The need for international aid
Imagine your mum bakes an enormous chocolate cake for your birthday. It smells so good but when she takes it out of the oven and cuts it up, all the slices are different sizes. Some of your friends end up with huge slices, while some don’t get any cake at all. That’s what it’s like for the different countries in the world. Some, like the UAE, have lots of natural resources and smart governments. Others are much poorer to start with and don’t know how to make the most of what they have. In these countries, often children don’t have enough food to eat, proper schools to go to or even proper houses to live in. International aid is when other countries, like the UAE, step in to help.
The causes of poverty
Sometimes when there is not enough to go around, people start to fight among themselves. You can imagine it, right – like everybody fighting for that last slice of your birthday cake. When lots of people start to fight over things like food or space it’s called a civil war. When civil war breaks out, people often end up leaving the towns and cities they live in to find somewhere safe, often taking nothing but the clothes they’re wearing. Natural disasters, like hurricanes, floods or volcanoes erupting also cause people to flee the places they live in, without being able to take anything to support themselves. That’s where international aid comes in.
The role the UAE has to play
The UAE is one of the best countries in the world at helping others. So far, it’s helped 178 countries and donated 173 billion dirhams to supporting countries in need. Since Sheikh Zayed founded the union, the UAE has been one of the top ten donors in the world because part of Sheikh Zayed’s vision was for us to do always do what we can to help those who are less fortunate than us.
Countries it helps
Sheikh Zayed made helping countries in need, regardless of their race, religion or geography, one of the main points of his foreign policy. At the moment, the UAE is focused on helping people suffering in Syria, Yemen and Iraq but we have also given lots of support to struggling countries in Africa and Asia.
Land of opportunity
There is another important way the UAE helps those in need – providing jobs. The UAE welcomes anyone who wants to work hard to make a better life. The men building the roads on your way to school or the women working in the coffee shop your mum takes to may all be working to send money home to their families in the poorer country they came from. They see the UAE as a land of opportunity. Most importantly they know that the UAE leaves nobody behind. If there is a way to offer help to somebody who needs it, the UAE will do it.
