2022 is over, and it is time to reflect on MOAS’ operations and projects worldwide. This has been a challenging but productive and successful year. Our operations have reached some of the most vulnerable communities worldwide, and we plan to continue along this trajectory into 2023! Below you’ll find an overview of each project we ran last year and what its impacts and outcomes have been.
MOAS App
At the beginning of 2022 MOAS released its brand new App, which is available to download on App Store and Google Play. Through a very user-friendly and easy-to-navigate interface, the app is the ultimate way to discover MOAS’ missions and initiatives around the world and make a donation to support the most vulnerable communities in areas of crisis. Using the app the user can:
- Learn about MOAS’ projects around the world and find information about each one
- Access the MOAS blog and articles about migration, humanitarian trends and development initiatives
- Access the photo section and share their experiences in the Community section
- Make a donation to support a project. The mobile app allows donors to choose the project that ignites their hearts to support.
- Access and explore our social media channels and become a follower
- Read and sign the appeal for the implementation of #SafeAndLegalRoutes of migration
With the MOAS app, giving is as simple as tapping a button on the mobile phone. As an example, 10€ will buy a life-saving throw-bag, a vital piece of equipment for the Flood and Water Safety Training. 37€ provides malnutrition treatment for one undernourished child in Yemen or Somalia. Any donation counts, no matter if small or big.
Ukraine mission
MOAS’ mission is to respond quickly and efficiently to emerging crises in the world. Therefore, in February 2022 MOAS started a medical mission in Ukraine to bring emergency medical aid and medicines to the people affected by the conflict. It is estimated that between 8 and 12 million people have been forcibly displaced and cut off from their regular healthcare services in the country. In addition, the direct damage or closure of around 1000 health facilities and several thousand medical staff has left the health infrastructure stretched and access to basic medical care almost impossible.
Through a fleet of 27 fully equipped emergency response vehicles, our team of paramedics, doctors and nurses, have treated thousands of patients through our trauma and point-of-injury care work and supply distributions.
The mission explained
- MOAS is responding with a fleet of emergency response vehicles with different specifications and capacities, including mobile medical team base units, critical care transport vehicles, secure resupply and logistics vehicles, personnel deployment vehicles and so on.
- These vehicles are equipped with portable medical supplies, stocks of pharmaceuticals and state of the art equipment that allows our teams to provide both basic and advanced life support, advanced clinical interventions, transport and triage, as well as some more expanded critical care medical interventions as and when needed.
- Each vehicle is manned by two licensed medical personnel and a local driver/cultural mediator.
- As many patients as possible are triaged, treated and released in the field, but the most critical and high-risk cases are then transported by MOAS teams in critical care transport vehicles to higher echelons of care, off the front lines, for surgery and further intervention.
Using this model, our team has already treated and released thousands of patients in the field and transported the most critical patients to follow-on services. Transfer patients with the most severe trauma have ranged from children as young as 11 to women and men of all ages, including the elderly and infirm. MOAS works with strategic tactical medics with experience in field medicine to ensure that each patient is treated with comprehensive, rapid, injury-specific interventions designed to minimise the impact of the damage and save as many lives as possible.
Training and Disaster Risk Reduction – DRR
Flood and Water Safety
MOAS has supported local partners in delivering unique and innovative Flood and Water Safety training since early 2019. MOAS’ team provides their expertise to local partners in training and providing equipment to volunteer responders from the refugee communities and the local host community. This training creates resilience against water-related risks – such as flooding and monsoon – but also supports self-development, not only by providing volunteers will skills and equipment but also by improving leadership and teamwork. These programs also provide livelihoods to local tailors who make our safety equipment and receive up-skilling as part of the project. This year, through our incredible global partners MOAS has facilitated and supported the training of over 1375 refugees and 28 host community representatives with each person trained receiving a MOAS-designed and locally made throwbag.
Fire Safety
To respond to the increase in the frequency and severity of outbreaks of fire in crowded refugee camps, our team supported the development of a one-of-a-kind Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) project for Fire Safety and Response. The project focuses on three elements; risk mapping, training in first response and the prototyping and manufacture of firefighting equipment.
The risk mapping model allows our technical experts to advise camp management and other stakeholders on areas of particular risk and develop response strategies according to each context, while the training also provides first-response skills and strategy implementation techniques to community-based volunteers. Finally, the team has prototyped several camp-context-specific pieces of equipment, including fire-fighting tuk-tuks and backpacks, and are producing and procuring/distributing across several projects. With support from international donors and INGO partners, our team has trained 2662 volunteers and helped to produce 45 tuk-tuk firefighting units and procure & distributing 341 wheely pumps, 110 carry pumps, while 533 water tanks were placed in the camps. This fire safety programming will continue beyond 2022 and well into the 2023 period with more exciting developments to come.
Yemen and Somalia
Since early 2019 MOAS has provided pharmaceutical care and specialist malnutrition treatment to vulnerable children in Yemen and Somalia. In these countries, crippled by political crises exacerbated by environmental pressures, food insecurity is at an all-time high with famine, drought and malnutrition putting millions of lives at risk. This year was no different and, with the ongoing support of partners Edesia, Action Medeor, ADRA Yemen and IMC, we successfully distributed over 80 tons of ready-to-use therapeutic foods to children on the brink of starvation.
With your help, we will continue to get this life-saving aid to those who need it most.
Malta
In Malta, MOAS is committed to supporting the migrant and refugee communities present on the island by providing assistance for challenges they might face in their daily life, whether big or small. In doing so, we run several projects ranging from education initiatives to integration and hospital assistance.
