Climate Change’s Human Cost
By ShelterBox
Disaster relief NGO ShelterBox is coming to Outdoor Retailer Summer Market because it sees the heavy toll climate change takes on people across the planet—and it sees potential partners in an industry willing to speak out and do something.
At ShelterBox, we see the faces of climate change every single time we deploy.
Our highly trained, all-volunteer teams of two to four members get called out to respond to floods, landslides, tornados, typhoons and hurricanes every single year. And every year, we see how climate change results in conflict and tens of thousands of displaced persons.
We’re coming to Outdoor Retailer Summer Market this year because we know there will be more and more disasters that call for aid like ours: We deploy aid that’s purpose-built to address the needs of specific areas and what individual families need when they’re recovering from either refugee situations or natural disasters.
We wanted a chance to meet people who care about climate change as much as we do—that’s you.
To date, nearly 100 million people worldwide are left homeless due to some kind of disaster, either natural or manmade, that’s out of their control. And every year, we help more and more people start to rebuild after the worst weeks of their lives.
It’s a job we’re happy to do, but it’s also work we’d love to be out of.
Until we get a handle on climate change, until our world leaders recognize the plight of the people we get to know every time we deploy, we’ll keep on sending out our signature tents, water purifiers, solar lamps, kitchen sets and mosquito nets. We’ll keep on helping families to replace their roofs and their walls with our heavy-duty ShelterKits. And we’ll keep partnering with organizations like Habitat for Humanity; the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent; the World Food Program, to ensure that these families have the tools they need to move on.
Our commitment doesn’t stop there. Our model of transparency means that our donors and partners know where their money is going. Because empowerment works both ways: Every time we empower a family to build back better, we want to empower you to know that you really helped someone.
Climate change is a humanitarian issue. We’re reminded of it in each of the over 300 deployments we’ve been on in our nearly twenty years of disaster relief. We were selected as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee last year because the Nobel Peace Prize committee recognizes the role of keeping families and communities together, and functioning in world peace.
To make a difference in the lives of the people we exist to help, we need you. Come visit us at the LuminAID booth (24308-SL) at Summer Market, and find out what it means to be partnered with an organization that’s on the front lines of alleviating the effects of climate change.
Until then, visit us on the web at shelterboxusa.org, or on Twitter and Instagram @shelterboxusa.