Since 2016, a BGR project with Helen Keller Intl has trained health workers in Côte d’Ivoire to reduce the incidence of malnutrition in children in the first three years of life, benefitting hundreds of thousands of pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children.
By BGR Staff
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily halting the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an action that may “have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty,” according to BGR partner Oxfam America.
In the weeks since, the Trump administration has indicated that it intends to eradicate USAID, which as the United States’ primary aid agency disburses more than $70 billion in international humanitarian aid each year.
In the intervening days, information about the threat to USAID has continued to evolve; in the meantime, the freeze is impacting humanitarian programs around the world and the people they serve. As of February 19, Reuters was reporting that “The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), a network of groups in about 160 countries, found that the U.S. cuts had taken a devastating toll on crisis-hit populations. ‘Humanitarian architecture is being decimated,’ the ICVA said on Tuesday in a report on the survey. ‘Therapeutic feeding centers have ceased operations, posing life-threatening risks to malnourished children and pregnant women.’”
Longtime BGR partner Helen Keller Intl sent the following letter to its donor and subscriber community, including BGR executive director Kim Behan, detailing some of the impacts of the USAID freeze on humanitarian aid for the children and families it serves. We share the letter with you in its entirety below.
Dear Kim,
As you are among our most compassionate Helen Keller community members, we wanted to share an important update about the unprecedented challenges that many of the families served by Helen Keller Intl are now facing.
You probably know that the US Government has paused humanitarian aid for millions of communities around the world. This has created abrupt and enormous gaps in the flow of essential, lifesaving care for families. As of now, we estimate that at least 121 million people in the countries where Helen Keller works are in immediate danger as a result.
It is children and families with the least means who are bearing the brunt of these funding decisions. They are simply no longer receiving the critical services that prevent blindness, screen for and fight malnutrition, and diagnose and treat disease.
Thankfully, some media are covering the direct impacts on people’s lives. One champion of Helen Keller’s work, The New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof, has been speaking out on behalf of millions of families whose risks of blindness, food insecurity, and ill health have risen both suddenly and exponentially.
We are grateful to Mr. Kristof for shining a spotlight on the harsh realities. Please visit Helen Keller Intl’s website for links to Mr. Kristof’s piece and another by one of his colleagues.
We want you to know that, with you by our side, Helen Keller will do everything in our power to keep families safe!
Thank you so much for standing with children and families through this uncertain and tremendously challenging time. As Helen said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
With deep gratitude,
The Helen Keller Intl team
If you wish to stand up for the millions of women, men, and children being negatively impacted by the attack on USAID, you can call your senators and congressional representatives and leave a message, or you can write to them through their websites. It’s simple to do. Just find their names and look up their websites. These provide contact information for phone calls and email messages. You can use this article to select a few talking points.
BGR is monitoring the situation and will respond once we determine where our funds can have the greatest impact.
