humanitarian Archives - Page 9 of 13 - Humanitarian Aid & Relief

Cooking up new business in Sudan

This woman is named Awal. She opened a new restaurant and has already seen $30 in profit in 12 days.

This is a story straight from a poor village in South Sudan. World Concern President David Eller is visiting Sudan right now, checking out how we are equipping the local people to learn skills and live better lives.

On Wednesday we drove out to one of our field locations about two hours away on a dirt road. There were military checkpoints along the way. At one such stop our Sudan Country Director, Peter Macharia, had to get out and talk for a while before we were allowed to continue.

This is a newly created town with many people settling there that have fled violence in other parts of the state. Florence is one of our field officers and started working with a women’s group there in December. They met twice a week for two months to learn skills in cooking, baking, yogurt making, grain grinding, hygiene, life, business and biblical values.

One of the women involved in the group, Arek, was pregnant during the training but she did not want to miss any of it. She would lay on a mat at the back of the group to listen and learn. The baby was born between classes and she was at the next class with the baby in her lap.

The group calls themselves Pundak which means doubting the government. They went to the government for help and received none. Now that World Concern has come and their situations have changed, they have talked of changing their name.

Each day they bake rolls in a new charcoal oven they bought from profits, which does a better job than the brick oven they used to use. They sell a bag of ten fresh rolls in the market for $2. When we arrived they were finishing a batch of rolls. Nothing like bread fresh from the oven-the rolls were warm and tasty. They also make 40 liters of yogurt a day to sell in the market. They have built a restaurant out of tin sheets to start a lunch time business and catering services.

Awal is another group member who has a difficult past. She has five children and her husband has moved to Juba, abandoning the family with no support. She could only afford to send one child to school so she sent her young son, Aken. School costs $10 a year plus a $10 uniform and writing materials fee. Awal said she was very miserable.

After joining the women’s group and receiving training she became the lead baker for the group. With her share of the group profits (30% of sales) she has been able to care for her family and has sent her older daughter Abuk to school for the first time.

Awal opened a restaurant of her own in the market just 12 days ago. It is built from wood poles covered in plastic tarps with a hard dirt floor. There is a cooking area up front and a customer seating area in back where she serves local dishes and fresh bread. In her first 12 days of operations she has made a $30 profit. I was very impressed that she knew her profitability. It is not an easy concept, but she said she was well trained by Florence to keep track of profits.

Awal is a great example of a life being transformed. She, and others like her, are the reason God has called us to this ministry.

This oven looks a little homely, but works great as a tool this woman uses for her baking business.

A woman learning business skills had this baby and was back in the next class because she didn't want to miss out.

The building in the background is a newly built restaurant, opened by village women.

3 Padlocks Keep Village Money Safe

Three people are needed to open the three padlocks on this savings box, ensuring accountability.

I received the message below from a dusty village in South Sudan. It’s from World Concern President David Eller, who is there visiting the people we serve.

He’s seeing how their lives are changing as they save money, grow businesses, and plan for their futures.

Talk about accountability … it’s fascinating to see how the savings group ensures everyone is playing fairly.

Here’s Dave’s post:

I started the day in Juba, Sudan half way to Wau from Nairobi. The airport was a chaotic crush of people with about four times as many people in the small ticketing area as the space should hold. By pressing through the crowds, Diane Bricker (Africa area director) and I got checked into the 90 minute UN flight to Wau.

When we arrived in Wau, we sat with Peter Macharia, the Sudan country director, and some of the program staff at the office. We reviewed pressing issues and decisions before leaving to visit a project site.

We met a savings group under two trees in an area on the edge of town. The area under the trees was hard packed dirt, as this is a common meeting place. This area is where many people fleeing conflict in their home villages have resettled. The homes are made of mud brick walls with tall grass thatched roofs.

We met outside, as the staff thought that it would be too hot inside the mud walled church where they usually meet. For us outsiders, temperatures in the 90s are hot; here, it is a cool time of year.

The World Concern-guided savings group called Piir Path, which means “Good Life,” was seated on benches and plastic chairs. One group member pulled their metal savings box out of a burlap bag and set it on the ground in the middle of the group. The box had three pad locked latches on it. In front of the whole group, the three key holders unlocked the cash box. This is how the group assures that no one can have access to their money without the whole group being present.

