Editor’s note: Aug. 19 is World Humanitarian Day, the U.N.’s annual observance focused on recognizing humanitarian workers, including those who have lost their lives working for humanitarian causes.

Agnes had to leave her home in the middle of the night when her village in South Sudan was attacked. Two neighbors were killed, and she ran, pregnant, with her husband and young child. Today she is living in Palabek Refugee Settlement Camp in northern Uganda with 38,000 other refugees from her home country. Her family has since expanded -- in addition to the new baby, she is also taking care of two orphans who arrived at the camp unattended.

MOREL Canada Welcomed More Refugees Than Any Other Country in 2018 ]

Life in the refugee camp is not easy. The scarcity of food and the hunger her family experiences are of serious concern. The monthly distribution of food aid rations – cooking oil, maize, beans, flour and salt – from the United Nations World Food Programme are often not enough to cover the needs of her family. Many households experience up to a week each month when the rations run out and they don't have enough to eat. In fact, the settlement in Palabek, one of 12 such camps housing close to a million South Sudanese refugees, has the highest prevalence of acute malnutrition of all the camps across northern Uganda – 12%. Anemia among children between six months and 59 months of age is at 46%.

Unfortunately, Agnes' situation is not unique. There are a record number of refugees and displaced people in the world today. Serving many of their needs are humanitarian aid workers, including our skilled team at African Women Rising. We hear news reports about doctors and dignitaries coming in for short visits, but rarely do we hear stories about the humanitarian aid workers on the ground who are providing the daily support in what are often difficult and sometimes dangerous situations. Most are local staff – nurses, teachers, camp administrators, distributors of food, community mobilizers – and many are women.

As we observe World Humanitarian Day on Aug. 19, we are celebrating the unsung humanitarian heroes who work at the frontlines of their communities.

Grace is one of those women. She is a refugee who fled South Sudan with her children. For the last year she has been working as a community mobilizer in Palabek with African Women Rising, helping other refugees grow food to increase food security and provide a more balanced diet to complement the food rations they receive. Her days are long, and she has to balance the demands of work with the reality of being a refugee herself, depending on food rations and living in a small hut with no running water or electricity. But her skills and experience make her invaluable to the work that needs to get done. She, more than most, realizes what people have gone through before they end up in this camp. She also understands the difficulty of living as a refugee, which often includes waiting in lines for hours at a time to collect water and food, or to visit a clinic.

Using skills she expanded on with help from African Women Rising, Grace has been working with Agnes for several months to build and maintain a permagarden to increase their access to nutritious food. "Life is hard here in the camp, but it is better, we are safe and have food and cooking oil," Agnes says. "Grace helped me start a permagarden, it provides us with fresh food, vegetables. I can even sell some to earn money."