Sudan - Escaping the violence is no guarantee of survival

When violence erupted in Abyei, Sudan, as armed forces from the north clashed with forces from the south, families had only moments to escape. Most fled with just the clothes on their backs and whatever meager possessions they could carry.

Right now, 2,500 families are living in makeshift encampments near the neighboring towns of Turalei, Mayen Abun, and Wunrok – that’s 28,000 people!

Escaping the violence is no guarantee of survival in the weeks to come. In fact, the well-being and survival of these families is very much in question.

Reports from the encampments are heartbreaking. One individual, having just witnessed the conditions families are living in, sent us an urgent email stating that the “humanitarian crisis is profound”, and that with each passing day the situation becomes even more critical for the families of Abyei who have lost everything.

While some emergency aid, such as water and emergency food rations, has been provided, we still need to do more in order to ensure the survival of these families.

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

Cambodia: Luis Vuitton and the Question of Core Values

Readers of high-gloss magazines will soon be treated to the sight of the comely Ms. Angelina Jolie, sans makeup, dressed in olive-drab, ‘in a swamp with a £7,000 bag,’ as the Guardian puts it. The photograph, featured in Luis Vuitton’s so-called ‘Core Values’ Campaign, was taken in — for us — familiar environs. The lush landscape setting off Jolie’s moody blue eyes belongs, in fact, to Cambodia, specifically to Siem Reap, the well-touristed area north of Pursat, where we work with some of the poorest families in the world.

Vuitton’s ‘Core Values’ campaign is, as far as one can gather, somehow about promoting extremely expensive handbags while assuring consumers that said bags are naturally associated with the brand of ethos evoked by celebrities like Jolie and Bono. Which are — philanthropy? Advocacy? A not entirely cursory read of the ‘Core Values’ website leads us to believe that the advertising campaign is basically just…an advertising campaign, presumably so that people will buy more bags. There were allusions to Al Gore’s Climate project, so perhaps Gore’s environmental advocacy organization will see a few bucks come its way?

As groundbreaking as Angelina Jolie without mascara may seem, we’d like to gently suggest that a demonstration of your ‘core values’ might not cost as much as a Louis Vuitton bag. Or perhaps it might.

In Cambodia, where the ad was shot, we can provide a clean water well that would serve a few families for around $1,000. So for the cost of this $11,000 bag, you could basically provide a small village with water for life.

In a corporate milieu where brands are constantly trying to humanize themselves by associating with ideas, cultures, and personalities that fit only very marginally and awkwardly with the actual, raw products they are hawking, it’s not a bad idea to keep your wits about you. Any sane person will tell you that a village without dysentery, cholera, and the preventable death of children is more valuable—to its core—than a monogram spangled piece of leather.

Across Canada: Running for Water, Saving Lives Here and Abroad

This past month was a busy one for athletes intent on saving lives - across the world, in the rural villages of Ethiopia, and in one instance, right in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

We have to give our thanks and kudos to the volunteer organizers of Abbotsford’s Run for Water and Halton, Ontario’s Run for Wells.

Both events were smashing successes, with the former raising over $200,000 and the latter over $45,000.

All proceeds will go to helping families in Ethiopia to construct and manage clean water systems, learn basic health and sanitation practices, and begin a steady ascent out of the worst poverty imaginable. It is no exaggeration to say that the runners and walkers who participated saved and transformed thousands of lives. By all accounts, they had fun doing it too.

Fortunately, thanks to the “the quick actions of local schoolteacher and Run for Water board member Claire Apostolopolous”, who performed immediate CPR on a volunteer who collapsed before the races, the Abbotsford event was not marred by what could have been a major tragedy. You can read the whole story at the Abbotsford Times.

We should mention that runners in Calgary are training for their own Run for Water, scheduled for September 10th. Again, proceeds will go to clean water in Ethiopia. For more information, go to www.runforwater.ca.

So there is a lot to be thankful for, to put it mildly. Families in Ethiopia are celebrating along with all the organizers, volunteers, and runners who made these events such successful ones for the cause of universal clean water.

