Last week former US President Jimmy Carter provided a sad, but perhaps darkly amusing, wrinkle in the swathe of commentary surrounding the Sudanese referendum.
In a field report for CNN Carter was discussing the issues surrounding the possible split of Africa’s largest nation, one of which is the question of how its debt load will be split between North and South. He stated that President Omar al-Bashir "said the entire debt should be assigned to north Sudan and not to the southern part of Sudan. So, in effect, Southern Sudan is starting with a clean sheet on debt. They'll have to make some arrangements for other sources of income, of course."
All of which would be great news for the South. Except that it is, unfortunately, categorically false. The Sudan News Agency released a refutation of Carter’s statements immediately.
Carter’s contributions to the world notwithstanding, the venerable statesmen looked like the very picture of baffled grandstanding. Perhaps after we and the Sudan foreign affairs folks forgive him for his tenuous interpretations of al-Bashir’s intentions, we can also use his example as a reminder of just how complex the issues are that the Sudanese people must face. They most certainly defy soundbite-making.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Haiti: The Big Story, One Year Later
Major media outlets like CNN are in Haiti today to report to you on what has been accomplished so far on the anniversary of the earthquake that leveled the western hemisphere’s poorest nation and inspired a worldwide outpouring of aid. So are we.
The story you are hearing on radio, television, print media, and the blogosphere is this: an enormous amount of money has been donated to Haiti; an enormous amount of money has been presumably wasted. The ‘recovery process’ is slow, disappointing, almost difficult to discern.
In fact, we knew what the story would be a year ago, when disaster struck. The pitch and volume of giving assured us that there would be disenchantment down the road. We were determined not to be a part of that. We knew that our Haitian colleagues were more than capable of ramping up their work with the poor, and we’d be foolish not to trust them with all of the largesse of our supporters.
Throughout the year, we’ve reported on our work in Haiti, which has involved aiding people in the immediate aftermath, and helping survivors to thrive, building better communities and livelihoods than the ones they lost.
For example, we’re very excited about the work we are doing to help farmers to grow more food for communities that have grown by a stunning 30% because ‘earthquake refugees’ have been taken into almost every household. Food security is one of the priorities that the Haitian government has identified in its own official plan for recovery. We’re excited to be a part of real change on that front.
From on the ground in Haiti right now, we continue to report good news. There is progress. Our involvement in Haiti doesn’t span the nation. CNN won’t be reporting on the people we know.
A team of volunteers with HOPE International Development Agency is right now traveling in Haiti, meeting with the people who you have touched with your outsized compassion. We will share their stories upon their return. There is good news.
If you are one of the many people who have questioned whether or not you were too generous when you sent whatever you could to help Haitians survive, we don’t blame you. It’s understandable, given all you’ve heard. But it’s our mission to make sure you never regret your generosity, and thanks primarily to the good Haitians we have working with us, we are right on track. Giving generously was and continues to be a good choice.
Learn more about what HOPE International Development Agency's work in Haiti.
The story you are hearing on radio, television, print media, and the blogosphere is this: an enormous amount of money has been donated to Haiti; an enormous amount of money has been presumably wasted. The ‘recovery process’ is slow, disappointing, almost difficult to discern.
In fact, we knew what the story would be a year ago, when disaster struck. The pitch and volume of giving assured us that there would be disenchantment down the road. We were determined not to be a part of that. We knew that our Haitian colleagues were more than capable of ramping up their work with the poor, and we’d be foolish not to trust them with all of the largesse of our supporters.
Throughout the year, we’ve reported on our work in Haiti, which has involved aiding people in the immediate aftermath, and helping survivors to thrive, building better communities and livelihoods than the ones they lost.
For example, we’re very excited about the work we are doing to help farmers to grow more food for communities that have grown by a stunning 30% because ‘earthquake refugees’ have been taken into almost every household. Food security is one of the priorities that the Haitian government has identified in its own official plan for recovery. We’re excited to be a part of real change on that front.
From on the ground in Haiti right now, we continue to report good news. There is progress. Our involvement in Haiti doesn’t span the nation. CNN won’t be reporting on the people we know.
A team of volunteers with HOPE International Development Agency is right now traveling in Haiti, meeting with the people who you have touched with your outsized compassion. We will share their stories upon their return. There is good news.
If you are one of the many people who have questioned whether or not you were too generous when you sent whatever you could to help Haitians survive, we don’t blame you. It’s understandable, given all you’ve heard. But it’s our mission to make sure you never regret your generosity, and thanks primarily to the good Haitians we have working with us, we are right on track. Giving generously was and continues to be a good choice.
