More than 1.5 million people have been displaced since the conflict in South Sudan reignited. According to the United Nations, 421,000 people have fled the new country to neighboring Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. The International Rescue Committee is responding to the influx of new arrivals in the Kiryandongo refugee settlement in Uganda, where Dr. Catherine Ndekera, IRC’s health coordinator, reports on the situation.

The Happy Families Program is a parenting and family skills intervention implemented with displaced Burmese families living on the Thai–Burmese border. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and research partners from the Harvard School of Public Health and Duke University found that the intervention had a significant impact on parenting practices, family functioning, and child behavior.

To respond to the specific needs of adolescent girls in humanitarian settings and to address the gap in evidence of what works to promote the health, safety and empowerment of adolescent girls, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has invested in a robust adolescent girl programming and research agenda. As part of this effort, the IRC partnered with Columbia University over a three year period (2014–2017) to develop, implement and evaluate the Creating Opportunities through Mentoring, Parental Involvement and Safe Spaces (COMPASS) program, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). COMPASS was implemented with refugees living in camps on the Sudan/Ethiopia border, conflict-affected communities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and displaced populations in north-west Pakistan.