Ethiopia: Villagers Vote Unanimously For Better Sanitation

People who know us tend to think ‘clean water’. It’s true that clean water is foundational in much of our work with the poorest families in the world. In our experience, clean water is the thing that neglected communities most often identify as the lack that hurts the most. Anybody spending three to five hours a day collecting dirty water, anybody with chronic diarrhea, anybody who is too dehydrated to breast-feed will tell you: help us with clean water, if you want to help us at all.

But wherever we are working to bring clean water, we are also working to establish good health and sanitation practice. These two things — a clean water system right in the village, and villagers with habits like hand washing and latrine-use — together constitute the engine of real transformation. These two things mean radically healthier communities and families who really understand what it takes to remain strong and in control of their own well-being.

Villagers who work with us really do get it. A recent survey of the Ethiopian villages in Bonke district working with us on clean water initiatives encouraged us: every single family has dug a latrine following their health and sanitation training. Our goal for 90% of them to do so was handily exceeded. Once our immensely beloved community nurses teach them how to preserve their health, families are evidently passionate about putting their newfound knowledge into practice.

Clean water and good sanitation — it makes nothing but sense to pair these two things. Fortunately, wherever we are working with villagers to establish radically better health, they are signaling their agreement by the way they live their lives.

We listened and we hope you will too

Recently, David McKenzie, International President of HOPE International Development Agency, met with Chief Tochi, leader of a small village of people in Koshale in the lowlands of southern Ethiopia.

Chief Tochi has never stopped trying to save his people. The problem is, no one ever stopped long enough to listen. We have and we hoping that you will too...

"We are living in a desert. We are living in the borderlands. Water is not in our country. When our women have babies, they do not have enough milk. Because the babies do not get enough milk, they get sick. Our primary problem is water.

Water is life. Our blood is water.

To preserve that life we walk to great distances, women, children, and animals. We have written letters about this to the government many times. I myself have written letters asking why they ignore pastoralist areas. Those living in the highlands, where water is easier to access, get help. But those who live far from the water are not helped.

So when we see you we are happy because at last you are paying attention. If you get us water, we will be really joyful. If you do this, the babies will grow up to be men and women.

In 1990, there were people who came in helicopters and they told us that they would bring water and irrigation and nothing happened. We were extremely unhappy about that and we thought, are we not human beings?”

Chief Tochi shares more about the need...

David: Chief Tochi, how far do you and your people travel for water?

Chief Tochi: We walk 5 hours to get the water and come back.

David: With all the villages that need clean water, why choose yours?

Chief Tochi: I recognize that others have needs, but our own needs are huge. We would hope to be helped as others are helped.

David: How would our big truck get here (a 10-ton truck is used during the clean water system construction and installation)?

Chief Tochi: If you would promise to come, we would make sure the road is fixed. We made these paths a long time ago but we did not see any benefit from them, so we didn’t keep them up. But we would for clean water. I assure you that we will do whatever it takes.

“Whatever it takes”. That is how far Chief Tochi is willing to go to ensure that his people do not continue to suffer and die from drinking dirty water.

I can assure you that we at HOPE International Development Agency will do whatever it takes to ensure that Chief Tochi and his people gain access to the clean water they so desperately need.

If you can help, visit www.hope-international.com today.

Michael Paull: Addis Ababa and Beyond

Michael Paull, intrepid friend of HOPE and cyclist, has already made it to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on his epic bike ride from Cairo to Capetown. He is braving exhaustion, saddle sores, and children who seem to think throwing rocks at bicycle wheels is a reasonable sport, all in the name of raising money for clean water.

You have to salute somebody who chooses to ride for 12,000 kilometers through a terrain and a culture that is completely foreign and never fails to demonstrate a great sense of humor throughout the experience.

Michael's blog http://www.h2opia.ca/ makes for very entertaining reading. Check it out for a laugh and the opportunity to marvel at just how little you exercise compared to Michael right now.