Clean water - the beginning of the end of poverty for families in rural Ethiopia and southern Sudan

Water, something we often take for granted here at home, is claiming lives in Ethiopia and southern Sudan.

It would be a relatively rare event for someone here to worry about the quality of the water that flows from their taps. But in rural Ethiopia and southern Sudan there are few taps, and water – especially clean water – is even scarcer.

Right now, families in Ethiopia and southern Sudan are drinking water teeming with parasites and disease. The seriousness of the situation is illustrated by the heartbreaking fact that one in five children in Ethiopia and southern Sudan dies before the age of five because of unsafe drinking water.

Imagine gathering your drinking water from stagnant ponds and muddy stream beds, both of which are used by animals for drinking and bathing. This troubling situation is reality for thousands of families throughout rural Ethiopia and southern Sudan.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. With your help, lives can be saved and the suffering can be stopped.

Learn about how you can help bring clean water to families today by visiting www.hope-international.com.

Philippines: No Lost Causes

It’s a very hard read, but the Interpress Services website has a short but incisive article about child prostitution in the Philippines that we recommend reading.

This industry is truly nauseating. Trying to imagine what could possibly be done for victims like 13-year old Sharon is an exercise in being overwhelmed. This article itself does not draw conclusions on this score. In fact the experts the author consults are divided in their opinions. Some believe that only pre-emptive measures offer hope — that is, eradicating the sex trade before children are ensnared, because children who work in the trade long enough are, effectively, lost causes.

We can’t subscribe to the view these children are lost causes. Our mandate — ‘extending compassion to the neglected poor’, the neediest of the needy — compels us to aid victims of the sex trade.

Since August 2010, we’ve worked with our wonderful colleagues in the Philippines to provide affected children with better ways of earning income if they can’t live with their families. Most of them fled bad situations, and it’s no solution for them to go back. Depending on their interest, the girls can learn how to cook, make accessories, or practice cosmetology. This is just the start. These are children who need therapy, education, a solid sense that people are looking out for them.

You can help us to do all of this. If you believe that these children shouldn’t be considered lost causes, let them know by helping them today.

Guatemala: One Village Celebrates, One Anticipates

Recently, the rural Mayan community of Rijuyup in Guatemala held a two-day celebration of the completion of a HOPE International Development Agency-supported community water supply project. Prior to this happy occasion, the 500 households that constitute this village were without clean water. Now it is piped directly to their homes.


Women prepare traditional Mayan tortillas for the celebration.


Jorge Luis Castro León (left) warmly greets a friend in Rijuyup on the celebration day.

Nearby Rijuyup is the village of Chinanton. Here, there is no cause for celebration as of yet. Chinanton’s water source, an unprotected spring, dries up for several months a year. Before this water disappears each year, women begin queuing at 5 am and must wait many hours in the heat. Once there is no more water at this source women are forced to walk a couple hours one way to a stream where they collect dirty water. Juana San Amparas (pictured in blue and pink below) – a widow with several children – spoke to us passionately about this hardship. The burden of collecting water has been compounded for many women in Chinanton who are making do without a spouse as a result of systematic violence that devastated the community in the 1980s.



The people of Chinanton are both extremely eager and organized in their effort to develop a clean water system. There is clean spring water in the adjacent hills that can be capped and brought to the community, but this costs much more than the community has so they are requesting help. HOPE International Development Agency, of course, is there for the families of Chinanton. Wherever there are motivated poor communities, our work finds very promising conditions for transformation. Hopefully their celebration is not long in coming.

Ethiopia: ‘I cannot be quiet about it.’

We have a lot of reasons to celebrate the clean water systems that we’ve been able to help Ethiopian villages to create. But one of the changes that clean water brings is particularly close to our hearts: the tremendous and undeniably positive impact that it has for women.

This impact was clear to behold on a recent visit with Ethiopian families who have had their water systems for a while. As is the norm, families in the village of Deshkille totally operate and maintain their system in accordance with community standards that they create and enforce through committees that include both male and female members. One of these committee members, a Mrs. Abebech, shared with us that ‘When I was chosen to serve as one of the health and sanitation committee members, I was unsure because I never spoke in public before about anything. But with the training and information received, I am now able to speak in my house, in the village and to anyone that I meet. It is not about being shy anymore; I have information that is saving and changing lives. I cannot be quiet about it.’

