With more than 20 million people in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen at risk of starvation, the federal government has set up an emergency relief fund to encourage Canadians to donate to charities working on the ground to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
Through the newly created Famine Relief Fund, Ottawa will match every dollar donated by individual Canadians to registered charities between March 17 and June 30, 2017, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie Marie-Claude Bibeau announced Monday.
“Canadians have always demonstrated great compassion when it comes to humanitarian crises,” Bibeau said in a statement. “I encourage all Canadians to donate to the registered Canadian charities of their choice.”