Somalia: The Face of ‘Displacement’

We have not forgotten the families who fled their homes during last year’s drought in the Horn of Africa. Many of them are now living as refugees in camps outside of Mogadishu, Somalia. Staying home meant starving, so they are congregating in areas where organizations like ours can provide emergency supplies of food.

They are living a kind of bizarre half-life — they are merely about surviving. Home means having people in your life and the means at your disposal to be healthy, make plans, execute them, and feel you have a modicum of control over your fate. It means having a hoe to work your garden with; it also means having a caring neighbour who will tend your garden if you need to nurse your child all day long.

These refugees have none of that — they are utterly dependent on aid. The term ‘internally displaced persons’ is used for these families and although it’s dry and technical, the image of being ‘displaced’ is wholly accurate. These families are floating in a fearful reality; in these circumstances, they can’t get a foothold into a secure and self-sufficient place. Our long-term plan is to equip the refugees we are aiding with the means to reestablish their homes and livelihoods — to give them, again, a sense of place and belonging.

For now, easing their fear and ensuring their physical survival is top of mind. When we talk to people in the camp, their relief and also their stress is palpable.

Faay Salaad Ambuure is a mother of seven who came from Wanlaweyn district of Lower Shabelle. She told us, “My family lost all of our livestock and farming tools. This is the first time we’ve been given good food. It is enough for the whole month.” She thanked us many times.

A woman named Baabilo Dhakalow said, “These rations…make our life brighter.” But then she talked about how difficult it is to get enough water in the camp. “When we want to get water,” she said, “we go two to three miles away as we don’t have wells around.”

Mohamed Shidane from Dondhere, Afgoi district, is a farmer and father of eight. Shidane said that he lost everything that brought in income: faming tools, twenty caws, and a donkey. Fortunately all his children were safely brought to the camp. He told us, “It is the first time I have received…food”, and assured us that “the food provided is greatly needed and is enough to last my family for a month.”

Soon enough, we will be helping these families to find their place again. For now, keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Afghanistan: Ensuring Equality—Patiently, If Need Be

Giving women a voice is an important part of what we do. The reality is, in many poor communities there are long held traditions and beliefs that make putting women in positions of leadership challenging, to say the least. But from a results-based perspective, helping women to achieve makes nothing but sense. It makes the job of eliminating chronic poverty that much easier. Women work exceptionally hard for their families and villages.

In Afghanistan, the road to gender equality is steep. But we are in it for the long haul. Our typical practice, when we help villages to form the groups that serve the community in special ways (like governing how a clean water system is used) is to require female as well as male members.

However, in Afghanistan’s poorest villages, it is not common practice for men and women to sit together in meetings. It is the poor themselves who must organize to improve their lives, and we cannot impose upon them to do what is not within their will to do. But our staff in Afghanistan are committed to ensuring that women still have an opportunity to act as leaders, so they have formed a separate group for women called the Village Development Committee. They are charged with getting women in their village to become more involved with anti-poverty work.

The ideal, from our perspective, is to have total equality and cooperation, but we are working with the poor, not against them. When we find a method that achieves an important aim—like giving women leadership opportunities—and also feels comfortable, culturally, for the people involved, we go for it.

Change is slow, but it is worthwhile. We know the women in the Village Development Committee would agree.

Cambodia: Where Children Become Tourist Attractions

The organization Friends International has been working hard to shed light on a rather troubling development: so-called ‘orphanage tourism’ in Cambodia. It seems visitors to this formerly war-torn country are increasingly choosing to add an orphanage to their site-seeing itineraries. Tourists arrange to visit, take pictures, and cuddle the children, most of whom are indiscriminately friendly because of the traumas and neglect they have suffered. The ‘beautiful’ experience of having numerous little children swarm you with open arms is not all it seems to be.