We also spoke with Mr. Abebech about his wife’s community involvement. We were, we must admit, surprised — pleasantly — but his unambiguously positive take on what must have been a dramatic change in his wife’s demeanor. ‘I am surprised,’ he said, ‘and impressed at how she is now thinking about everything that we do in this house. It is not only about herself changing, my whole family is changing because of her, and that is a good thing.’

Indeed, Mrs. Abebech told us that she visits about 80 homes a month to share the knowledge she has gained about health and sanitation. She especially relishes helping other women to understand and take charge of their own reproductive health. A man could never do what she does. She is able to broach delicate topics and create an environment of safety and trust with the women through whom the health and function of the whole family flows. The impact that Mrs. Abebech is having should not be underestimated — Mr. Abebech certainly doesn’t.

Solving the problem of chronic hunger in rural Cambodia

Food and hope are in short supply in rural Cambodia these days. Impoverished families, held captive by a particularly oppressive form of poverty, are unable to grow enough food to sustain themselves.

Forced to scavenge for food scraps and eat roots, leaves, and a nutrient depleted mixture of rice and water, families are chronically malnourished.

HOPE International Development Agency is providing a solution to hunger among Cambodia’s poorest families by helping them transform the soil beneath their feet into gardens of hope that produce a bountiful harvest of nutritious vegetables throughout the year.

You can help us bring health and happiness to families in rural Cambodia. Learn more by visiting www.hope-international.com today.

India: Clean Water and the Benefits of Flexibility

It’s probably fair to say that our work with Ethiopian families has distinguished HOPE International Development Agency as an organization devoted to the issue of clean water. But while we deal mainly in protecting springs in Ethiopia, that doesn’t mean our methods look the same elsewhere. Where a lack of potable water might be a (frankly astonishingly) common problem in developing world communities, we don’t claim there is one single solution, one single model for delivering clean water to families in need. Among the other hard lessons we have learned over the years: it never pays to be inflexible.

In India, we’re proud to report that we have had great success providing ‘biosand filters’ to both urban and farming families in Madurai. Biosand filters are a relatively simple technology; in fact, versions of it have been used for centuries. Skipping over a great deal of technical detail, the filters basically work by straining water slowly through layers of sand and gravel, removing 90-95% of contaminants like bacteria, viruses, and worms.

Even simple technologies, ones that work with local conditions and cultures, need to be fully accepted by the poor in order to be useful. Just ask Mr. Nagrendran.

Mr. Nagendran lives in a township where the system supplied by the government is not maintained properly and people are regularly sickened by the water. He took it upon himself to organize a community group to research the problem and brainstorm solutions. We connected with them, and supplied biosand filters after they confirmed that the technology would work best.

Mr. Nagendran, of course, received a filter for his own home. But it took his wife some time to warm up to the new addition. She thought it took up too much space and wasn’t totally sold on its benefits, despite her husband’s activism. (Imagine how charmed by her stance he must have been!) After a while, although she wouldn’t drink the water, she succumbed to using some of it to cook rice. To her surprise, the rice turned out whiter and tastier than it had ever been. When she saw that it lasted for many more hours without spoiling than was normal, she finally came around. Now the entire family uses the filter and everyone is quick to sing its praises. So perhaps at this point Mrs. Nagendran shares our view on the virtue of flexibility.

The Meaning of “Hope”

On the week of our flagship gala celebrating our work with Haitian families, we’re working hard to ensure that people come away from the experience Saturday night with insight into the lives of the poor. It’s a good time to reflect on the essence of our mission.

These words, from HOPE Myamnar colleague David Tegenfeldt, are a rich reflection on the meaning of ‘hope’—both the word and the organization we are a part of:

“Commonly today, people use the term “hope” to express a wish, desire, or something they dream of. However, if we look at the Indo-European root of the word “hope” and at the Hebrew and Greek equivalents of the word “hope”, we get a somewhat different understanding of the word than how it is used in common parlance.