In 2022 MOAS launched the “Integration Through Education and Information” project, to stimulate collaboration among voluntary organisations and coordinate sessions and events targeted to the migrant community on the island, to boost integration and independence. Our activity team leader, supported by a staff of amazing volunteers, organised art classes, guided visits, nature walks and other interesting initiatives thus engaging with the migrant community and stakeholders to foster community engagement and implement integration.
Another important project is the provision of Information and Learning Centres in the refugee camps of Hal Far. This project sees MOAS establishing multifunctional learning spaces at the Open Centres: these learning spaces are in the final stage of refurbishment and will be equipped with educational resources such as computers, books and other learning tools and be used by the center’s residents for formal education, training activities such as language classes, quiet study, and essential tasks such as CV writing, job hunting and registering for online services.
A Remote Learning Initiative is also in progress, this is a project through which MOAS provides tablets and modems with an internet connection to refugees and asylum-seekers who are full-time adult learners to keep up with their studies.
With the MOAS’ Family Hosting & Sponsorship Project, migrants are connected to families residing in Malta who wish to support them in furthering their education. Through these projects, we aim to facilitate long-term integration and inclusion and support the development and independence of participants, by offering social support, guidance and family interactions.
After the suspension caused by the pandemic, in 2022 MOAS restarted the hospital visits to migrants medically evacuated from SAR vessels and receiving inpatient treatment, to ensure they feel supported and had access to services. We also provided them with care packages to support recovery. Furthermore, MOAS has helped coordinate at-home care for individuals who need additional support once they return home after treatment.
On the island MOAS is also offering the ‘English for Beginners’ course to residents at some of the transitional housing centres: the course is adapted according to the needs of the asylum seekers beneficiaries and the aim is to build confidence in listening to and speaking English in an informal setting. The lessons, which focus primarily on conversational English, both boost the participant’s capacity to integrate into the local community and better access community resources. English language acquisition can be vital for participants to access better employment and build connections in the community.
The Path Film
The end of the year was marked by the release of the short movie The Path, created and directed by British animator Duncan Rudd for MOAS. The film was conceived during an art project dedicated to MOAS’ work during Refugee Week, thanks to a collaboration with Studio Treble, a digital agency based in Manchester. It tells the story of a young girl who is forced to leave everything behind and flee in search of safety; the film was inspired by the work of MOAS – which was the first humanitarian organization to start private SAR missions in the Mediterranean in 2014 and has saved as many as 40,000 lives in three years- and the advocacy campaign for #SafeAndLegalRoutes. You can watch the film here
Climate Change Campaign
In 2022 MOAS issued an educational and advoacy campaign focused on the key issues that climate migrants face, including a lack of international protection mechanism and no long-term collaborative plan to ensure people’s livelihoods are protected as the world sees the impacts of climate change. The global campaign was promoted across MOAS’ social platforms to educate people on the lived realities of climate refugees and highlight the need for policy changes, while the Refugee Convention is enshrined in international agreements and no amendments have been made since its conception, there is scope to have supplementary annexes and neighbouring policy changes to ensure protection mechanisms are put in place
Advocacy
MOAS continues to advocate for the implementation of #SafeAndLegalRoutes of migration.
Throughout 2022 the MOAS team has been busy providing educational and awareness-raising information to our community. The team have deconstructed the terminology around migration, explained legal definitions and explored the narratives of asylum and the obstacles these individuals face. We further analyzed the main factors driving migration –namely, economic, political, social and environmental factors, so that our audience can better understand why people decide to leave their countries and risk their lives to reach safety.
The team has also assessed the existing legal systems through which migrants can seek humanitarian protection; these include humanitarian visa, resettlement schemes, family reunification and community sponsorship.
In the last months of the year, the MOAS team focused on providing information about migration procedures in UK and Italy, focusing on the legal pathways already in place, which need to be implemented.
Looking to 2023
MOAS is taking great strides into DRR and will continue to support our partners and camp management infrastructures in mapping risks, providing training and distributing equipment to combat possible effects of flood and cyclones as well as fires in refugee camps and surrounding host communities.
Our fundraising drive for the nutritional aid delivery projects is well underway as we strive to provide the same levels of support to Yemen and Somalia as we have in 2022, while also expanding the project to include the upcoming deliveries that may be needed.
In Malta, we aim to open the first Learning and Information Centre in Hangar Open Center (HOC) in early 2023, which will be followed by a similar opening at Hal Far Tent Village (HTC). The remote learning project will continue to expand and MOAS will continue to support asylum seekers and Beneficiaries of Protection (BoPs) in the community through hospital visitations, distributions, activities and educational opportunities etc.
We also plan to continue the integration projects through a variety of initiatives in collaboration with other NGOs and stakeholders, to implement refugee and asylum seekers’ connections and independence in Malta.
In Ukraine, our medical staff and dedicated team will continue to assist as many patients as possible, providing emergency care and saving the lives of vulnerable civilians affected by the devastating impact of the ongoing armed conflict.
We believe our greatest achievements lie in the depth and breadth of support we have provided our beneficiaries. We continue to be dedicated to working towards a world where all people are treated with dignity and respect, through our logistical expertise we are able to both rapidly respond to emerging crises as well as provide longer-term social assistance to mitigate the suffering of people forced to risk their lives to reach safety.
As we look towards 2023, we will continue to provide our logistical expertise and rapidly respond to emerging crises.
If you are interested in the work of MOAS and our partners, please follow us on social media, sign up to our newsletter and share our content. You can also reach out to us any time via [email protected]. If you want to support our operations, please give what you can at www.moas.eu/donate.