Unfortunately, many orphanages in Cambodia are private institutions looking to make good money from these visitors. In fact, many of the orphans have living parents who are poor and desperate enough to have been convinced that their children would be better off in institutions. In fact, they are not given adequate care in these orphanages; there are even reports of children being starved and clothed inadequately in order to make them more pitiable-looking for the tourists who will in turn give big donations to the orphanage. It is an entirely sordid transaction, one that fuels child exploitation by making it profitable.

We can’t help but think about the families who are duped into giving up their children. The poorest families in Cambodia are indeed scared and desperate, and the idea of hucksters exploiting that is extremely distressing. Truly, these parents would not be giving up their children because they do not care for them - quite the opposite, their love would push them into making that ultimate sacrifice. It is yet another face of poverty, and it’s hard to look at.

This is just another phenomenon that encourages us to do more for Cambodian families. If clean water, livelihood opportunities, and education - all solutions to chronic poverty - reach them before the hucksters do, these kind of family tragedies could be prevented.

The Philippines: “If you are not educated, then you have to just sit quietly in the corner”

There is a dark side to life in the Philippines, and its Indigenous Peoples, mainly living on the island of Mindanao, most definitely live in the shadow. As it goes with many Indigenous communities across the planet, they have been squeezed out to the margins of society. They are routinely and illegally pushed from their homes when businesses have an interest in the land. They are largely uneducated; which means they often do not understand their rights and wouldn’t know how to advocate for them even if they did.

This is why college educations for motivated young Indigenous people is such an important part of HOPE International Development Agency’s work in the Philippines. We received a few letters from some of our students and they are full of reminders of the value of this kind of investment. Below is just one of these letters:



My name is Jinefer Serrano. I belong to Bagobo tribe, located at Davao city. I graduated last year with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology. Currently I am volunteering as a preschool teacher for children aged three and four.

At the beginning I found the Pamulaan program very challenging. You have to be very serious, really apply yourself, because this is not just like any other school. Pamulaan is not just about academics. It is the process of forming a person – in attitude, in values, in creating a vision of life in the future. It instills in us the value of service, of giving back. Currently I am a teacher in the Matigsalog tribe, a tribe with a culture and language very different from mine. That makes it a challenge to relate my teaching to their lives. But overall I am very happy with my choice.

I consider myself an optimistic person, especially about the future of indigenous people in the Philippines. That is what drove my studies – my belief in the value of education. I wanted to learn my rights so I can fight for them. If you are not educated, then you have to just sit quietly in the corner, because you don’t know what you are entitled to in life. This was the problem in my community. No one knew their rights, or the process for asserting those rights. There is a lot of discrimination against indigenous people in the Philippines, and this is how we can fight back. We can say with confidence: ‘we are educated, so don’t put us down.’

I am already sharing my experiences at Pamulaan with the children I teach. I constantly tell them that we must acquire knowledge. It is only through that education that we can claim our rights to our land, our territories.

The notion of people sitting ‘quietly in the corner’ is one that resonates. This description is not limited to the Philippines’ much-abused Indigenous Peoples. It is a problem that we see in poor communities across the world. People who are very poor and uneducated tend to fatalistically accept their lot in life. Education is one of the things that breaks through this mentality and inspires a lot of hard work and smart investments into things (be it a road for a water drilling crew to travel on, a savings pool with a group of neighbours, or a foundation for a new school in the village) that will pay huge dividends down the road—that will end poverty in one’s family, one’s community. To be a part of this process of motivating poor people — like Jinefer — to seize life with confidence and competence is inspiring.

Putting the "self" back in reliance

Here at home most of us can afford to be hopeful, even in difficult times.

The same, however, cannot be said of impoverished families living in the poorest communities of Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.

Poverty has robbed these families of their health, their hope, and in many cases, their loved ones.

Imagine if poverty snatched your child from your arms. Now try to imagine how incredibly hard it would be to remain hopeful when you know that your child perished because you lacked the modest resources needed to prevent or treat the sickness.