Learn more about what HOPE International Development Agency's work in Haiti.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Rescuing Children from an Epidemic of Suffering in the Philippines
Tonight, a 10-year old Filipino girl will find herself forced into the arms of an abuser bent on taking advantage of her deeply impoverished situation.
As unbelievable as this tragic situation might seem, it becomes even more jarring when you take into account that more than 60,000 Filipino children are being trafficked in the sex trade right now throughout the Philippines. In fact, some estimates put the total number of trafficked children even higher, at 100,000.
This heartbreaking and horrifying situation can only be described as an epidemic of suffering.
HOPE International Development Agency has made great strides in helping families and their children free themselves from poverty throughout the Philippines, but our focus today is to rescue children that poverty claimed well before we could reach them and their families.
A gift from you of just $65 will rescue a young child from a life that is leading to destruction, and possibly, death. Your gift will provide a safe place to live, learn and heal.
The child your gift can rescue will receive an education - giving her the ability to learn her way out of poverty.
She will also receive vocation skills training that will enable her to have a skill or trade that will generate a livable wage when she grows up.
Counseling will also be available in order to help her transition to her new life.
Learn more about how you can rescue a child today.
As unbelievable as this tragic situation might seem, it becomes even more jarring when you take into account that more than 60,000 Filipino children are being trafficked in the sex trade right now throughout the Philippines. In fact, some estimates put the total number of trafficked children even higher, at 100,000.
This heartbreaking and horrifying situation can only be described as an epidemic of suffering.
HOPE International Development Agency has made great strides in helping families and their children free themselves from poverty throughout the Philippines, but our focus today is to rescue children that poverty claimed well before we could reach them and their families.
A gift from you of just $65 will rescue a young child from a life that is leading to destruction, and possibly, death. Your gift will provide a safe place to live, learn and heal.
The child your gift can rescue will receive an education - giving her the ability to learn her way out of poverty.
She will also receive vocation skills training that will enable her to have a skill or trade that will generate a livable wage when she grows up.
Counseling will also be available in order to help her transition to her new life.
Learn more about how you can rescue a child today.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
2011 - Time to be a Hero?
To begin the New Year on the right foot, how about participating in a simple imaginative exercise.
First, imagine that you are taking your morning walk, a stroll through a meadow behind your house. You are approaching a shallow pool of water, a trough that sometimes fills with rain. To your horror, you see that an infant is struggling in the pool, about to drown.
What do you do next?
You are probably wondering why I would even ask. Of course the answer is simple. You are going to lift this baby out of the water. Fine.
Next, I want you to imagine that the same baby is drowning in another pool of water, but the pool is located thousands of miles away. Perhaps you can see this happening on a television screen, or perhaps you have simply been told that it is happening by somebody reputable. Even though you can’t use your physical arms to lift up the child, you could do something just about as strenuous, like pushing a button or speaking a command, to initiate the rescue. Do you do it?
Are you doing it?
This exercise comes from a moral philosopher’s work on compassion and aid, in a 1971 essay titled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. The philosopher famously asserted that failing to devote a greater portion of Western wealth to the cause of ending poverty was equivalent to opting out of rescuing a drowning child.
Why?
Because giving a small portion of our wealth is easy- as easy as pausing in your morning walk to rescue a child.
Because, contrary to a lot of bad press that charitable aid has received, making intelligent investments into anti-poverty solutions is effective- as effective as lifting that child out of shallow water.
If nothing else, it’s something to chew on, when you are considering how much you are willing to do for the poor this year.
First, imagine that you are taking your morning walk, a stroll through a meadow behind your house. You are approaching a shallow pool of water, a trough that sometimes fills with rain. To your horror, you see that an infant is struggling in the pool, about to drown.
What do you do next?
You are probably wondering why I would even ask. Of course the answer is simple. You are going to lift this baby out of the water. Fine.
Next, I want you to imagine that the same baby is drowning in another pool of water, but the pool is located thousands of miles away. Perhaps you can see this happening on a television screen, or perhaps you have simply been told that it is happening by somebody reputable. Even though you can’t use your physical arms to lift up the child, you could do something just about as strenuous, like pushing a button or speaking a command, to initiate the rescue. Do you do it?
Are you doing it?
This exercise comes from a moral philosopher’s work on compassion and aid, in a 1971 essay titled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. The philosopher famously asserted that failing to devote a greater portion of Western wealth to the cause of ending poverty was equivalent to opting out of rescuing a drowning child.
Why?
Because giving a small portion of our wealth is easy- as easy as pausing in your morning walk to rescue a child.
