We are grateful for Airlink’s work ensuring critical supplies reach countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean and are pleased to count them as a strong partner in supporting global recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Sally RayDirector of The CDP COVID-19 Response Fund
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) announced disaster response nonprofit Airlink as a receipient of funding from its COVID-19 Response Fund. Airlink works with airlines and nonprofits to provide transportation for response personnel and critical humanitarian supplies needed in response to natural and man-made disasters. The grant from CDP of $150,000 is for Airlink’s program to coordinate logistics and secure airlift for supplies to prevent, contain, and address the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
CDP supports domestic and international organizations providing immediate response and assists with recovery from the effects of the pandemic through the organization’s COVID-19 Response Fund. Grants focus on directly assisting communities and populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Since January, Airlink has run a COVID-19 initiative called AviationC.A.R.E.S. (Co-ordinated Air Response for Essential Supplies) to provide airlift for non-governmental organizations (NGO) distributing personal protective equipment (PPE) and other pandemic-related supplies to fragile communities. To-date, Airlink has moved 190 tons of relief cargo, including over 8 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE), to communities in crisis around the world on behalf of more than 20 nonprofit relief organizations.
“We are very grateful to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy for awarding Airlink such a significant grant,” said Steve J Smith, President, and CEO of Airlink. “Building on our experience from the Ebola crisis in 2014-16, Airlink identified vulnerable communities at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure they would not be overlooked when it came to the delivery of critical PPE or other medical supplies.”
Airlink’s missions to support vulnerable communities include securing airlift for NGO partner ADRA, also a CDP grantee, to bring PPE to indigenous populations in Peru. Airlink also worked with Medical Teams International to supply hygiene kits to people in the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement in Uganda. In the US, Airlink supported nonprofit partner Waves For Water in helping members of the Navajo Nation with a pilot clean-water program in Shiprock, New Mexico (population 350,000) significantly impacted by COVID-19. Airlink will continue to support Waves For Water’s expanded clean-water access to more towns across the Navajo Nation.
“We are grateful for Airlink’s work ensuring critical supplies reach countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and are pleased to count them as a strong partner in supporting global recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” said Sally Ray, director of the CDP COVID-19 Response Fund.”