These families are without hope because they are without help. They are stuck in a life of suffering and dependence because no one has given them the “hand up” they need in order to become self-reliant.

They have done all that they can to overcome the poverty that holds them captive and destroys their lives, but it simply is not enough given the size of the challenges they face.

It’s our turn to do everything we can to prevent poverty from claiming more lives.

In Bangladesh, we can provide life skills training and health education that will enable parents to improve and protect their family’s health. We can also provide vocational skills training that will give parents the knowledge and skills they need in order to generate sustainable sources of income that will meet their needs and allow them to save for the future.

In Cambodia, we can establish community-based Self Help Groups that give families access to health education, clean water, agricultural training that increases food production, vocational skills training that generates sustainable income, and low interest loans that enable families to start up their own small businesses.

In Ethiopia, we can provide the education, training, and business start-up funds a mother needs in order to create a sustainable source of income that will provide for all of her family’s needs, both today and into the future.

Learn how you can help these families by visiting www.hope-international.com today.

Ethiopia: A Long Walk Together

A few HOPE supporters were recently traveling in Ethiopia to see the work that we do with villagers in the country’s poorest districts. On the drive back from a tiny village up in the mountains, their jeep slowed to navigate around a group of people walking down the road in single file. At the head of the procession was a woman on a stretcher, wrapped in white linen. Her mouth was moving; she was alive.

What these visitors saw is the quintessence of why our work in Ethiopia remains, over thirty years later, as successful and worthwhile as it is. The goals we set — clean water for entire districts, care for the HIV/AIDS orphans in Addis, livelihoods for poor illiterate women — are truly ambitious. By all rights we should not be able to accomplish what we do with the funds that are available to us.

But the tenacity and devotion of Ethiopian people make everything possible. For every dollar we send to this country, they match us with an inestimable contribution of service. For the people in Ethiopia’s remote and neglected villages, helping one another is an absolute fact of existence. They do not sit back and received aid passively.

The same spirit that inspires poor, hungry, and ill people to dig out roads by hand so that our trucks can reach their villages was perfectly expressed in the scene these Canadian visitors witnessed from their jeep. Their driver explained that the group was clearly making their way home from a clinic he knew to be in the area. It would have taken them all day long to reach the clinic, and so many people—nearly the entire community—had made the journey together so that they could take turns carrying the woman on the stretcher. It would have been the only way the woman could have received medical care. Her neighbors did not count the cost: the incredibly long walk in full sun, an entire day of work lost. As the driver put it, “This would have been their agenda for the day."

We often talk about walking with the poor, and in our mind’s eye perhaps we see ourselves leading the way, with the weakest leaning on us, inspired to go anywhere at all by our presence. The truth is that the poor have long been walking together, and it’s our choice to join the procession or not.

Ethiopia: Supporting Orphans, Minus the Cookie Cutters

People who participate in our Building Family Ties program understand this, but those who are unfamiliar with our work with Ethiopian orphans might not realize just how unique our approach with every young person’s is. That means our support for children and young adults has to be customized in every instance. Although we work with orphans, there is no orphanage where we house our kids and dole out standardized care — although we in no way disparage the practice of caring for children in institutional settings. However, we’ve found that supporting children to live with their families (if extended family members are willing) or otherwise be a more integrated part of the community is a good way to go. It honours the individual, rather than imposing a cookie-cutter model of care.

Helen is a good example of how we do this. Here is her story:

“My name is Helen. I am 16 years old and living in the Gotera area of Addis Ababa. I am one of 7 children. We had been living off the pension of our retired father, but since my mother was an asthmatic she was not able to support us and medical care for her was expensive. Though our living standards were very low, my parents were happy. To increase the family’s income, my father started working as a guard in one organization. However, after some time my father became ill with Tuberculosis. When the case became serious, he was admitted at Zewditu Hospital. Shortly after, he passed away.

