Cambodia’s most important yearly celebration, the Water Festival, has been marred by an unthinkably random disaster. Celebrants crossing the bridge to Diamond Island became trapped in a crush of bodies so severe that it injured and killed hundreds.
The Calmette Hospital is the country’s best-equipped hospital and most of the 700 injured have been brought there. The situation is very grim, since the hospital does not possess facilities large or sophisticated enough to deal with such an onslaught.
Calmette’s inadequacy casts the basic struggle of the poor in stark relief. Poverty may be just barely livable - until disaster strikes. Of all the things distinguishing the ‘western’ quality of life from the ‘southern’, the ability to absorb shocks just may be the most fundamental. In bad times, there is no margin of recovery.
We believe that poor communities should be supported so that they can absorb the shocks that inevitably visit human beings.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Canada and Philippines: The Costs We Carry
Staff and volunteers for HOPE International Development Agency have recently returned home from their annual cross-Canadian tour of film premieres. One of the more important and least pleasant tasks for our audio-visual volunteer is carting a heavy video projector from airport to hotel to airport to hotel, again and again and again. After the about a week of minding this particular piece of luggage, the dreariness of travel can really set in—although our volunteer appreciates the upper body conditioning that the task demands.
However, it is often these types of chores that should connect us more deeply to the families that will be directly impacted by our failure or success in securing the funds for their clean water systems.
For example, let’s consider Befesa Ligmon’s family. They live in the community of Sito Fatima, San Vicente, in a rural community of the southern Philippines. In the Philippines, children are responsible for water collection. So Befesa’s youngest children make 2 one-hour trips a day carrying a 20 litre water jug over a hilly path to an unprotected spring.
This will be an imprecise calculation, but let’s assume that the jug, when filled, weighs 20.2 kilograms, or 45 pounds. According to standard calorie counters, the act of carrying this weight for an hour would cost a one hundred pound child between 350 and 600 calories. So in one day, water collection might conservatively cost that child between 1,000 and 2,000 calories (assuming he shares the load with his sibling).
That’s a big problem. The fact is, their lives are full of laborious tasks and it is extremely unlikely that Befesa’s children are consuming even 2,000 calories a day, the average for Western children. It’s no wonder that malnutrition is so rampant among families like theirs. Their daily lives are energy-costly and food-poor.
When our volunteer finishes a day of highly unglamorous schlepping, he can and should and will have a delicious meal. When Befesa’s children return home, they’re going to be eating just to stay on the right side of starvation.
Let’s carry the luggage, raise the money needed for the water system that will save these children two hours and 2,000 calories, and then everyone can enjoy that fine balance between hard work and replenishment.
Learn about bringing clean water to the people of the Philippines.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Field Update - Tomas brings more suffering to Haiti
Torrential rain and high winds announced the arrival of Tomas in Port-au-Prince earlier today.
“Tomas, a violent and potentially deadly storm, is the last thing the survivors of this year’s deadly earthquake need right now given the fragile nature of their recovery,” according to Clifferd Dick, a HOPE International Development Agency’s colleague who called from the rain drenched streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti this morning.
The bad news, according to Clifferd, is that Haitians – already near the edge of survival and living in makeshift tent and tarp cities strewn throughout Port-au-Prince – are going to be pushed even closer to the edge with the arrival of this storm.
The good news, however, is that our latest large shipment of medical supplies and medicines has arrived earlier this week and is being prepared for quick distribution. The medical supplies include items that will help in the fight against the cholera outbreak that has claimed nearly 500 lives so far.
“The medical supplies and equipment are absolutely crucial because they strengthen the capacity of local hospitals and field clinics to deal with the unprecedented and continuing demand for services,” says Clifferd. In areas surrounding some of the hospitals and clinics, the population increased by nearly 40 percent as people fled the capital in the days following the earthquake.
Building materials, distributed over the past months, have enabled survivors to construct sturdier shelters than the tarps and tents they’ve lived in since the earthquake. These people, according to Clifferd, will weather the storm much better than those who have not yet received help.
Previous container loads and airlifts of medical supplies and equipment, sent immediately after the earthquake and more recently, have played a key role in saving lives and rebuilding the health of Haitians as they continue their long journey of recovery.
