Migration: our programmes

Around the world, our 191 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are a lifeline for vulnerable migrants and displaced people—whoever and wherever they are on their journeys.

Overview

We provide lots of different types of support to migrants and displaced people across the globe. Our support varies significantly between countries depending on local contexts and people’s needs.

  • Providing essential supplies. We distribute a wide range of household, food, hygiene, shelter and other essential supplies to migrants to assist them wherever they are on their journeys.
  • Health. We provide first aid, set up mobile health clinics and offer primary health care services to people on the move around the world. This includes mental health and psychosocial support services. We also run emergency water and sanitation programmes—including building and repairing water and sanitation systems in settings of large-scale displacement.
  • Community engagement. We listen to and engage with migrants and displaced people wherever they are to ensure our response activities respond to their needs and wishes. We provide trustworthy and accessible information to help people on the move make informed decisions and stay healthy and safe. For instance, information on how refugees and other newcomers can adjust, find work (if permissible) and build new lives in their new country. We also provide support to and work with communities hosting migrants, such as projects tackling anti-migrant sentiment and promoting social inclusion.
  • Reuniting families. In collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), we run the Restoring Family Links programme that helps people regain contact with their family as a result of conflicts, disasters or migration.
  • Cash and voucher assistance. We’re increasingly providing cash assistance to people on the move worldwide affected by disasters—enabling them to buy the things they need to support themselves and their families in a dignified way that also supports local economies.

Explore our migration programmes

The Ecuadorian Red Cross offers services to migrants, including psychosocial support and restoring family links, at many border points throughout the country

Humanitarian Service Points

Humanitarian Service Points are safe, welcoming and strategically located spaces where migrating and displaced people can access reliable support from our National Societies.

Italian Red Cross volunteers and staff welcome migrants off an Italian Coastguard boat at the port of Messina, Sicily in 2015, where they also provide food and water, health checks and psychosocial support.

Global Route-Based Migration Programme

Our Global Route-Based Migration Programme aims to save lives and improve the safety and dignity of migrants, refugees, and other displaced people along dangerous and deadly migratory routes.

Red Cross volunteer helps with support from PPP

Programmatic Partnership

The Programmatic Partnership is an innovative and ambitious three-year partnership between the IFRC, many of our member National Societies, and the European Union. Supporting people on the move is one of the partnership's key areas of focus.

Said, a 66 year old Syrian man, is surrounded by his family in Ankara, Turkey. He receives cash assistance every month from the IFRC and Turkish Red Crescent, funded by the European Union, to help him cover his family's basic needs.

Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN)

Our largest migration programme. The IFRC and Turkish Red Crescent, with funding from the European Union, are providing cash assistance to more than 1.5 million refugees in Türkiye. Part of the programme involves helping young refugees to tell their own stories.

A family hugs one another as they reunite in France, having been supported by the French Red Cross.

Reunification Pathways for Integration (REPAIR)

Our three-year project to enable safe and legal family reunification in the European Union by supporting family members before, during and after their arrival.

Three mobile phone displays showing the Virtual Volunteer app which provides vital information to people on the move in action

Virtual Volunteer

Part of our community engagement work, Virtual Volunteer is a webpage that gives migrants vital information so they can make informed decisions, stay healthy and get the help they need.

Emergency appeals