Once the box is open they counted the cash in front of the group to affirm it had not changed since last week’s meeting. This day they collected the one dollar a week agreed on savings from each member. When the collection was done the group secretary did his math calculations drawing in the dirt at his feet. If someone is absent they must send with another or face a 30 cent fine. The group had roughly $200 cash. Twice a month they make decisions about loans to group members from their savings. They make one-month loans of around $35, on average.

A testimony was given about how the savings program seems slow at first but can really make a difference over time. Ahok made the statement: “World Concern has never lied to us. They speak the truth and it leads to good ends.” This was very satisfying to for me to hear.

One of the goals in field visits is to determine how we are caring for the poor. Unsolicited statements such as this tell me the staff is connected and caring for those God has called us to serve.

Sudanese villagers do quick calculations in the dirt.

Villagers in Sudan meet to give loans to the next business owner, and check on the progress of the savings.

Kenyan Villagers Start New Community Bank

These women are saving for their future at a World Concern-sponsored credit union in Kenya.

I just received an amazing email from the president of World Concern, David Eller. He’s in Africa. You know the idea of giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish? Well, we’ve trained fishermen in Kenya. Actually – bankers and businesspeople.

We started community credit unions several years ago … and the people who we’ve helped have taken the concepts they’ve learned and started their own new credit union. The idea of saving and getting loans has been a new concept for many of the people we serve. But when they “get it,” they can save to pay for school fees, have money to last them through a drought, and also get loans to start and expand businesses.

They are able to better provide for themselves and take control of their own destiny. Sustainable development. This is cool stuff.

Anyway, here is what Dave wrote:

One of the Village Credit Unions (Financial Service Associations) that World Concern launched in rural Kiritiri, Kenya is reproducing itself. World Concern has set up seven village credit unions in rural parts of Kenya with the goal of each of them becoming self sustaining. It is a program that is working with six of the seven making a profit for their community shareholders last year.

In an exciting development one of the more remote and successful credit unions decided to open a branch office in the neighboring district. They are using the profits from their first location to expand into the new district.

They realized that 250 of their 770 share holders were coming a great distance from the neighboring district Kivaa just to access financial services the credit union provided. The shareholder board of directors decided that they should open a branch in Kivaa to provide the financial services that are not available.

On their own they have found and remodeled a location for the credit union Kivaa office. Then they started selling additional shares in the credit union with 40 new members joining the first day. From our experience with credit unions that is an amazing one day of share selling. The new community is very excited and the home credit union is affirmed in the need for this branch. As part of setting up the new location have requested that World Concern provide a safe and training for the branch manager and cashier.

This example of community ownership and reaching out for new opportunities shows that there is a complete grasp of the concepts of meeting their own needs from resources within the community.

This information came from our Kenya Economic Development Manager Winnie Ghachuri. We were talking in her office here in Nairobi, Kenya on the first day of my Africa visit. Winnie has many years of experience with humanitarian aid and economic development programs. She is very excited to see this community driven developmental step taking place.

World Concern started planting Financial Service Associations in 2004. This savings based community model of economic development has brought beneficial financial services to remote areas of Kenya. The program has also been launched in our program areas in South Sudan. Two more locations have been identified and will be started in the second half of this year.

Rebuilding Haiti as Hurricane Season Looms

Neighbors in Haiti work for World Concern clearing rubble.

We all have places we’d rather avoid – things we’d rather not look at: the attic filled with rubbish that needs to be purged, that far corner of the yard that’s overgrown with weeds, or the part of the city that makes us cringe, where society’s outcasts sleep on benches.

In Haiti, entire neighborhoods have been left virtually untouched since the earthquake five months ago.

World Concern is now expanding its humanitarian reach into Fort National – one of the hardest hit neighborhoods during the quake – to begin rebuilding and repairing homes. It is one of those neighborhoods yet to see significant aid.

The rubble in this area has been a virtual tomb for hundreds of bodies. As we’re uncovering debris, we see Haitian workers overcome with the sights and smells. Our disaster relief director, Merry Fitzpatrick, says, “they appear almost drunk” as they stagger from the stench.

