Emergency in Northern Afghanistan

Efforts to help Afghanistan’s poorest families survive the winter are underway. As previously reported in Perspective, the coming winter is promising to be a brutal one for people living in the Northeast, where droughts during the growing season have already compromised the food supply of these farming communities.

As always, HOPE International Development Agency seeks to bridge the gap from emergency to survival and from chronic neediness to sustainable self-sufficiency. So even as short-term aid in the form of food rations is distributed to Afghani families, we are working with the people to create reliable supplies of food and income.

A Seed Bank in a village establishes a system for increasing the amount of available seed in a community. Members contribute seed, draw upon the fund when they need to, and pay it back with modest ‘interest’. An Animal Bank grants people the incredible food and labour resource that is a cow or an ox.

Both systems are being established alongside HOPE’s distribution of emergency aid. This help, both short and long-term in nature, could not come at a better time.

Grandmother Qahar, shown in the photo above, is smiling - despite the fact that she has just demonstrated that her family of six has only 4 kilograms of flour left to eat. She has just been told that not only will they be helped through the winter, but they will also receive an ox and enough seed from the Seed Bank for next year’s harvest. She knows that her family’s odds have been phenomenally improved.

We know many, many families like the Qahars who are sick, despondent, and frankly, terrified. We are asking our readers to help us reach as many families as possible. Remember, it is not just about the crisis today – it is about their chances tomorrow.

Ethiopia: The miraculous is simple

Often, a short conversation with a person who has benefited from gaining access to clean water is enough to bring the purpose of HOPE International Development Agency’s clean water programme into sharp relief.

On a recent visit to Dereshe district, in Ethiopia’s hardscrabble south, a woman named Kitodeh told a HOPE staff member her story...

I am 43 years old. I have 8 children, four boys, four girls.

During the rainy season, I used to get water from the river, but in the dry season, I had to dig in the stream to find any. It took me two hours to walk there, and two hours back. The water was too dirty, but I had no other choice. Animals and people bathe there.

Now, I only have to walk a few meters to collect water from our water point. It’s like a miracle to have water next door. It is also very good quality—I can shower, drink, wash and give my cattle water and none of us get sick.

I used to have one 20 litre jug to fill and we had to use it very sparingly or we would run out. Now we can use five 20 litre jugs.

HOPE staff taught us how to use the system and if we have problems, people in the village know how to repair them.

Asayno, in a neighbouring village, had this to share...

I am 44. I had 14 children, but 6 of them died.

The water we used to collect was so dirty. We tried to put rocks around it to protect it from the mud but it didn’t work. There would always be a long line-up, and never enough to go around. We were always sick and we never knew why.

Now the water is 1 minute away. And Praise the Lord: it is of good quality and we are all healthy again.

Clean water is so simple that it seems almost negligible when you consider all of the glamorously complex solutions to suffering that are proposed. Yet few investments so modest (HOPE’s average cost to provide a person with clean water for life is $60) yield dividends like this:

• Four to six hours per day of extra time not spent walking or waiting in line.
  
• Enough water to bathe as well as escape dehydration.
  
• A productive, well-watered vegetable garden.
  
• An 80% drop in sicknesses among your family members.
  
• Most importantly: children who live to become adults.
  

Kitodeh is right. It’s a miracle.

The Democratic Republic of Congo: going backward or moving forward?

In north-western Democratic Republic of Congo, where HOPE International Development Agency is at work with severely poor families, the effects of the eastern region’s latest dip into armed conflict have not been felt too acutely. This is no reason to celebrate. While our work is undisturbed, the DRC’s latest humanitarian crisis is a serious discouragement for those us of who have been keeping our fingers crossed since the country’s historic (and undisputed) democratic elections in 2006.

Why the instability? Why the violence? For those of us living in peace and plenty, the situation is absolutely mystifying. Without attempting to deliver a hackneyed history lesson, the DRC is a classic example of a chronic problem: a track-record of poor governance and ethnic violence coupled with an abundance of natural resources. The horrid poverty of the majority exacerbates any kind of tendency towards conflict. People in great need (who see that others fare much better) often resort to violence.

