The SNF announces an emergency relief grant to help combat the Ebola Epidemic In West Africa
The grant will provide general support to the efforts of Doctors Without Borders, helping them address the increasing challenges of the epidemic. Moreover, part of the grant will be used to provide support for the Sudanese refugee camps in Ethiopia, which were seriously damaged following recent heavy rains in the country’s Gambella region.
The World Health Organization has declared this largest-recorded Ebola epidemic an “international public health emergency”. International efforts to stem the outbreak require immediate support. These response efforts include, among others, medical care, the training of health staff, infection control, contact tracing, epidemiological surveillance, alert and referral systems, community education and mobilization.
Doctors Without Borders is the international humanitarian-aid organization that is leading the fight against the Ebola epidemic on the ground in West Africa. Doctors Without Borders won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 “in recognition of the organization’s pioneering humanitarian work on several continents”. Its medical staff have worked in more than 80 countries and treated tens of millions of people.
“With this grant, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation is supporting the essential work of Doctors Without Borders in West Africa and joining the crucial fight to conquer the Ebola epidemic”, said Andreas Dracopoulos – Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
During its 18 years of grantmaking activity, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation has provided 60 emergency relief grants responding to urgent and extreme needs all over the world. Among others, the Foundation provided emergency grants to assist relief efforts in response to the devastating floods in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, provided emergency relief assistance to support those affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, approved an emergency grant in response to the devastating earthquake that hit the island of Kefalonia in Greece, and assisted a variety of relief and aid operations in New York in response to Superstorm Sandy.