The pain is far from over here, but we see the importance of moving into the Fort National community. As we make progress, those in homeless camps can return home.

We’ve already helped more than 300 families move back into their newly repaired homes in the nearby Delmas neighborhood. In the meantime, 500 kit homes have arrived in Haiti – and assembly begins in the coming days. After that, we plan to build an additional 500 homes with local materials. Neighbors are working side by side to rebuild their own neighborhoods, providing a sense of tangible recovery.

“Leaders are stepping up into their roles and communities are banding together,” Merry says. “There is evidence of hope all around.”

Yet with all of this progress, the dark cloud of hurricane season looms on the horizon. Haiti was spared from major hurricanes last season, but forecasters, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have predicted a highly active season, which officially began on June 1.

Several major Category 3 or above storms are predicted before the end of hurricane season in November. Nature has created a deadline of its own for our disaster relief experts to move earthquake victims out from under tarps and into or back into homes before hurricane season peaks in August and September.

We are confident, with your help, we can beat this storm season and make sure as many vulnerable families are safe in homes this summer. We won’t seek to avoid this – but instead – take it head on.

Learn more about World Concern and our work in Haiti.

Homes are being built amidst destruction in Port-au-Prince

The Kind Gift Of Humanitarian Aid

World Concern's Susan Talbot recently traveled to Haiti to help bring in donated items for families suffering after the earthquake.

A lot can be done with a phone, email and good relationships. In the case of World Concern’s Susan Talbot, she’s been able to use her skills to generate $61 million worth of humanitarian aid for the poor in the last year. That’s $61,000,000 worth of in Gift-In-Kind (GIK) donations, which is anything donated that is not money.

$61 million is tough to put into perspective. But consider that this is helping nearly 5 million people. It’s 5 million people who have received a variety of resources, including medication for intestinal worms, a wheelchair to find mobility again, or a computer to become connected to the digital age for the very first time.

“All of our GIK is field driven,” Susan told me. “I don’t start collecting items until our staff tells me they need items. We don’t just hand out stuff in the field. It all has to have a function or collaborate with what we are doing. It needs to have a purpose rather than just giving out commodities.”

Where does Susan get these GIK humanitarian donations? They come from many sources, including schools, farmers, businesses – and medical supply companies.

Bringing in commodities is a tricky business, though, because when you are trying to help a community, you could end up hurting it instead. The way Susan and the rest of the World Concern team does it, though, is carefully considered.

“We provide supplies in a crisis, like food, when the marketplace is not functioning,” Susan says. “When commodities are available locally, we try to avoid giving away those things. It works against what we are doing. It makes no sense to support women in a microfinance shoe business, and then bring in a shipment of shoes.”

Building relationships with the people we serve is important. Skill-building is important. Teaching people is important. World Concern does that, equipping people to know how to stand on their own two feet once we are finished working with their community. Susan knows though that coming alongside people in need with a tangible good, though, can help change – or even save – a life.

Learn more about our Haiti response.

Contact Susan.

World Water Day – A Critical Humanitarian Need

High tension as communities in Haiti need clean water in the days after the 2010 earthquake. A reminder of the humanitarian aid needed for World Water Day.

In the hours after the Haiti earthquake, World Concern took an inventory of the basic needs facing people who had lost everything. Food, water and shelter were the top three. But when it came right down to it, water was the single greatest need. Within a few days, people would be fighting for their lives – desperate for a drink.

When I visited Port-au-Prince a week after the quake, one of the most tense moments I encountered was a fight about water. People wanted it, and we were trying to meet the need as best we can. But the need was too great. Water truly equals life and survival.

Today is World Water Day. If you have the opportunity to run the tap and receive clean water today, consider yourself privileged. One in six humans have to live using an unclean source for drinking water. It means they walk miles to get a drink, and waterborne diseases like typhoid and intestinal parasites become a part of their lives.

In post-earthquake Haiti, broken sewage lines intermingled with water lines, making the water dangerous to drink. In places where we work in Africa, poor sanitation leads to contaminated water sources. This contaminated water leads to disease and parasites, which slows learning, stunts growth and prematurely kills millions of people.