What can be done? HOPE’s answer is simple: more, not less. More opportunities for the poor to become self-reliant, not less. More anti-poverty work, not less. More help for Congolese families, not less. The only way to secure peace for the future is to relieve the present realities of the poor.

Inviting the poor to join our exclusive club

An astonishing 3 billion people, nearly half of the world’s population, live on a mere $2.50 a day. With relatively few exceptions, most citizens of countries within the developed world do not find themselves among the segment of humanity trying to survive on the financial equivalent of a daily cup of coffee and a muffin.

The other half of the world - the one we’re accustomed to - live like members of an exclusive club and enjoy a lifestyle and array of opportunities far beyond the reach of non members – namely, the poor.

One could argue that there are two fundamental reasons that form the foundation upon which our exclusive club exists. Firstly and simply put, we live where we live. Secondly, and largely because of where we live, we have access to an unprecedented array of opportunities. In fact, the currency of our enormous wealth is opportunity. With few exceptions, even a member of our club with modest means can put few excuses forward in support of not doing relatively well within the context of all that our club offers.

These two fundamental reasons also form the basis by which more than 3 billion of our brothers and sisters, one billion of whom entered the 21st Century unable to read a book or sign their own name, find themselves excluded from our exclusive club. The currency of their lives is a profound lack of opportunity.

The poor of our world are willing and able to join our club. In fact, they would make exemplary members. The question we must answer is simple… are we willing to extend a compassionate hand and invite them to join us. Not out of a response to some form of guilt that if relieved, assuages our conscience, but rather, out of a sense that everyone has a right to be a member of our club.

The troubling news in all this is that our club is exclusive because we choose to make it so. The incredibly good news is that we have the ability to change it if we want.

Let’s change!

Someone needs to keep counting

By the end of today, poverty will claim the lives of 30,000 children. What is so troubling to me - beyond the fact that the vast majority of these deaths are completely preventable - is that few of us seem to notice or even know that so much humanity finds itself on the receiving end of poverty's final outcome – death.

Some would argue that comparisons of how many people die here versus there, wherever here and there may be, are neither relevant nor productive.

I would argue, however, that decisions are made every day, in every way, and everywhere, that determine the value of the most fragile among us – the children of our world. In fact, the evidence of these decisions is clear and present given that one child in the developing world will die every three seconds.

Recently, a HOPE International Development Agency volunteer and friend recalled a personal experience that illustrates the harsh reality of a child's life in the developing world.

Our volunteer was working alongside a Cambodian girl in Toul Krous, Cambodia, where villagers and volunteers were building an addition to the small school that serves the community.

As they were working, the young Cambodian girl suddenly stopped what she was doing and began shouting at a young boy carrying a small basket of earth toward the school's new foundation. At the time, our volunteer did not know what was happening but never the less, she was concerned. Later that day, she found out that the young boy was the brother of the young girl she had befriended and he was terribly sick, racked with fever and covered in open sores and blisters. Despite his suffering, he simply wanted to help.

It turns out though that the young girl had good reason to be concerned about her brother – she had lost so many siblings to disease and malnutrition she had actually lost count of how many had died.

Imagine being a young child and living in circumstances so desperate that you simply lose count of how many of your siblings, let alone friends, have died.

Imagine wanting to help, like the young boy, despite the terrible pain, suffering and very real possibility that you would lose your life as a result.

Are we, despite our health and wealth, desperate to help people who, without our help, are most certainly destined for endless suffering and, as is the case of far too many children in the developing world, death? If not, what reason would support such inaction?

Could it be that our material wealth is rivaled only by our moral impoverishment? Yes, someone needs to keep count and it needs to be you and I because if we forget, we are destined to lose what matters most – our humanity.

Freedom of speech is meaningless for those without the freedom to hear

Freedom of speech is among the most venerated freedoms we enjoy in the West. Rarely, however, do we speak about the importance of the freedom to hear.

For example, 30,000 of the world’s poorest children will die today. Their parents, through no fault of their own, most likely did not have the opportunity to hear that the diseases claiming their children were, in nearly every case, completely preventable. Few among the 80% of the world’s population that live on less than $10 a day will be able to avail themselves of the benefits directly derived from the freedom to hear that their life could be dramatically different.

