The Top 10 CARE News Stories of 2022

The most-read CARE News story of the year was also the most urgent and timely. When the war broke out in Ukraine, CARE had no official presence there, or in many surrounding countries. That changed in weeks, as we formed partnerships to provide jobs, accommodations, and mental health services, as well as financial assistance to Ukrainians who had been forced from their homes.

On February 25, CARE announced its plan to work with local partners to deliver immediate emergency assistance in the first months of the war.

2. “In The Midst of Crisis in Ukraine, Women and Children Are Left On Their Own”

As the conflict continued, CARE documented the in-country devastation, as well as the lives of the refugees fleeing the war into surrounding countries. When families began fleeing Ukraine to neighboring countries, many women with children made the journey on their own. In early March, CARE saw how the border crossings had quickly become overcrowded, with mothers often having to wait up to two days in the freezing cold with babies and small children.

3. “Ukrainian Exodus: Refugees Share Their Harrowing Stories”

Many of the feeling refugees faced shelling and witnessed atrocities, often barely avoiding disaster themselves. CARE continued to document these stories of survivors and refugees, while working to provide food, water, hygiene kits, psychosocial support, and cash assistance through its partners in Ukraine, Poland, and beyond.

4. “Five Ways Women and Girls Are Impacted By The Ukraine Conflict”

CARE knows that crises like the war in Ukraine have a disproportionate, gendered impact, which is why we focus our work on the ways women and girls need help. As the refugees arrived in Poland, they often found foreign health and legal systems hard to navigate, and women and girls found themselves at risk of further exploitation and abuse. CARE worked to raise awareness of these unique risks, as well as partnering with local organizations primarily specializing in helping women and girls with their specific needs.

From February to November, CARE and its 56 implementing partners reached more than 960,000 people across Ukraine, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, with protection and psychosocial support, cash assistance, food, water, sanitation and hygiene assistance, health services, support for accommodation, and education.

The response of CARE and its partners to the humanitarian crisis will be more important than ever in 2023. Already, as winter’s onset deepens the level of need, attacks and damage to homes and infrastructure have left millions at risk of deadly temperatures that can drop below -4°F.

To find out more about how you can help, visit CARE’s crisis response page here.

5. “Four Countries Caught In The Climate Crisis Right Now”

In November, as the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP27”) began in Egypt, CARE made its position clear: for climate justice to be justice at all, it must be gender justice.

From drought in Somalia to flooding in Pakistan, and from cyclones in Madagascar to torrential rains in Nigeria, CARE documented how the effects of climate change are having a devastating impact on the world’s most vulnerable countries.

6. “Somalia Drought: ‘Climate change has been reality for us for a long time.'”

Global hunger reached crisis levels in 2022. While the war in Ukraine caused food and gas prices to rise around the world, the effects of climate change also became increasingly apparent – especially in countries of the Global South such as Somalia in East Africa.

Sarah Easter traveled to Somalia and East Africa where the rainy season from March to June failed to come once again. There, she saw fields drying up, the water tanks in the villages going empty, and cattle herders losing their only source of income.

Her story showed how, in addition to cash assistance and small savings groups, CARE is helping East Africans by rehabilitating and constructing vital infrastructure.

7. “Floods in Pakistan: ‘This is what the climate crisis looks like'”

The effects of the crisis were tragically and dramatically on display in Pakistan. Since catastrophic monsoon rains submerged wide swaths of the country in flood waters over the summer, thousands of Pakistani families were forced to flee, and more than 1,500 people died.

Following the initial disaster response, CARE worked to support the recovery of flood-affected communities by rehabilitating or constructing permanent shelters, water systems, and household latrines.

As part of the long-term recovery, CARE also worked restoring incomes and livelihoods by providing agricultural resources such as seeds, tools, and poultry kits, as well as cash assistance where delivery of relief materials wasn’t possible.

Against this backdrop of this rapidly accelerating climate catastrophe around the world, CARE continues to work to build climate resiliency, and to call on rich and polluting countries to provide dedicated loss and damage funding alongside greater adaptation finance to assist countries affected by climate change

To learn more about CARE’s climate work, please visit CARE’s climate justice center here.

8. “Women Garment Workers Speak Up”

CARE’s work on gender equity around the world helps women and girls fight back against accepted roles and social norms. Harmful assumptions about what women and girls can and can’t do often leads to practices with devastating lifelong consequences — enforced marriage, female genital mutilation, and wage theft, among others.

Some of CARE News’s most popular stories in 2022 featured the women and girls saying “no” to these harmful stereotypes and practices.

The traditional image of a women seated at a sewing machine on an assembly line shows just one aspect of garment-worker life; their reality is more diverse and nuanced.

CARE spoke to inspiring leaders in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia to learn what matters most to them, and documented their stories via women-led photography teams from each country.

These women are leading changes within their factories and communities, a task that grew exponentially more difficult when COVID-19 brought about lockdowns, closed borders, and idled factories.

9. “Bangladesh: ‘Girls are fighting child marriage. And they’re winning.’”

One in three women will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime, and that figure jumps to one in five during humanitarian emergencies. Despite the higher risk of violence and child-, early-, and forced marriage during emergencies, services and support for survivors become harder to come by.

At the same time, women’s voices and perspectives are regularly kept out of leadership and decision-making around solutions. These stories helped showcase the work of CARE’s Tipping Point program, which supports girls and their families in areas like Pirgacha, Bangladesh as they push back against harmful gender norms that push adolescent girls into child marriage.

10. “Meet The Girl champions in Somalia Educating Communities About The Dangers of FGM”

As the world commemorated International Day of Zero tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on February 6, 2022, CARE showcased Somali girl champions who have been at the forefront within their communities in calling for its abolishment.

2023: The road ahead

In the coming year, we will spotlight our life-saving work in health, food, education, climate, equality, and emergency relief. And we will continue our dedication to finding and sharing these stories with you along the way.

Bookmark this page and check back often to see what CARE and its partners are doing in 2023.