HOPE International Development Agency was helping the people of Haiti well before the earthquake in January and will continue to do so long after Tomas passes this weekend.
Read an update of our efforts to help Haitians recover.
“Tomas, a violent and potentially deadly storm, is the last thing the survivors of this year’s deadly earthquake need right now given the fragile nature of their recovery,” according to Clifferd Dick, a HOPE International Development Agency’s colleague who called from the rain drenched streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti this morning.
The bad news, according to Clifferd, is that Haitians – already near the edge of survival and living in makeshift tent and tarp cities strewn throughout Port-au-Prince – are going to be pushed even closer to the edge with the arrival of this storm.
The good news, however, is that our latest large shipment of medical supplies and medicines has arrived earlier this week and is being prepared for quick distribution. The medical supplies include items that will help in the fight against the cholera outbreak that has claimed nearly 500 lives so far.
“The medical supplies and equipment are absolutely crucial because they strengthen the capacity of local hospitals and field clinics to deal with the unprecedented and continuing demand for services,” says Clifferd. In areas surrounding some of the hospitals and clinics, the population increased by nearly 40 percent as people fled the capital in the days following the earthquake.
Building materials, distributed over the past months, have enabled survivors to construct sturdier shelters than the tarps and tents they’ve lived in since the earthquake. These people, according to Clifferd, will weather the storm much better than those who have not yet received help.
Previous container loads and airlifts of medical supplies and equipment, sent immediately after the earthquake and more recently, have played a key role in saving lives and rebuilding the health of Haitians as they continue their long journey of recovery.
HOPE International Development Agency was helping the people of Haiti well before the earthquake in January and will continue to do so long after Tomas passes this weekend.
Read an update of our efforts to help Haitians recover.
Haiti - Replacing uncertainty with the certainty of hope!
One of the most devastating aspects of poverty, beyond the physical suffering and anguish, is uncertainty.
For Haitians like Janese, her husband, and their four children, the only certainty in their lives has been uncertainty.
Twice they have lost everything. In 2008, after hurricanes ravaged Haiti, Janese and her family moved to the mountainside village of Brelis and settled in on a small patch of land owned by her parents. They were starting over again and their new life in Brelis began with the building of a small hut made of mud and thatch.
Janese’s husband joined the local agricultural cooperative and gained access to training, improved varieties of crop seeds, and a network of community support. Their garden flourished, and their family grew with the arrival of two more children.
Life was better, but uncertainty was still lurking - a fact that came into sharp focus in January of this year when a killer earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince. The shock waves rumbled through Janese’s tiny mountainside community and her family’s mud and thatch hut was destroyed. Though no one was injured, they were devastated - all was lost and there would be no way to recover without some form of assistance.
HOPE International Development Agency, in addition to providing emergency supplies in the hours, weeks, and months after the January earthquake, has also been helping families like Janese’s recover from the devastation by providing the cement, wood, tin roofing, and nails survivors need in order to build shelters that protect them from the intense sun and cold rain.
In Janese’s case, her family was able to contribute additional wood, limestone, water, and labor toward their shelter project. Though it will be a while before they can build their next home, they have been able to build a frame for the house and replace the leaky thatch roof with a tin one; with a drier home, they have been less sick.
HOPE International Development Agency is also supporting the local agricultural cooperative, of which Janese’s husband is a member. This support enables the cooperative to provide families like Janese’s with extra crop seeds as well as the minimal interest agricultural credit so desperately needed by farmers who sold or ate their seed stocks in an effort to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake.
As Janese and her family continue to recover and rebuild, it’s clear that uncertainty is beginning to yield to the certain possibility that life can be much better than it has been.
Read a brief update on our efforts in Haiti.
For Haitians like Janese, her husband, and their four children, the only certainty in their lives has been uncertainty.
Twice they have lost everything. In 2008, after hurricanes ravaged Haiti, Janese and her family moved to the mountainside village of Brelis and settled in on a small patch of land owned by her parents. They were starting over again and their new life in Brelis began with the building of a small hut made of mud and thatch.
