Toymaker Lego to donate for vulnerable Afghans

The foundation created by toymaker Lego and its parent company say they will donate 100 million kroner ($16 million) to support vulnerable children in Haiti and Afghanistan.

“The humanitarian crises that are happening in Haiti and Afghanistan are unimaginable and only intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, chairman of the LEGO Foundation.

Since May 2021, more than 500,000 people have been displaced in Afghanistan. As for Haiti, the Aug. 14 violent earthquake that was followed by a tropical storm “has left half-a-million Haitian children with limited or no access to shelter, safe water, health care, and nutrition.” “With COVID-19 still (being) an imminent threat to the health and safety of Haiti's population, the loss and damage associated with these most recent natural disasters only further compounds the dire situation so many children and families are experiencing,” they said in a joint statement.

Based in Denmark, the Lego Foundation and parent company KIRKBI A/S said that they had partnered up with, among others, two U.N. agencies -- UNICEF and UNHCR — as well as Education Cannot Wait, a global fund to transform the delivery of education in emergencies.