Because, contrary to a lot of bad press that charitable aid has received, making intelligent investments into anti-poverty solutions is effective- as effective as lifting that child out of shallow water.
If nothing else, it’s something to chew on, when you are considering how much you are willing to do for the poor this year.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
South Sudan: A Happy New Year for Africa’s Undecided Nation?
It’s nearly New Year’s eve, and Southern Sudanese people are celebrating while they consider what the future of their nation should be. Meanwhile, the UN is stockpiling food in case the January referendum to decide whether the Christian/animist south will separate from the largely Islam north results in violence.
It’s a tense time for Africa’s largest country. While the referendum puts into motion a shift that will either bring stability, change, violence, or progression for the nation as a whole, at the village level, South Sudanese people are struggling to establish peaceful lives.
While HOPE International Development Agency’s Sudanese colleagues have many success stories to share and their skill in bringing permanent positive changes to communities is growing they are also adept at responding to crisis - unfortunately due to much hard experience. It is not uncommon for them to need to move quickly in order to supply food, shelter, and care to people who have had to leave their villages due to attacks from unsympathetic tribes.
Decades of civil war leaves a legacy of mistrust and violence. Poverty can make neighbours turn on each other if they feel it will aid in their survival. The reality of life on the ground in South Sudan is one of great difficulty and uncertainty.
It is also one in which extraordinary people are trying to make a good life. While we can’t guarantee nation-wide stability or just political outcomes, we can invest in capable and worthy people. They will be the ones to lead their neighbours, slowly and with some difficulty, into a South Sudan that might someday mark their holidays with a little less anxiety.
It’s a tense time for Africa’s largest country. While the referendum puts into motion a shift that will either bring stability, change, violence, or progression for the nation as a whole, at the village level, South Sudanese people are struggling to establish peaceful lives.
While HOPE International Development Agency’s Sudanese colleagues have many success stories to share and their skill in bringing permanent positive changes to communities is growing they are also adept at responding to crisis - unfortunately due to much hard experience. It is not uncommon for them to need to move quickly in order to supply food, shelter, and care to people who have had to leave their villages due to attacks from unsympathetic tribes.
Decades of civil war leaves a legacy of mistrust and violence. Poverty can make neighbours turn on each other if they feel it will aid in their survival. The reality of life on the ground in South Sudan is one of great difficulty and uncertainty.
It is also one in which extraordinary people are trying to make a good life. While we can’t guarantee nation-wide stability or just political outcomes, we can invest in capable and worthy people. They will be the ones to lead their neighbours, slowly and with some difficulty, into a South Sudan that might someday mark their holidays with a little less anxiety.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
UNION Volunteers: Recollections from the Dominican Republic
The memories of past HOPE International Development Agency volunteers do the best job of conveying the experience of volunteering. From time to time over the coming months, we’ll share a few of these experiences.
Below, Dominican Republic 2009’s Keith Esch recounts two of his favourite experiences in Ocoa, the mountainous district where our volunteers have worked alongside poor farming families for over 25 years.
“Everyday, after a long, hard, hot, days work, we’d file back to the two-room school house in which we lived. One by one we’d shower the dirt, cement or paint off our bodies and proceed to devour that night’s dinner. Hard work in that hot heat will put a fierce hunger in you, so when I used the verb devour in the last sentence, I meant it. Seriously, I almost used the verb inhale instead.
At that point in the evening, it would be about 7:00 pm. Our stomachs were satisfied and our minds were satisfied in knowing we did something meaningful and helpful that day. Like clockwork every night, the kids from the neighboring area would come over to the school. We had tennis balls, a soccer ball, a basketball, a guitar, construction paper and markers and we’d all play until dusk. Arroyo Blanco normally only got a couple hours of electricity in a normal day, so when the light bulbs suddenly came on each night, there was always a little excitement in the air. We’d listen to Bachata music, and relaxed by reading or journaling. We’d turn in early each night, content to wake up and do it again the next day. Time went slower there."
Keith shares more of his experience...
"I love riding in the flatbeds of trucks. I absolutely love it. Even in North America, if there is a truck and a low risk of passing a police officer, you don't even need to ask where I'm going to sit. So you can imagine the sheer joy I felt upon arriving in the Dominican Republic, a country where riding in the back of trucks is an openly accepted part of life. A few of us were fortunate enough to ride in the back of the truck on the very first day. Over many hours, we drove from the airport, through the capital of Santo Domingo, into the breathtakingly beautiful interior. The panoramic view’s intensity was magnified by the wind and the sun and I remember feeling pure joy as we raced down the paved -then unpaved- roads. We road in the flatbeds of trucks numerous times throughout our six week stint, but the magical feeling of watching some of the world’s most gorgeous landscapes rush past never got old. It felt like we were flying, only if flying could be done from the comfort of a flatbed of a truck.”