Janese’s husband joined the local agricultural cooperative and gained access to training, improved varieties of crop seeds, and a network of community support. Their garden flourished, and their family grew with the arrival of two more children.
Life was better, but uncertainty was still lurking - a fact that came into sharp focus in January of this year when a killer earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince. The shock waves rumbled through Janese’s tiny mountainside community and her family’s mud and thatch hut was destroyed. Though no one was injured, they were devastated - all was lost and there would be no way to recover without some form of assistance.
HOPE International Development Agency, in addition to providing emergency supplies in the hours, weeks, and months after the January earthquake, has also been helping families like Janese’s recover from the devastation by providing the cement, wood, tin roofing, and nails survivors need in order to build shelters that protect them from the intense sun and cold rain.
In Janese’s case, her family was able to contribute additional wood, limestone, water, and labor toward their shelter project. Though it will be a while before they can build their next home, they have been able to build a frame for the house and replace the leaky thatch roof with a tin one; with a drier home, they have been less sick.
HOPE International Development Agency is also supporting the local agricultural cooperative, of which Janese’s husband is a member. This support enables the cooperative to provide families like Janese’s with extra crop seeds as well as the minimal interest agricultural credit so desperately needed by farmers who sold or ate their seed stocks in an effort to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake.
As Janese and her family continue to recover and rebuild, it’s clear that uncertainty is beginning to yield to the certain possibility that life can be much better than it has been.
Read a brief update on our efforts in Haiti.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Give yourself and others a very meaningful gift this Christmas!
This year’s HOPE International Development Agency Gifts of Hope Christmas Catalog is full of gifts that will bring joy to you and the people you help!
What store-bought gift can compare with rescuing an orphan in Swaziland or Ethiopia from a life of suffering and sadness? In these two countries, even children with parents have a tough time surviving to their fifth birthday.
When you sit down for your Christmas meal this season and raise a glass of clean water, imagine the joy you’ll feel knowing a family in Sudan, Ethiopia, or Cambodia will be drinking their first glass of clean water because of your giving.
This Christmas, you can choose from a selection of gifts that will…
You can also give gifts in honor of family members, friends, and colleagues. Celebrate those you care about by giving a truly meaningful gift in their honor. You’ll feel wonderful and they’ll be thrilled when they receive a special note from us letting them know about the gifts you’ve given.
These gifts will last well beyond the Christmas season, as will the joy and fulfillment you feel in having brought the spirit of Christmas giving to families who, without your gifts, would continue to suffer and perish.
What store-bought gift can compare with rescuing an orphan in Swaziland or Ethiopia from a life of suffering and sadness? In these two countries, even children with parents have a tough time surviving to their fifth birthday.
When you sit down for your Christmas meal this season and raise a glass of clean water, imagine the joy you’ll feel knowing a family in Sudan, Ethiopia, or Cambodia will be drinking their first glass of clean water because of your giving.
This Christmas, you can choose from a selection of gifts that will…
- Rescue and care for orphaned children in Swaziland and Ethiopia.
- Provide a year’s worth of wheat and melon seeds to families in northern Afghanistan, giving them the ability to grow food throughout the year. Your gift will multiply as the families set aside a portion of the harvest as seed crop for the following year’s growing season.
- Give text books, schools supplies, blackboards, desks, or a sanitary latrine to a school and students in Cambodia, ensuring that children have what they need in order to learn their way out of poverty and transform their lives.
- Rescue a young girl forced into prostitution on the streets of a Philippine city and give her the skills training that will enable her to start a brand new life.
- Give a Cambodian family a flock of chickens or cow that will enable a them to till the soil, make fertilizer, and transport their produce to market in order to generate much needed income.
- Provide urgently needed medical supplies to rural clinics serving impoverished families in Pakistan and South Sudan.
- Help build a new school in Cambodia and in doing so, transform an entire community for generations to come.
- Provide abundant and lasting supplies of clean water to families in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, and reduce the incidence rate of water-borne disease by as much as 80%!
You can also give gifts in honor of family members, friends, and colleagues. Celebrate those you care about by giving a truly meaningful gift in their honor. You’ll feel wonderful and they’ll be thrilled when they receive a special note from us letting them know about the gifts you’ve given.
