Serafina own a vegetable stand at the Kalobeyei Market. For the past three years, she has been selling vegetables. To adequately boost private sector engagement and promote self-reliance of refugee and host communities, UNHCR is collaborating with partners to create market spaces and provide grants to entrepreneurs to help them expand their businesses.
© UNHCR/ Pauline Omagwa

UNHCR's ongoing care work includes providing special protection services for women and children, and ensuring all refugees have access to healthcare and safe shelter.

Your support also helps coordinate education and livelihood programs to help people develop the skills they need to achieve self-reliance and maintain hope and dignity.

How does UNHCR help refugees?

UNHCR responds to refugee emergencies and ongoing crises in more than 130 countries around the world. We provide vulnerable families with shelter, water and essential items in urgent situations, and also support ongoing projects to help refugees rebuild their lives. Read more on our emergency response work

Here are some of the many examples of ongoing care supported by Australia for UNHCR:

 Jordan. Syrian refugees living in urban areas rely on UNHCR cash assistance
© UNHCR/Lilly Carlisle

Cash Assistance

UNHCR distributes cash assistance to particularly vulnerable refugees – giving people greater control over their lives.

Three Eritrean children peek at the camera from their parents' laps
© UNHCR/Stefan Lorint

Children

Children make up over 40 per cent of the world’s displaced people. Together, we can help restore their futures.

Lucy Akai, a Kenya woman, holds her baby and smiles at the camera. She is wearing brightly coloured beaded jewelery.
© UNHCR/Samuel Otieno

Livelihoods

Refugees leave behind their homes as well as their careers. UNHCR helps displaced people so they can support themselves with dignity.

Resourceful Tigrayan refugees from Ethiopia start new lives in Sudanese camp with help from UNHCR.
© UNHCR/Ahmed Kwarte

Shelter

Providing shelter is a core part of UNHCR’s protection mission. On cold nights or hot days, it could mean the difference between life and death.

A woman helps her daughter in law with the kangaroo scarf in Cameroon.
©UNHCR/Xavier Bourgois

Healthcare

With your support, UNHCR connects refugees with primary and secondary health care, including sexual and reproductive health, nutrition and mental health services.

Refugee students smile at camera. In Kakuma Refugee Camp, UNHCR is advocating for technical support and financing for the inclusion of refugees and camp-based schools in the national education system.
© UNHCR/Pauline Omagwa

Education

Australia for UNHCR supports refugee children and adolescents in receiving quality protective education. Donate now to help refugee children and adolescents gain an education.

Woman laughing, holding baby. South Sudanese refugee, Bety Aredu, 22, holds her seven-month-old baby, Sarah, at Biringi settlement, Ituri province, north-east Democratic Republic of Congo, where she receives support from UNHCR.
© UNHCR/Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

Women and Girls

Help Australia for UNHCR protect women and girl refugees from sexual and gender-based violence and support programs that help victims recover and rebuild their lives. Donate now.

UNHCR’s Representative in Romania, Batyr Sapbyiev, assists a refugee at the Palanca border crossing in Moldova.
© UNHCR/Mihai von Eremia

Protection

UNHCR upholds the basic human rights of displaced or stateless people – ensuring they’re not returned involuntarily to countries where they could face persecution.

Synthia, an indigenous trans woman from Colombia, smiles at the camera, in front of the transgender flag
© UNHCR/Catalina Betancur Sánchez

LGBTQIA+ Refugees

No one should have to flee their home because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. UNHCR protects and supports LGBTQIA+ refugees and displaced people.