Humanitarian Aid

Last night, about 10 students at Seattle Pacific University decided studying for tests could wait.

I met an amazingly qualified new co-worker of mine yesterday, a medical doctor who once worked in a leprosy mission and has a masters degree in public administration from the Kennedy School in Boston.

Naw Rebecca Htin is a world-class humanitarian. She begins this month as the new World Concern country director for Myanmar (Burma). She’s a mother of three and her husband is a neurosurgeon. And she also grew up in Burma, which was the name of her native country until 1989, when the current military government decided to reinforce the country’s separation from British colonial rule.

Naw is “Ms.” in her language. We call her Rebecca, and she’s also an answer …

Right now, World Concern’s Sri Lanka staff is helping many civilians injured during recent attacks.

World Concern is one of only a few humanitarian relief agencies permitted by the government to help.

We’re providing food, bedding, clothing and personal supplies to both the wounded and the weary aid workers.

It appears to be the last deadly throes of a long civil war.

The ethnic minority that has been fighting for autonomy has been cornered.

Regardless of your perspective, innocent families are paying with the lives of their loved ones because of this war.

She’s 13 years old and badly disfigured. Her eye has been gouged from her face, ripped out with a metal shard by a woman holding her captive in a Cambodian sex trafficking operation. The story of Long Pross is a difficult one to stomach, but as described in a recent New York Times OpEd piece by Nicholas Kristof, it is the kind of story westerners must hear.

It doesn’t matter the gender, and sadly it doesn’t matter the age. Trafficking children for indentured servitude, prostitution or sex slavery is an enormous industry. More than 1 million children are trafficked every year, sometimes for as little as $20.

World Concern maintained a remarkable record of success in 2008, in a year with challenges.

Early this morning, I joined a couple of co-workers for an unusual event in front of World Concern’s international headquarters in Seattle.

Hammering by streetlight, we finished placing 1,000 wooden crosses into the ground, each with a red felt ribbon.

Today is World AIDS Day, a time when the general public joins humanitarians to consider the enormity of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

5,500 people will die …

This blog is a venue to share ideas about relief and development in some of the poorest countries on the planet.

It’s rightfully disconcerting to see an enormous pile of white wooden crosses. There are too many to easily count. I had 300 of them in my SUV this morning.

Just imagine what’s left over from a major storm along the coast. Debris clogging a bay under a blue sky…