These gifts will last well beyond the Christmas season, as will the joy and fulfillment you feel in having brought the spirit of Christmas giving to families who, without your gifts, would continue to suffer and perish.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Ethiopia and across Canada: A seat at HOPE International Development Agency’s dinner, if not the Security Council
Canada’s surprise failure to win a seat on the United Nation’s Security Council has caused a storm of speculation.
Blame is being shared liberally, and commentators have not been shy with their theories, which range from Canada’s unpopular foreign policy decisions, to disarray in the United Nations.
Canada is like the head cheerleader who lost the homecoming queen crown, and everybody in the hallway seems to be whispering behind their hands.
Many have said that this move by the UN is, in part, a backlash against Canada’s decision to substantially decrease its aid for African nations. It was and is a highly controversial development, and it seems to have not won Canada much acclaim on the world stage.
Debate over the efficacy of big government aid programs aside, it must be said that just because its government is officially distancing itself from Africa, it does not mean that Canadians themselves have lost interested in supporting change for African people.
HOPE International Development Agency will soon be on the road, sharing with our supporters our past success and future plans in Ethiopia. Guests at our fundraising galas will constitute a growing movement of people who know what intelligent aid investment into Africa looks like. They won’t need their government to tell them what to do about it.
Blame is being shared liberally, and commentators have not been shy with their theories, which range from Canada’s unpopular foreign policy decisions, to disarray in the United Nations.
Canada is like the head cheerleader who lost the homecoming queen crown, and everybody in the hallway seems to be whispering behind their hands.
Many have said that this move by the UN is, in part, a backlash against Canada’s decision to substantially decrease its aid for African nations. It was and is a highly controversial development, and it seems to have not won Canada much acclaim on the world stage.
Debate over the efficacy of big government aid programs aside, it must be said that just because its government is officially distancing itself from Africa, it does not mean that Canadians themselves have lost interested in supporting change for African people.
HOPE International Development Agency will soon be on the road, sharing with our supporters our past success and future plans in Ethiopia. Guests at our fundraising galas will constitute a growing movement of people who know what intelligent aid investment into Africa looks like. They won’t need their government to tell them what to do about it.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Cambodia: Child labour is no choice
Our field staff in Cambodia (and elsewhere) regularly document the circumstances of individual families before HOPE International Development Agency is able to begin working with them. This is important to do for many - probably obvious - reasons.
In reviewing these cases, we are struck by the similarity of the problems faced by families in the most severe echelon of poverty. Possibly the most universal one is this: the futures of their children are shortchanged for present-day survival.
Take these stories as examples...
“Sompha and his wife Moeng Euth have 5 children - 3 girls, and 2 boys. They only have enough rice to eat for 5 months out of every year. They have half a hectare of land for farming. All the children stay at home and do labor for other farmers or go to the market to try to sell rice. Moeng is sick very often. Her health problems have made the family even poorer.
“Peim Moer and Ouch Seng have 8 children - 4 girls and 4 boys. They have half a hectare of land for farming, and only produce enough rice for six months of the year. All the children work in the rice fields, working for other farmers. Mostly they do hard labour like clearing land. Once, when Peim and Ouch both became very ill at the same time, they had to send one of their children to go stay in the local temple with monks, because they simply could not afford to feed all of the children.”
Perhaps this comes as no great revelation to most people, but it seems that child labour exists for no other reason but that families across the world are dreadfully poor - and a child in school means a lost source of labour or revenue. Child labour is no manifestation of parental abuse, callousness, or greed. It’s a last resort for the family as a whole.
The International Labour Organization has published an article about the issue.
Their conclusion? Eliminate poverty, eliminate child labour. Work with the parents on securing sustainable sources of income, and you will free the children to become educated.
In reviewing these cases, we are struck by the similarity of the problems faced by families in the most severe echelon of poverty. Possibly the most universal one is this: the futures of their children are shortchanged for present-day survival.
Take these stories as examples...
“Sompha and his wife Moeng Euth have 5 children - 3 girls, and 2 boys. They only have enough rice to eat for 5 months out of every year. They have half a hectare of land for farming. All the children stay at home and do labor for other farmers or go to the market to try to sell rice. Moeng is sick very often. Her health problems have made the family even poorer.