The Indo-European root of the word “hope” is the same root from which the word “curve” (to bend) comes from. Therefore, the root of the word “hope” gives us the connotation of a change in direction; going in a different way.

The Hebrew and Greek equivalent of our English word “hope” has the meaning of a strong and confident expectation. This meaning stands in contrast to “wishful thinking.”

Putting the Indo-European root and the Hebrew and Greek equivalent together, yields a meaning of the word “hope” as a confident expectation that a desirable change is likely to happen.

Percy Shelley, the 19th century romantic poet, in talking about “the moral imagination” said, “a man to be greatly good must imagine clearly, he must see himself and the world through the eyes of another and of many others.”

At HOPE International Development Agency, we engage in action which sparks and grows “hope” in the hearts and minds of vulnerable communities so that they can bring positive change to their lives and their futures. This positive change is both physical (i.e. reducing material poverty) and relational (i.e. transforming how individuals and communities see and relate to one another). Of equal importance is to spark the “moral imagination” in each of us – to arise out of and to go beyond our ordinary selves. Together, we can live out our hope for a better world.”

Ethiopia and Abbotsford: To Dream is a Privilege

With the annual Run for Water coming up in less than two months, and an Abbotsford-based UNION team having just traveled to Ethiopia’s Bonke region, consciousness of Ethiopian families at the crossroads remains high in Abbotsford, BC.

A rather remarkable relationship has formed between this first world community and the developing world districts that are notable for having the most dreadful clean water access rates around (only around 11% in Bonke when we first started our work there). Ethiopian families working with HOPE International Development Agency have the opportunity to changes things for good in their villages. The changes are so profound they amaze even our staff in Ethiopia, who are long accustomed to seeing the poor go a long way with only a little assistance - 80% drops in disease rates, children attending school rather than spending all day searching for water, women becoming leaders in their water system maintenance committees. All developments which were unimaginable before the clean water came.

The potential for transformation in Ethiopia is inspiring the people of Abbotsford. Since the Run for Water started up three years ago, a groundswell of support for clean water in Ethiopia has been growing in British Columbia’s fifth largest city. The Run for Water is a powerfully uniting event, and more than a one-day event, it’s a movement for advocacy and education. Their work in spreading knowledge of the situation of Ethiopian families is particularly prominent in Abbotsford’s school system.

An entire volunteer team was assembled from Yale Secondary School. They traveled to Bonke last month and brought back incredible stories and insights. Local media outlets have also chronicled their trip extensively - an indicator of just how much interest there is in this issue. The stories are worth reading.

Before their trip, they were featured on CTV News, and in the Abbotsford Times. Since their return, they were in the newspaper again.

In the words of one student, “I have hundreds and thousands of hopes and dreams. It is a part of life in Canada. I didn't know it was a privilege and a gift to have hopes and dreams.” These are words that cut to the quick. She is right. It is encouraging to see so many people use their capacity to dream to raise the standard of living for chronically poor families. This is exactly what Abbotsford’s relationship with Bonke district represents.

Writing a new chapter in the life story of the world's most marginalized children

If the early years of an orphaned child’s life were set before you in a book, without a doubt it would be a difficult read.

As each chapter unfolded, your descent into the oppressive world of poverty would leave you more and more desperate for relief. And as the book draws to a close, you might even have to put it down as you approach the inevitable moment when poverty claims yet another child.

There can be a completely different ending however. One that is full of hope, happiness, and health for orphaned children in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Swaziland.

If compassionate people whose gift at birth is something just shy of limitless opportunity, share with children whose birthright is anything but, a new chapter can be written in the life story of some of the world’s poorest, most marginalized children.

The new chapter includes a safe place to live, education, nutritious food, medical care, dental care, and counseling to help heal the emotional trauma of losing parents or being abandoned. For teens, their new chapter also includes vocational training that will ensure they can earn a sustainable living as they enter the workforce.

Learn more about what HOPE International Development Agency is doing to help these children and how you can help.