Wednesday, October 14, 2009

When No Usurps Yes

Having witnessed the carnage wrought upon humanity when no usurps yes, I can only hope and pray that enough of us on this terrestrial ball of more than 6 billion people still believe in yes, especially when it comes to helping the poor.

Yes only lives if we say it and act upon it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the same holds true for the poor. In fact, their life of extreme impoverishment - something they did not bargain for, but rather, received as their birthright - can only be remedied by a yes. In short, they live if yes lives. To put it in less esoteric terms, they live if we give.

When no usurps yes, however, the poor are robbed of their hope and their lives - as is the case for the 25,000 children worldwide who lost their lives to poverty today.

At HOPE International Development Agency, we believe in yes because we’ve seen its transforming power in action in the lives of the world’s poorest families.

For yes to live, and subsequently, for the poor to live, people like you need to keep saying yes and giving.

Put another way, saying yes is the only way to commute the sentence of suffering and death that looms over the heads of the world’s poorest families every hour of every day.

The hope of the poor continues to rest in a heartfelt yes.

Learn more about the power of saying yes by visiting us at www.hope-international.com today where you can read about what happens when people like you say yes!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Clean water arrives for 200,000 people in Derashe Woreda, Ethiopia

The people of southern Ethiopia’s Derashe Woreda were literally drinking themselves to death when HOPE International Development Agency first arrived a decade ago.

At the time, only 11 percent of the people living in Derashe had access to sources of drinkable water, most of which were not reliable. The rest of the population had no source of clean drinking water. The water they could find came from filthy ponds or the silt-laden remains of dried up riverbeds - both of which were teeming with deadly parasites and bacteria.

The consequences were devastating, as evidenced by the fact that 17 of 100 children in this region were dying before the age of five.

Today, nearly all of the 200,000 people living in Derashe have access to abundant and sustainable supplies of clean water – right in their villages! Their hard work and the support of generous HOPE International Development Agency donors made it possible to construct the 85 water systems now serving the population of Derashe.

Yet as we celebrate with the people of Derashe, we are mindful of people in Bonke Woreda, a neighboring region where clean water is simply not available. Disease is ravaging their villages and their children are dying at a rate equal or greater to that of Derashe before the arrival of clean water. More than 22,000 people in the area are in need of clean water and we have begun work that will result in each one of them gaining access to abundant and reliable sources of clean water!