“So as not to be a burden on our family, four of my brothers married. My brother who remained at home was forced to put his education on hold because the tuition fees were too high. When my mother’s asthma became worse, I too dropped out of school to care for her. After being hospitalized for quite some time, she passed away.

It was at that time that a [HOPE] employee introduced me to the organization. When I shared my story with them, the organization was very willing to support me. Like a mother and a father, [they] supported me to continue my education [by giving me] the necessary school materials. The organization also has been providing me wheat, oil, and [medicine] monthly. With the support of the Almighty God and [HOPE], I am studying the 11th grade. If it is God’s will, I want to support children who have lost parents like myself to complete their education.”

So our support for Helen amounts to practical assistance in terms of schooling, food, and medicine, so that she can keep living — as much as possible — a normal life, which for her means continuing to be, principally, a 11th grade student. We don’t institutionalize her — we find out how to help her make her dreams come true. We don’t want Helen to be an ‘orphan’; we want her to be a success, on her own terms.

Philippines - Ensuring that the homeless do not remain helpless

In the early morning hours, while people were sleeping, the Cagayan, Agus, and Madulong rivers in Mindanao, swollen by typhoon Washi’s torrential rains, breached their banks.

Within minutes, massive flows of debris-filled water from the rivers raged through villages and towns, submerging or sweeping away everything in their path.

Many families didn’t stand a chance and were killed as they slept or awoke amidst the roar of the water. In one place, an entire village was swept away in just minutes, killing hundreds of people.

Our partners in Mindanao tell us that the destruction is on a scale beyond anything they’ve ever seen. In one small area alone, on the outskirts of flood-ravaged Cagayon de Oro, we’ve identified hundreds of families who remain in desperate need. And there are hundreds, in fact, thousands more just like them.

Help us ensure that families left homeless by the disaster do not remain helpless.

Michael Paull: 12,000 Kilometres, Beginning in January

As the holidays wind down and we do our best to metabolize the excess food that this season foists upon us — without too much complaining on our part, we have to admit — we are thinking about our wonderful friend Michael, who is about to work off his eggnog in a big way.

In January, Edmonton entrepreneur Michael Paull, is going to begin an epic bicycle trip from Cairo to Cape Town in order to raise money for clean water in Ethiopia through HOPE International Development Agency. Michael has already raised a lot of money, and is set to raise much more through this 12,000 kilometer trip which he has dubbed H20pia.

Michael has a lively and fascinating website that is worth checking out: http://www.h2opia.ca/about/. The blog he keeps is particularly funny and well informed, just like Michael himself. His entry from July 22, 2011 details the practical concerns that such a journey raises, and gives a sense of how epic the experience will actually be:


“These four elements are the biggest areas of concern for me on this ride. If even one fails, it could be very uncomfortable four months.

Nutrition
I need to digest 2,500 of calories a day to maintain my weight. I burn 750 calories per hour while riding. My average ride will be between four and eight hours per day, which means I have to take in between 5,500 to 8,500 of calories a day.

Condition
I go to spin class four or five times a week, I swim once in awhile, I run around the block once or twice, and I ride outside on my bike for about 500 km a week. Does that prepare me enough? Let's hope so; when I am in Namibia I have a five-day ride that is 825 km.

Hydration
When you ride outside, you don't realize how much water you lose since it dries up from the sun and the wind. In the Sudan, temperatures will be in the 40s. In Alberta, 28 degrees works up quite a sweat, so this could be very interesting. Getting enough liquids and cooling my body down will be the most important factors for me if I want to complete the ride.

Recovery
After four to eight hours of pedaling a bike, I'll finally get to relax. But first, I'll have to set up a tent and unpack my gear. There are the sand storms, the rainy season, and just the everyday exhaustion to contend with as well. Stretching is important if I want to get back on the bike tomorrow and do it all over again.”

Please keep Michael in your thoughts and do check out his website or Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/mikesh2opia.

Maybe he’ll inspire you to do something on the incredible side in 2012.