United Kingdom

Our purpose at HI UK is to bring tangible improvements to the living conditions of people with disabilities and vulnerable populations by supporting HI’s mission and programmes worldwide.

In 2024, we aimed to achieve this by raising funds, influencing policy and practice, and providing high-quality technical expertise to our country programmes. This was underpinned by a strong focus on building a diverse, motivated and connected staff team with effective support functions and a strong, supportive and ambitious culture. 

This page explains how we achieved these goals in 2024, in each of our areas of activity, and shares some of our highlights for the year.

Supporting HI's programmes

In 2024, with the generous support of the UK public and institutional donors, HI UK supported 23 countries and several global programmes. The projects supported cover a wide range of HI’s activities, including emergency aid, demining, rehabilitation, and inclusive education.

> Read more about our UK finances and annual accounts

Emergency response

2024 saw no let-up in the number of emergencies to which our teams had to respond.

Sudan and Chad

In Sudan, brutal civil war has forced more than 12 million people from their homes. Half of these are children. An unknown number of people – certainly tens of thousands – have lost their lives. 25 million people face crisis levels of hunger. Among these, it is the most marginalised, especially people with disabilities, who have been hardest hit.

In 2024, we continued our emergency response supporting Sudanese people with injuries and disabilities in Chad, where some 900,000 refugees have fled. We also launched a programme inside the Darfur region of Sudan, despite the very high security risks. As well as providing direct support, we also worked to raise awareness of the crisis, including through our partnership with renowned photographer Giles Duley and Legacy of War Foundation, with whom we hosted a joint exhibition and dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London in November.

Gaza

The situation in Gaza remained extremely challenging throughout 2024. Since the conflict escalated in October 2023, we have lost three staff members to bombing. Nahla was a livelihood officer, Muna was a social worker and Sabreen was a rehabilitation specialist. All three were killed alongside their children. We also saw the destruction of our office and the demolishing of one our warehouses. 

Despite these hardships, our team of over 300 colleagues was able to continue to do vital, life-saving and protective work, including distributing relief supplies, supporting people with existing disabilities or new injuries, and providing mental health care. We also deployed our UK-based explosive ordnance specialists to assess the scale and nature of the threat posed by unexploded weapons and to support the UN and other humanitarian actors to navigate the highly dangerous environment.

Ukraine

In Ukraine, our teams worked tirelessly to support the most vulnerable victims of the relentless war. We helped disabled, older and isolated people living on the front lines to receive the supplies and support they needed to survive the winter. We educated children in underground classrooms on how to stay safe around landmines and unexploded weapons. We provided physical rehabilitation for injured people and we ran mental health support sessions to help adults and children deal with their deep psychological scars. We also supported other humanitarian organisations, helping them better include people with disabilities and providing a shared logistics service to get medicines, vaccines and relief items to their destinations as fast and as safely as possible.

Mine action

In 2024, our UK-based Armed Violence Reduction specialists deployed to Gaza, Laos, Lebanon, Syria and Ukraine, and in addition oversaw operations in Colombia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Mozambique, Senegal, Syria and Yemen to release land from contamination by mines and other unexploded ordnance. They also conducted training in the UK on explosive ordnance disposal. We continued to assess potential new projects via assessment and meetings and to investigate new modalities of integrated progamming.

As ever, innovation was a big part of our work, including introducing and trialling the use of body-worn cameras, the development drone technology for survey and remote-management technologies to disarm unexploded weapons more safely and efficiently. 

Our teams attended and presented at the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty conference in Geneva on training and present on a panel of experts on victim assistance, providing recommendations for governments on implementation of new commitments in this area. We also joined the Fifth Review Conference of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and Their Destruction in Cambodia. 

In addition, our colleagues made numerous media appearances on local, national and international news outlets, including the BBC, in particular to discuss our work in response to the conflict in Gaza.

Emergency rehabilitation

In 2024, HI UK provided expertise on emergency rehabilitation to teams in Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gaza, Lebanon South Sudan and Sudan, including on how to handle conflict-related injuries and wounds. We provided remote support to Interburns for essential burns training for nurses in Senegal and developed a critical care module for advanced burns care. In addition, we worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to establish a rehabilitation-specialised emergency care team. This involved running a series of simulation exercises. We also supported the WHO in developing a set of minimum standards and recommendations for medical teams responding to highly infectious disease outbreaks. 

Inclusive education

Humanity & Inclusion’s inclusive education projects around the world are supported by two global specialists and a policy advisor, with the team leader based in the UK.

In 2024, our Inclusive Education team supported approximately 50 projects in 26 countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Rwanda. We attended and presented at the UNESCO forum in Paris on Inclusion in Education in February. This was a high-level policy dialogue and international forum with global leaders and education stakeholders to celebrate 30 years since the “Salamanca Statement”, which emphasised the need for children to learn together in inclusive schools. We also supported the FCDO with the refresh of their internal Inclusive Education Policy and contributed to a report on inclusive education by the Canadian Parliament.

Disability inclusion

In 2024, we set up an internal Centre of Expertise in Disability Inclusion (CEDI) as part of our Innovation and Development Division. The purpose of this team is to provide technical support to projects, strengthen capacity across HI and provide technical assistance to external stakeholders. We supported programmes in Ukraine, Bangladesh, Syria and Latin America, developed resources and training guides, and helped the Syrian and Somali teams to adopt guidelines on inclusive humanitarian action. 
 
As well as running programmes to support vulnerable and disabled people around the world, another important part of our work is influencing the UN, other humanitarian organisations and the Government here in Britain to do the same. In the UK, we met ministers and politicians from different political parties to encourage them to turn their warm words about disability inclusion into concrete actions. We also engaged the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to persuade them to recommit to the vital concept of ‘leave no one behind’ as they refresh their international development strategy. 

Shelter and non-food items

In emergencies, the need for shelter and non-food items such as hygiene kits or equipment for cooking often becomes critical. In 2024, our team supported programmes in Gaza and Lebanon, the start-up of activities in the Darfur region of Sudan, the development of new opportunities in Nepal, and guidance for teams in Afghanistan, Niger and the Philippines. In addition, we developed and provided training, improving typhoon mitigation measures and improving emergency distributions. This work makes an enormous difference to the safety and wellbeing of disabled and vulnerable people fleeing violence or facing a natural disaster.

Raising funds

Humanity & Inclusion UK (HI UK) raises money from the general public, schools, community groups, corporates, trusts and institutional funders in the UK to support HI’s life-changing work worldwide. There are many ways to support our work, including making a donation, taking part in a fundraising event, or leaving a gift in your will.

HI UK is registered with the Fundraising Regulator, which sets and maintains the standards for charitable fundraising and aims to ensure that fundraising is respectful, open, honest and accountable to the public. It is also a member of the Institute of Fundraising and aims to adhere to best practice in fundraising.

Promoting disability inclusion at home

In order to make a difference around the world, we need strong foundations at home. As well as working hard to support programmes building action on inclusion around the world, we took steps to become a more disability-inclusive employer ourselves. We were very pleased to be awarded “Disability Confident Leader” status by the Department for Work and Pensions. This is the highest level of the scheme, awarded to organisations that take meaningful actions on recruiting, retaining and developing disabled people and who also promote disability inclusion with partners, peers and others with whom we interact.

> Read more about our UK staff and trustees

Humanity & Inclusion UK is positive about employing disabled people and is proud to be accredited as a Disability Confident Leader. Find out more about working with us.