“Peim Moer and Ouch Seng have 8 children - 4 girls and 4 boys. They have half a hectare of land for farming, and only produce enough rice for six months of the year. All the children work in the rice fields, working for other farmers. Mostly they do hard labour like clearing land. Once, when Peim and Ouch both became very ill at the same time, they had to send one of their children to go stay in the local temple with monks, because they simply could not afford to feed all of the children.”
Perhaps this comes as no great revelation to most people, but it seems that child labour exists for no other reason but that families across the world are dreadfully poor - and a child in school means a lost source of labour or revenue. Child labour is no manifestation of parental abuse, callousness, or greed. It’s a last resort for the family as a whole.
The International Labour Organization has published an article about the issue.
Their conclusion? Eliminate poverty, eliminate child labour. Work with the parents on securing sustainable sources of income, and you will free the children to become educated.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Mindanao, the Philippines – the journey out of poverty begins with clean water
In the Philippine province of Mindanao, one sip of water can mark the beginning or end of a your journey.
If you are among the poorest of the poor in Mindanao, you drink whatever water you can find, even if it comes from a dirty ditch or muddy pond teeming with bacteria. Your journey is likely to end far too soon as you fall victim to the bacteria and parasites that invade your body as a result of drinking contaminated water.
If you are among the families in Mindanao that HOPE International Development Agency has been able to help thus far, every sip of clean water takes you one step closer to being free from poverty.
The tragedy for families who do not yet have access to clean water - beyond the suffering and death caused by drinking contaminated water from ditches and ponds - is that abundant supplies of clean water flow in underground springs just meters below the surface. The families, however, are unable to access the clean water - they lack the knowledge or funds required to build a water system for their village.
HOPE International Development Agency is helping the people of Mindano construct small-scale, easy to maintain spring-fed water systems for their villages. To date, 60,000 people in 150 villages have gained access to clean water.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for families living in villages we have not yet been able to help.
You can help these families gain access to clean water and much more. Visit hope-international.com today and learn more about how you can help.
If you are among the poorest of the poor in Mindanao, you drink whatever water you can find, even if it comes from a dirty ditch or muddy pond teeming with bacteria. Your journey is likely to end far too soon as you fall victim to the bacteria and parasites that invade your body as a result of drinking contaminated water.
If you are among the families in Mindanao that HOPE International Development Agency has been able to help thus far, every sip of clean water takes you one step closer to being free from poverty.
The tragedy for families who do not yet have access to clean water - beyond the suffering and death caused by drinking contaminated water from ditches and ponds - is that abundant supplies of clean water flow in underground springs just meters below the surface. The families, however, are unable to access the clean water - they lack the knowledge or funds required to build a water system for their village.
HOPE International Development Agency is helping the people of Mindano construct small-scale, easy to maintain spring-fed water systems for their villages. To date, 60,000 people in 150 villages have gained access to clean water.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for families living in villages we have not yet been able to help.
You can help these families gain access to clean water and much more. Visit hope-international.com today and learn more about how you can help.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
The Philippines: ‘Voices of Peace’
Two days ago, students at the HOPE International Development Agency-sponsored Pamaulaan Center for Indigenous Education marked World Peace Day the way they best like to celebrate any and all special occasions: by holding a concert. It was dubbed ‘Voices of Peace’, and attended by several Philippine luminaries.
These students come the Indigenous tribes that have arguably suffered the most from the Philippines’ long-standing conflicts, conflicts that have killed just under 200,000 people and driven 3 million more from their homes.
The Philippines’ poorest people live in a cauldron of ethnic-and class-based violence, even while they contend with severe poverty and struggle to protect their ancestral domains from the encroachment of commercial interests like mining companies. Pressed in from all sides, the Pamaulaan students’ commitment to education, service, and peace is all the more stirring.
For a sample of the students’ singing, check out this wonderful and very collaborative rendition of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.
These students come the Indigenous tribes that have arguably suffered the most from the Philippines’ long-standing conflicts, conflicts that have killed just under 200,000 people and driven 3 million more from their homes.