If volunteering overseas is something you or someone you know have ever considered doing, check out the options for 2011.
Below, Dominican Republic 2009’s Keith Esch recounts two of his favourite experiences in Ocoa, the mountainous district where our volunteers have worked alongside poor farming families for over 25 years.
“Everyday, after a long, hard, hot, days work, we’d file back to the two-room school house in which we lived. One by one we’d shower the dirt, cement or paint off our bodies and proceed to devour that night’s dinner. Hard work in that hot heat will put a fierce hunger in you, so when I used the verb devour in the last sentence, I meant it. Seriously, I almost used the verb inhale instead.
At that point in the evening, it would be about 7:00 pm. Our stomachs were satisfied and our minds were satisfied in knowing we did something meaningful and helpful that day. Like clockwork every night, the kids from the neighboring area would come over to the school. We had tennis balls, a soccer ball, a basketball, a guitar, construction paper and markers and we’d all play until dusk. Arroyo Blanco normally only got a couple hours of electricity in a normal day, so when the light bulbs suddenly came on each night, there was always a little excitement in the air. We’d listen to Bachata music, and relaxed by reading or journaling. We’d turn in early each night, content to wake up and do it again the next day. Time went slower there."
Keith shares more of his experience...
"I love riding in the flatbeds of trucks. I absolutely love it. Even in North America, if there is a truck and a low risk of passing a police officer, you don't even need to ask where I'm going to sit. So you can imagine the sheer joy I felt upon arriving in the Dominican Republic, a country where riding in the back of trucks is an openly accepted part of life. A few of us were fortunate enough to ride in the back of the truck on the very first day. Over many hours, we drove from the airport, through the capital of Santo Domingo, into the breathtakingly beautiful interior. The panoramic view’s intensity was magnified by the wind and the sun and I remember feeling pure joy as we raced down the paved -then unpaved- roads. We road in the flatbeds of trucks numerous times throughout our six week stint, but the magical feeling of watching some of the world’s most gorgeous landscapes rush past never got old. It felt like we were flying, only if flying could be done from the comfort of a flatbed of a truck.”
If volunteering overseas is something you or someone you know have ever considered doing, check out the options for 2011.
Friday, December 10, 2010
South Sudan: A Closer Look at Clean Water Training
In South Sudan, we are hard at work with families of refugees who have returned to their former homes after the end of civil war. In the long list of services that must be restored if families are going to live in stable communities, clean water is at the top.
Like with all our work, infrastructure must be accompanied by education. Our colleagues in Sudan are learning to put together wonderful training sessions that ensure that families enjoy every potential benefit that a clean water system can bring to their community.
For a closer look at what these sessions are like, see this list of questions that villagers in a small community called Wiro had for the instructor who asked them what they wanted to learn about:
First, it indicates the level of passion and sophisticated interest that people in Wiro feel towards their water system. It reveals how multidimensional clean water is; the questions posed touch on technical, social, environmental, and interpersonal issues.
The questions are good ones—and if they don’t get the answers, you can just begin to imagine what problems might arise. For example, if they aren’t taught to fence the ‘water point’ (where collection occurs) from livestock and the water is contaminated and then abandoned because it still makes them sick, what good would all the concrete, engineering, and labour that went into creating the system be?
When we take knowledge for granted, we do the families we work with a great disservice. HOPE International Development Agency founders like to tell an anecdote about their early efforts to bring clean water to the poorest of the poor that illustrates this point well.
In an Ethiopian village where a new system had just been installed, a HOPE International Development Agency worker offered a man a drink of clean water - the first he would have ever tasted. The man, who by all accounts was a wise and respected member of the community, categorically refused the water. When asked why, the man explained that he didn’t trust what was on offer - it had no colour at all, and he knew that’s not what water should look like.
Any ‘benefit’ has to be understood in order to be truly beneficial. That’s why we commend the hard work our friends in Southern Sudan are doing to increase knowledge among the families working with us.
Like with all our work, infrastructure must be accompanied by education. Our colleagues in Sudan are learning to put together wonderful training sessions that ensure that families enjoy every potential benefit that a clean water system can bring to their community.
For a closer look at what these sessions are like, see this list of questions that villagers in a small community called Wiro had for the instructor who asked them what they wanted to learn about:
- How to increase water access and avoid conflict over water sources.
