Humanitarian Aid

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 …

Whether you work for a humanitarian aid and relief agency or simply care about the poor, it helps to find good resources. They help you stay informed about what’s going on in the world of international humanitarian relief. Here are a few of my favorites (after the jump)…

…Once on the road, we saw the many matatus, small buses about the size of a Volkswagen Vanagon, packed full of people. The average matatu has 14 seats; it costs less than a dollar for a trip across town, about four dollars to cities two hours away. While some matatus are in good condition, others look as if they have been in a demolition derby, it seems that all matatus are driven in a very spirited fashion. I would not dare to drive in Kenya and am thankful we had a local at the wheel…

Over the course of several weeks, I will post journal entries from my recent trip to Kenya.

Here is day 1:

Today I packed up my video camera, digital camera and all of the rest of my gear and headed to the airport for the long couple of flights that will lead me to Kenya. I met the other travelers, the people I will get to know very well over the next couple of weeks.

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

I work in the business of international relief, and yet the complexities of the hunger problem are still unclear. As with any multi-faceted problem, it is difficult to identify the causes. And only by identifying the causes are solutions possible.

So with that being said, I enjoyed an article in Christianity Today about the hunger crisis. It both incorporated the necessity of Christians to act and attempted to identify some of the current causes of malnutrition, especially in Africa.

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.

Megan Edmonds’ goal was to build one well. But with some amazing commitment and a giving community, Megan accomplished so much more.

Human rights groups are asking President-elect Obama to pay attention to the human rights disaster in Darfur, Sudan, as soon as he …