The Philippines’ poorest people live in a cauldron of ethnic-and class-based violence, even while they contend with severe poverty and struggle to protect their ancestral domains from the encroachment of commercial interests like mining companies. Pressed in from all sides, the Pamaulaan students’ commitment to education, service, and peace is all the more stirring.
For a sample of the students’ singing, check out this wonderful and very collaborative rendition of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Volunteering in Cambodia: When status updates about your lunch finally get old
HOPE International Development Agency’s Coordinator of Volunteers has previously shared her thoughts on being overseas with poor families in this blog.
While in Cambodia, this past summer’s team did not have constant Internet access, but when they did, volunteers kept their families and friends up to date through the micro-dispatch of the Facebook status update.
With his permission, we have re-published one volunteer’s updates here:
More than one volunteer wrote status updates about the way Cambodians smile.
Are smiles in different nations and cultures appreciably different? It’s one of the details that makes traveling—and even better, volunteering in this country so intriguing and enriching.
While in Cambodia, this past summer’s team did not have constant Internet access, but when they did, volunteers kept their families and friends up to date through the micro-dispatch of the Facebook status update.
With his permission, we have re-published one volunteer’s updates here:
- Heading to Pursat to start our volunteer tour and live in their shoes for a few weeks!
- My heart wants to explode and my face hurts ... I can't stop smiling cause I'm in LOVE with these days!
- It's amazing how one water well transforms lives ... And we get to be apart of it tomorrow.
- Cambodians are filling my heart with love ... One smile at a time!
- Today is the greatest day I've ever known!
More than one volunteer wrote status updates about the way Cambodians smile.
Are smiles in different nations and cultures appreciably different? It’s one of the details that makes traveling—and even better, volunteering in this country so intriguing and enriching.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Poverty is so much more than the indicators we use to measure its deadly impact
Rainbow Choi and the Understanding Needs In Other Nations (UNION) volunteer team has returned home safely from Cambodia. By every account, the trip was enlightening, enriching, and unforgettable.
Here are Rainbow’s thoughts on one of the most memorable families the team met - a family still waiting for a water well that will provide clean water.
“Just after meeting the family with the well from 2006 and the garden full of vegetables... and before getting to get our hands on some well-building the next day… we had a much more sobering experience of poverty and needs in Cambodia.
We met this family - Ran, and her mother. Ran has three kids. She had four kids, but one of her sons died of typhoid from drinking unclean water last year. Ran was very ill herself, which is why her mother had come back to live with her. Her husband is away most of the time, collecting firewood in the jungle to sell. She and her remaining three sons work the little land that they have to grow, and spend the rest of the day in other people’s fields to earn what little income they can to buy rice for the day and survive.
What is life like for Ran and her family?
Well, Ran herself is sick with some kind of typhoid. She suffers from anemia, from lack of iron. Her son has swelling in his legs, arms and shoulders from some kind of muscle infection that has gone untreated. They have no money for medicines much less vitamins.
She and her family eat twice a day - simple meals…just rice porridge. We met her around 11am that day. She had just come back from working in the rice fields since daybreak, about 5:30 or 6 o'clock in the morning. But she hadn't eaten yet - and her kids were still out in the field. She was about to prepare her family's meal: the rice porridge - i.e., rice boiled down with water – more water when there’s less rice. She didn't talk about eating - just about 'filling stomachs'. She showed us her drinking water – an almost-empty jar of collected rainwater. She lives too far from any river or open water source to even be able to get water from there. When she runs out, her family drinks the muddy water from the rice. At least that’s when they are lucky enough to be in the wet season. In the dry season, even the rice field water has long dried up.
There are some people, some distance away, Ran and her mother said, that have access to some water. So, when they need it, they ask if they can have some little bit. Ask might be too nice though. Beg might be more fitting. Where water is scarce, even neighbors are reluctant to share.
They had no smiles for us - not for themselves. They didn’t even look us in the eye when we were there – they were squatted down as we stood around them, eyes down at the ground as Ly talked with them about if HOPE International Development Agency was able to support them. Ly translated for us, but we caught most of it in their voices. Their voices were lifeless. They had nothing to say when we asked what they dreamed of for the future.