- Discussion on sanitation around water sources
- Hygiene promotion and water source management
- Learn to mobilize community to create awareness on environmental hygiene
- Learn and implement water protection strategies
- Protecting water sources
- How people and livestock can share water sources and keep water source hygienic
- Water containers hygiene
- Maintain water source sanitation
- River and bore hole water and how to manage the two
- Discuss value of clean water and how to use river water source
- How to manage use of water by diverse groups of people and how to reduce conflict over water
- Create awareness on use of clean water
- Repair of broken borehole
- Management of water source and community mobilization
- Acquire knowledge and tools for repairs
- How best to use new borehole.
First, it indicates the level of passion and sophisticated interest that people in Wiro feel towards their water system. It reveals how multidimensional clean water is; the questions posed touch on technical, social, environmental, and interpersonal issues.
The questions are good ones—and if they don’t get the answers, you can just begin to imagine what problems might arise. For example, if they aren’t taught to fence the ‘water point’ (where collection occurs) from livestock and the water is contaminated and then abandoned because it still makes them sick, what good would all the concrete, engineering, and labour that went into creating the system be?
When we take knowledge for granted, we do the families we work with a great disservice. HOPE International Development Agency founders like to tell an anecdote about their early efforts to bring clean water to the poorest of the poor that illustrates this point well.
In an Ethiopian village where a new system had just been installed, a HOPE International Development Agency worker offered a man a drink of clean water - the first he would have ever tasted. The man, who by all accounts was a wise and respected member of the community, categorically refused the water. When asked why, the man explained that he didn’t trust what was on offer - it had no colour at all, and he knew that’s not what water should look like.
Any ‘benefit’ has to be understood in order to be truly beneficial. That’s why we commend the hard work our friends in Southern Sudan are doing to increase knowledge among the families working with us.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
From Cancun to Ethiopia: Without the will, there Is no change
Details from the ongoing world climate talks in Cancun paint a picture of a tentative, quite torturous process, in which ‘the negotiations are going to be complex if there is no flexibility by the parties and no political will.’
By mid-December, we will know whether the participants have managed to work a deal out that will have enough parties making enough changes to curb emissions for the conference to have been worthwhile. Climate change is nothing if not a complex problem - difficult to understand, difficult to muster the will to respond to.
Helping the poor to transform their villages into viable communities is also nothing if not complex. As with climate change strategies, there must be sufficient ‘social will’, and everybody needs to participate if it’s going to work. If the results are not clearly understood or clearly valued, then the process is a non-starter.
These are the kind of social complexities that we take into account before we start working with a village or a group of people. It’s not enough to just plunk down a load of money, or a load of concrete, or a load of tools.
There has to be a will among community members to do what it takes, including make sacrifices. For example, in Ethiopia, people who work with us to build water systems for their villages will spend many days of very hard labour for no pay in order to clear the way for pipes.
Everybody must participate equally. When the water system is installed, people have to be willing to work on committees that will maintain the system, people have to pay their fees for repairs, et cetera, and people have to put into practice the health and sanitation training they were given, or else their health gains are nullified.
In every instance, a village will remain poor if the people living there are not truly leading the process. Money alone is no cure, just like a conference alone will not address the problems associated with climate change.
If poverty reduction were simple, it would happen quickly. But as with most wonderful, truly worthy goals, it’s more complicated than that.
By mid-December, we will know whether the participants have managed to work a deal out that will have enough parties making enough changes to curb emissions for the conference to have been worthwhile. Climate change is nothing if not a complex problem - difficult to understand, difficult to muster the will to respond to.
Helping the poor to transform their villages into viable communities is also nothing if not complex. As with climate change strategies, there must be sufficient ‘social will’, and everybody needs to participate if it’s going to work. If the results are not clearly understood or clearly valued, then the process is a non-starter.
These are the kind of social complexities that we take into account before we start working with a village or a group of people. It’s not enough to just plunk down a load of money, or a load of concrete, or a load of tools.
There has to be a will among community members to do what it takes, including make sacrifices. For example, in Ethiopia, people who work with us to build water systems for their villages will spend many days of very hard labour for no pay in order to clear the way for pipes.
Everybody must participate equally. When the water system is installed, people have to be willing to work on committees that will maintain the system, people have to pay their fees for repairs, et cetera, and people have to put into practice the health and sanitation training they were given, or else their health gains are nullified.
In every instance, a village will remain poor if the people living there are not truly leading the process. Money alone is no cure, just like a conference alone will not address the problems associated with climate change.
If poverty reduction were simple, it would happen quickly. But as with most wonderful, truly worthy goals, it’s more complicated than that.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Cambodia: Water Festival Disaster Illustrates
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.
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.
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.
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