Only though community hygiene education and improved water sources are we able to change the equation. At first, it may be through an emergency supply of bottled water, like in Haiti after the earthquake. Longer-term, our humanitarian aid may include improving water systems, or even inventing them entirely, as we do in dozens of poor communities throughout the world.

For this World Water Day, you can change the life of someone in desperate need, by digging a hand-dug well for $300, to benefit several families, or investing in a machine-drilled well. A share is $100, the entire well is $3,000. It will will transform an entire village. (And with grants we get a 5:1 match on machine drilled wells in Kenya!)

So here’s to good health, and safe water – even to families in Haiti and in other hurting places around the world.

Water wells in Kenya installed by humanitarian organization World Concern provide hope to communities in Kenya suffering from water-borne disases. World Water Day brings awareness to the problem.

Kindergarten Humanitarian Raises $3,641 For Haiti Earthquake

Six-year-old Jonathon Kane gives World Concern President Dave Eller a handful of checks after a week and a half of Haiti fundraising.

When a disaster like the Haiti earthquake happens, it’s sometimes difficult for me to see an upside. But today, I saw an example of the something beautiful amidst the chaos. In this case, it took the form of a smart and outspoken 6-year old humanitarian named Jonathon Kane.

Shortly after the Haiti earthquake, Jonathon was captivated by television news coverage of the earthquake. He felt compassion for children in Haiti, telling his mom “their eyes look very sad.” He wanted to do something and asked his mom Susan how he could help. She said money would be the best thing, so Jonathon emptied his piggy bank of all $6.37.

“We couldn’t get there on a plane to help, but what we could do is donate money,” Susan told me. And that’s exactly what they did. But along with Jonathon were hundreds of other children at Cedar Wood Elementary in Mill Creek, Washington, who also decided to reach out to help children in Haiti.

In total, they raised $3,641.

I met Jonathon this afternoon when he, his mom and big sisters Melissa and Kristen brought by a fistful of checks for World Concern’s Haiti relief. What’s clear to me is that this amount of money, along with matching government grants for the relief, will make a real and significant impact on the lives of hundreds of people who are facing a life-and-death crisis. Not bad for a child who had $6.37 to offer.

Jonathan tells me that he feels sorry for people in Haiti and he cares about them. “I hope this money goes to replace stuff to make new homes,” he tells me. Many children acted like Jonathon, donating their birthday money, their piggy banks, their life savings – with no regard. On the first day, they raised $700.

One of Jonathan’s sisters, Melissa, told me something that seems to be painfully true. She says that she found it more difficult to collect money from students who are older. “It’s interesting to see how much more willing little kids were to give whatever they had.”

This compassion reminds me of the kind of compassion Jesus has called us to when facing a need like this one, a need that clearly we have been called to address. He calls us to a faith that knows that we will be taken care of if we step out and give, not to receive anything in return, but give because it is simply the right thing to do.

When we grow older, I believe our vision becomes clouded by the world. Jonathon sees hurting eyes and does not look from them, but instead acts on his instinct – knowing that his decision was the right one to make.

Kristen Kane helped her little brother collect donations for Haiti.

Jonathon points out Haiti on a globe as Heidi Williams with World Concern watches.

The Kane family dropped off checks to World Concern after a successful fundraiser for Haiti at Cedar Wood Elementary in Mill Creek, Washington.

World Concern’s Haiti Director: We Need Help Now

Children are vulnerable after the Haiti earthquake. World Concern humanitarians are trying to reconnect them with living family members.

The director of World Concern’s humanitarian operations in Haiti called this morning, after a mobile phone network was repaired. Christon Domond said they need our support immediately. The city of Port Au Prince is overwhelmed by dead bodies, and the critical needs for survivors include clean water, medicine, blankets, plastic sheeting – and now – food.

World Concern’s Senior Director of Technical Support (the disaster lady) Merry Fitzpatrick, expects she will be able to fly out of Miami today to assist with the logistics. If a hurricane, civil war or earthquake hit your community, she’s the person you’d want with you, guiding you through the process.

Christon has been able to contact most of the staff, but not all. His family survived. We are also hearing about relatives of staff members who were killed in the earthquake. The primary World Concern building in Haiti remains standing and it is likely that the staff and their families who have lost their homes will live there for the foreseeable future.

