today — once, or every month — so the next family is not left thirsty while the world organises a response. That is why Disasters Emergency Relief is a standing fund, not a campaign that starts after the pictures arrive.

You do not need to travel. You do not need to send a parcel. The most useful thing a supporter in the United Kingdom can do is give to Disasters Emergency Relief. If your workplace, school, mosque or church is collecting, bring the money here so it can be turned into help.

Please give what you can. A donation from London, Birmingham, Glasgow or a village hall buys the same week of water for a family who has lost their well. Please give money rather than clothes, shoes or bottled water from the UK, unless a partner has asked for a specific item in writing.

Disasters do not follow a fundraising calendar. A regular gift means we can say yes when partners ask for water, food and shelter materials. It is one of the kindest ways to support families after a flood, an earthquake, a tsunami or a storm.

Please start a monthly gift at the amount that is comfortable for you. You can change it later. If you would rather give once, that gift is welcome too. Donate to Disasters Emergency Relief today.

Traditional appeals take days or weeks to raise enough money to fund a response. By the time funds arrive, families have already gone without food, water and shelter for the most critical hours. Disasters Emergency Relief is already funded, so partners can move when a disaster is declared.

We will not wait for cameras to arrive before we ask you to give. Please donate to Disasters Emergency Relief so that when families need food, water and shelter, the money is already there to help them.

Emergency relief Objects are food, clean water and temporary shelter. Hygiene kits sit with water because dirty water spreads disease. Reconstruction, livelihoods, cash grants and mobile health clinics are outside this appeal. Please use the Cancer Emergency Appeal or Gift of Sight if you want to fund treatment.

We never send cash to individuals. Trustees release funds to vetted local partners who buy supplies nearby. That is how Disasters Emergency Relief stays fast, and how donor intent is protected.

Clothes, tins and bottles from Britain fill warehouses and miss the first days, when a family actually needs a drink and a meal. Local buying is faster. It also keeps a shop open in a damaged town.

If a partner has asked in writing for a specific item, we will say so. Until then, the kindest thing you can do is donate to Disasters Emergency Relief on this page today.