Abdoulaye Alassane runs the IRC’s education programs in northern Mali's Gao region. The IRC, along with its Malian aid partner, GREFFA, is working to reopen schools which have been shuttered since the crisis began, and to provide services to vulnerable young people, including play and support groups for displaced children.

The IRC began providing fuel for water pumps in Menaka Cercle,  northern Mali, after fighting between secular Tuareg rebels and Islamic militia groups cut off the town's water supply.

The IRC's Dr. John Kiogora examines a severely malnourished child in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, where the IRC is assisting Somalis who have fled the region’s worst drought in sixty years.   

Residents of a village in Mali's Kati district collect clean drinking water from their local health center's pump because the drought has left them with few other options. 

Amid the challenges of a tense security situation in northern Mali, the IRC is looking at repairing water points and distributing water purification kits, should they be needed.