World Humanitarian Day was established in December 2008 to raise public awareness:
- to humanitarian activities around the world
- the efforts of humanitarian personnel to promote the humanitarian cause
- the importance of international cooperation in this field.
For the first World Humanitarian Day (2009), the UN wished to honor Sergio Veira de Mello, a senior UN official who died in Baghdad in a bomb attack, and all the humanitarians who work to relieve the world’s suffering, risking their lives in the process.
“Needs are growing faster than our ability to meet them. Long-standing and intractable conflicts continue to inflict unimaginable suffering on civilian populations. Natural disasters are becoming increasingly frequent and severe”, says the UN.
Grains of Peace supports this Day by stressing the importance of contributing to peace and non-violence to reduce upstream humanitarian disasters.