The glasses from Flying Tiger Copenhagen arriving at UNHCR’s warehouse in Damascus. © UNHCR/Syria
For many people, it is easy to get hold of a pair of reading glasses if their vision suddenly starts to decline and it becomes more difficult to read. But for people who have been forced to flee their homes, it can have major consequences when the vision begins to blur. Forcibly displaced people are not necessarily able to buy a pair of glasses, which means it can be even more difficult for them to get an education, find work, and support their family.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is therefore very grateful for a donation from Flying Tiger Copenhagen of more than 100,000 reading glasses for people in Syria, who have been forced to flee their homes because of the conflict.
“It is a great pleasure to be able to help some of the world’s most vulnerable people with a utility item, which hopefully makes their everyday life a little easier.”
“It is a great pleasure to be able to help some of the world’s most vulnerable people with a utility item, which hopefully makes their everyday life a little easier. We are doing various support initiatives and donations on an ongoing basis, but we have never before made such a large-scale donation directly to one target group. Therefore, there was no doubt that we should partner up with UNHCR when we got the opportunity to donate 100,000 reading glasses to refugees and displaced persons in Syria,” says Trine Pondal, Sustainability Director at Flying Tiger Copenhagen.
“These types of partnerships, where companies come together to help where they can and contribute with their expertise and resources, are absolutely crucial for UNHCR to be able to help as many people as possible. Large-scale product donations like this one from Flying Tiger Copenhagen can help make a difference for people who have been forced to flee and who have often lost everything they own,” says Eva Raabyemagle, UNHCR’s head of private sector partnerships in Denmark.
The glasses from Flying Tiger Copenhagen are being prepared for distribution to displaced people in Syria. © UNHCR/Syria.
The refugee crisis in Syria remains the largest in the world
Today, 13 years after the conflict broke out in Syria, the refugee crisis in the country is still the largest in the world. More than 12 million people have been displaced – either inside Syria or by fleeing to other countries. And even more people in the country are dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive.
UNHCR has a large presence in the region, helping and protecting people forced to flee the conflict in Syria by providing acute humanitarian assistance, psychosocial support, legal assistance, cash assistance, resettlement among other things.
The humanitarian crisis further escalated in February last year when, in the midst of an extremely cold winter, a catastrophic earthquake struck the border area between Syria and Türkiye, leaving thousands of families without shelter as their homes were turned into ruins in a split-second. Some 24 million people were affected by the earthquake, of which 56,000 were killed and twice as many injured.
UNHCR responded immediately by providing emergency support and protection for those affected. We provided tens of thousands of people with a temporary roof over their heads, distributed millions of lifesaving core relief items and helped hundreds of thousands who had lost family members and homes with psychosocial support.
There is still an enormous need for humanitarian assistance and longer-term support in Syria and the neighboring countries. With this donation from Flying Tiger Copenhagen, UNHCR is able to meet a need that we otherwise would not have been able to, helping us to improve the lives of thousands of displaced people.
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