It was hard to stay and hard to walk away. We gave Ran’s family some loaves of bread that we had brought, and then left, very much sad, and had a quiet motorbike ride home. It was a hard day for the team. We had a team chat that night, and talked about poverty and development, as we’d seen over the last few days.
‘Poverty’ doesn’t just ‘exist’. ‘Poverty’ can be so vague it hardly has any tangible meaning anymore when we use the word. It isn’t captured by indicators of daily income, child mortality rates, poverty 'lines' and who's over or under it.
Poverty is captured in the life of a young mother whose every day existence is a struggle to survive, whose health is failing, who has lost a child, who works and toils to no end, only to fill her family’s stomachs with food that will not nourish them. It is captured in eyes that can't smile, and voices without life, two beautiful lives so desperately surviving today, that there is simply no hope, no dreams of what if? for a different tomorrow.
It is captured in real lives and real people… and it is very much real.”
Here are Rainbow’s thoughts on one of the most memorable families the team met - a family still waiting for a water well that will provide clean water.
“Just after meeting the family with the well from 2006 and the garden full of vegetables... and before getting to get our hands on some well-building the next day… we had a much more sobering experience of poverty and needs in Cambodia.
We met this family - Ran, and her mother. Ran has three kids. She had four kids, but one of her sons died of typhoid from drinking unclean water last year. Ran was very ill herself, which is why her mother had come back to live with her. Her husband is away most of the time, collecting firewood in the jungle to sell. She and her remaining three sons work the little land that they have to grow, and spend the rest of the day in other people’s fields to earn what little income they can to buy rice for the day and survive.
What is life like for Ran and her family?
Well, Ran herself is sick with some kind of typhoid. She suffers from anemia, from lack of iron. Her son has swelling in his legs, arms and shoulders from some kind of muscle infection that has gone untreated. They have no money for medicines much less vitamins.
She and her family eat twice a day - simple meals…just rice porridge. We met her around 11am that day. She had just come back from working in the rice fields since daybreak, about 5:30 or 6 o'clock in the morning. But she hadn't eaten yet - and her kids were still out in the field. She was about to prepare her family's meal: the rice porridge - i.e., rice boiled down with water – more water when there’s less rice. She didn't talk about eating - just about 'filling stomachs'. She showed us her drinking water – an almost-empty jar of collected rainwater. She lives too far from any river or open water source to even be able to get water from there. When she runs out, her family drinks the muddy water from the rice. At least that’s when they are lucky enough to be in the wet season. In the dry season, even the rice field water has long dried up.
There are some people, some distance away, Ran and her mother said, that have access to some water. So, when they need it, they ask if they can have some little bit. Ask might be too nice though. Beg might be more fitting. Where water is scarce, even neighbors are reluctant to share.
They had no smiles for us - not for themselves. They didn’t even look us in the eye when we were there – they were squatted down as we stood around them, eyes down at the ground as Ly talked with them about if HOPE International Development Agency was able to support them. Ly translated for us, but we caught most of it in their voices. Their voices were lifeless. They had nothing to say when we asked what they dreamed of for the future.
It was hard to stay and hard to walk away. We gave Ran’s family some loaves of bread that we had brought, and then left, very much sad, and had a quiet motorbike ride home. It was a hard day for the team. We had a team chat that night, and talked about poverty and development, as we’d seen over the last few days.
‘Poverty’ doesn’t just ‘exist’. ‘Poverty’ can be so vague it hardly has any tangible meaning anymore when we use the word. It isn’t captured by indicators of daily income, child mortality rates, poverty 'lines' and who's over or under it.
Poverty is captured in the life of a young mother whose every day existence is a struggle to survive, whose health is failing, who has lost a child, who works and toils to no end, only to fill her family’s stomachs with food that will not nourish them. It is captured in eyes that can't smile, and voices without life, two beautiful lives so desperately surviving today, that there is simply no hope, no dreams of what if? for a different tomorrow.
It is captured in real lives and real people… and it is very much real.”
Friday, September 3, 2010
Being close to medical care isn't enough for Cambodia's poorest families
The live-saving hospital care your dying child urgently needs is just 30 minutes down the dirt road, but it won’t matter today. Even though a doctor can see your child, it won’t matter today. The medicines required to save your child are available, but again, it won’t matter today.