World Concern employs more than 100 people in Haiti, a staff of people native to the country, who are trained and ready to respond. Though they may have lost their own homes, and even relatives, they have begun their critical, life-saving work. In the past, they have successfully responded to many disasters, including three 2008 hurricanes.

Seattle-based World Concern has worked in Haiti since 1978 and currently provides hope to 125,000 people. Our work with the poor includes microfinance, agriculture, disaster response and small business development. World Concern works with the poor in 24 countries, with the goal of transforming the lives of those we touch, leading them on a path to self-sustainability.

Worldwide, World Concern offers life, opportunity and hope to more than six million people.

Give online: www.worldconcern.org, or call 1-866-530-5433

Average Cost of Disaster Supplies:

Blankets: $50 for a family of five

Plastic Sheeting: $20 per family. Good for shelter, lining latrines, other uses

Water purification: $10 for 100 gallons

Food: $1 per meal

1,000 Crosses For World AIDS Day

It’s tough to break through the noise. People have got places to go. They’re lost in thought as they walk, talking on the phone, worrying about their own lives.

That’s why it was so cool to see a moment in time where people could pause and reflect, even briefly, about the enormous human cost of a pandemic.

It’s tough to miss what amounts to a graveyard on a college campus.

Seattle Pacific University students helped me place 1,000 white crosses with red ribbons on their campus, for World AIDS Day 2009. 1,000 represents the number of people who die from AIDS worldwide in a four hour period.

Big numbers make my eyes glaze over. That’s why the crosses are so important.

Every cross represents a name. A life. A mom, dad, son or daughter. Someone with a smile, with hopes for the future, with interests and passions.

I was able to spend a day with children orphaned by AIDS in Kenya last year with Christian humanitarian organization World Concern. I was amazed at the way they played and horsed around and kicked around a soccer ball. I took They are children – and they find themselves with nobody to watch out for them.

It’s awesome what World Concern is doing to help people with AIDS, and those left behind, in Haiti, Zambia and Kenya. Such critical needs, of food, water, income, education.

It is the calling of Jesus to care for widows and orphans, and this is exactly what AIDS has caused: 15 million orphaned boys and girls. This is essential work. As one person said about this grassroots project to raise awareness for AIDS, “This looks like Christ.”

For more information and to see how you can protect one orphaned child: www.worldconcern.org/godparent

Seattle Pacific University AIDS Humanitarians

Alyssa Musgrave leads an SPU group determined to raise awareness about AIDS and other issues related to global poverty.

Last night, about 10 students at Seattle Pacific University acted as humanitarians, deciding that studying for tests could wait. They partnered with World Concern to construct an exhibit for World AIDS Day, decorating 1,000 small white crosses with red ribbons cut from felt.

The 1,000 crosses represent the number of worldwide deaths in four hours from AIDS. If there is good news this year about the pandemic, it is that the number of deaths is slowing with better prevention and life-extending medication. Still, it is a global crisis and human tragedy on an epic scale. About eight in 10 AIDS orphans are in desperately poor Sub-Saharan Africa, the hardest hit region, where the rate of AIDS in some countries exceeds 20 percent.

Just before World AIDS Day, which is the Dec. 1, SPU students will help me and other folks from World Concern stake the 1,000 crosses into “the Loop,” the prominent grassy field on campus. Drivers on 3rd Avenue West will see the crosses, and likely wonder what is going on.

Our answer: those who are dying from AIDS are not forgotten. And we are part of the solution to stopping it and caring for those left behind.

All day on Dec. 1, World Concern and thoughtful SPU volunteers will sell buttons for $5 each, with the proceeds going to support World Concern programs that benefit orphans from AIDS in Zambia, Kenya and Haiti.

We hope you visit us at SPU’s Gwinn Commons cafeteria, learn more, and donate $5.

It’s a small, but important, way to make a real difference for the most vulnerable people.

Learn more: www.worldconcern.org/spu

Each cross represents a life. With our 1,000 crosses, it's only enough to show AIDS deaths in a four hour period.

Student Amy Whitley helped with the ribbons, one of several students raising awareness about AIDS.

The AIDS crosses will be staked outside on the SPU campus on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.