Sadly, the only thing that seems to matter today is that you are poor.
The $25 you need for the trip to the hospital, the doctor’s appointment, and the medicine, is more money than you earn in an entire month! Besides, every penny you earn is spent on surviving day-to-day.
If you were a Cambodian parent living in one of the impoverished villages we work in throughout Cambodia’s Pursat area, the tragic situation just described to you would be your heartache. Your child is dying for no other reason than the fact you are poor.
Families living in rural villages like Toul Kros, Kdei Kvao, and Roleap, need your help today.
Just like here, children get sick. But unlike here, they often don’t recover.
HOPE International Development Agency continues to respond to the needs of families and children by helping them establish Self Help Groups among the poorest families living in a village where we are working.
These groups help families learn how to protect their health, grow more food, access clean water, and start small businesses that will generate enough income to allow each family to build up a savings fund.
Families who belong to a Self Help Group are often able to pay for medical care and expenses using a portion of their savings. If their savings are not enough, they can take a low-interest loan, tailored to their needs and financial circumstances, to pay for medical expenses when they arise - it’s like having medical insurance.
We are also helping families establish Village Health Funds to assist families who are not yet members of Self Help Groups or who need emergency funds greater than the groups can offer.
Village Health Funds are like insurance policies for people who would never be able to qualify for medical insurance - they are simply too poor. When families are in need of medical care, the funds help them cover the costs by providing no-interest loans that can be paid back on a time schedule tailored to the families’ income.
Friend, these families are poor and the need is great. Every day of their lives is a struggle to survive. When parents get sick they cannot afford to leave their fields for even a few days. If they do, there will be no food on the table, perhaps even for a week.
Fathers, unable to earn income locally because they lack the training and financial support required to start and run small businesses, are forced to leave their families in order to seek day labor work along the border with Thailand – a very dangerous endeavor from which many do not return.
Widows fair even worse. Unable to earn a livable income, they struggle to care for themselves and their children - their suffering is immense and relentless.
Please visit www.hope-international.com today a learn more about how you can save lives in Cambodia.
Sadly, the only thing that seems to matter today is that you are poor.
The $25 you need for the trip to the hospital, the doctor’s appointment, and the medicine, is more money than you earn in an entire month! Besides, every penny you earn is spent on surviving day-to-day.
If you were a Cambodian parent living in one of the impoverished villages we work in throughout Cambodia’s Pursat area, the tragic situation just described to you would be your heartache. Your child is dying for no other reason than the fact you are poor.
Families living in rural villages like Toul Kros, Kdei Kvao, and Roleap, need your help today.
Just like here, children get sick. But unlike here, they often don’t recover.
HOPE International Development Agency continues to respond to the needs of families and children by helping them establish Self Help Groups among the poorest families living in a village where we are working.
These groups help families learn how to protect their health, grow more food, access clean water, and start small businesses that will generate enough income to allow each family to build up a savings fund.
Families who belong to a Self Help Group are often able to pay for medical care and expenses using a portion of their savings. If their savings are not enough, they can take a low-interest loan, tailored to their needs and financial circumstances, to pay for medical expenses when they arise - it’s like having medical insurance.
We are also helping families establish Village Health Funds to assist families who are not yet members of Self Help Groups or who need emergency funds greater than the groups can offer.
Village Health Funds are like insurance policies for people who would never be able to qualify for medical insurance - they are simply too poor. When families are in need of medical care, the funds help them cover the costs by providing no-interest loans that can be paid back on a time schedule tailored to the families’ income.
Friend, these families are poor and the need is great. Every day of their lives is a struggle to survive. When parents get sick they cannot afford to leave their fields for even a few days. If they do, there will be no food on the table, perhaps even for a week.
Fathers, unable to earn income locally because they lack the training and financial support required to start and run small businesses, are forced to leave their families in order to seek day labor work along the border with Thailand – a very dangerous endeavor from which many do not return.
Widows fair even worse. Unable to earn a livable income, they struggle to care for themselves and their children - their suffering is immense and relentless.
Please visit www.hope-international.com today a learn more about how you can save lives in Cambodia.
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