Poverty, conflict, intolerance and oppression create a deafening silence among the world’s poorest peoples.

How, for example, does a family returning home after decades of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo hear that life can be different for them? How do orphan children, roaming the back alleys of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hear that there is tangible hope for them, despite their terrible loss?

You and I know that we are speaking words and dispensing knowledge that can literally save lives, but what if the people who need to hear our words are unable to hear them? Are we willing to work at removing the barriers – inequity, poverty, conflict, intolerance, and oppression, to name just a few – that make it impossible for people to hear the life-saving words we are saying?

The next time you think about our freedom of speech, take a moment to think about the freedom to hear. The next time you place a value on the freedom of speech, why not use the degree to which people are free to hear as the real measure of the value and effectiveness of our freedom to speak.

Surviving the peace proves as difficult as surviving war for families in southern Sudan

Peace persists in southern Sudan and so do we in our efforts to help families rebuild their lives after two decades of conflict that claimed the lives of 1.5 million Sudanese people and left nearly 4 million homeless.

People like Joseph Kubya and his family are one of the 4 million reasons we are doing everything we can to help families that are returning to their home villages in southern Sudan.

Joseph and his family spent the last 10 years hiding deep in the jungle in a desperate bid to survive. Contact with soldiers or militia groups had to be avoided at all cost as it always had deadly consequences.

Surviving the peace is proving very difficult for families like Joseph’s. The journey from the jungle to their former villages is arduous and marked with great uncertainty as families fear what they will find when they return home. Sadly, their worst fears are realized as they arrive in their home village and find it in a state of utter ruin.

HOPE International Development Agency is taking a comprehensive approach to helping these desperate families restore their lives and return home.

We are drilling wells that provide abundant supplies of clean water, significantly reducing the rates of diseases like cholera and dysentery.

Our health care and disease prevention efforts are dramatically improving the health of returning families and schooling for the children is rescuing the minds of an entire generation that have never had the opportunity to get an education.

Peace has replaced war and now, through the support of HOPE International Development Agency donors, hope will replace despair as families are able to rebuild their lives.

Drought and reduced harvests put families in Northern Afghanistan at risk this winter

Preparations are being made to send emergency relief supplies to families we're working with in Northern Afghanistan.

It’s not been an easy year for the Afghani communities we’re partnering with. The recent drought reduced crop harvests and the coming winter is looking to be rough.

HOPE International Development Agency is helping Afghani families by providing food and other necessities in order to bridge the gap between the poor harvest and the end of a long winter. Meanwhile, work continues to make these communities self-sufficient year-round, so that future winters can be weathered better.

If these families are not helped, then many of the men will need to leave their families in search of temporary work in Pakistan. We don’t want families to be broken up in this manner. So the need for relief is immediate, but the vision for self-sufficiency is ongoing and uncompromising. Please keep these families in your minds & hearts.

How do you define risk?

Risk, uncertainty, fear - these words are popping up everywhere right now. In the media, in our political debates, in our public and private spheres, people are expressing serious fears about the future.

While the economic meltdown in the United States is nothing to celebrate, it could provide an opportunity for Westerners to grow in compassion.

We might, for example, wake up in the morning and say, ‘What will happen if my investments don’t recover?’ We could dwell on this fear, choose to forget everybody, ignore everything and just hunker down until times are better. Or, we could follow this thought with, ‘If losing this money makes me this afraid, then what is it like to lose the ability to feed myself and my kids?’

At best, a typical family in Bangladesh might have $5 a day to spend, $3 of which would go towards food. But if food prices rise just 50%, they would lose $1.50 out of their total budget and have just $0.50 left for everything else.

That is risk, uncertainty and fear. That is profound and terrifying loss.

As bad as it gets for the middle-class of the world, we can’t forget that there are opportunities to provide security, hope, and courage to the world’s ‘bottom billion’. If we are demanding the kind of changes that will make our economic system more sustainable and reliable, then shouldn’t we also seek the changes that will do the same for families in countries like Bangladesh?

Such changes exist. Investigate the simple ones you can personally manage to support, and don’t let fear trump compassion.

Women play a key role in eradicating poverty

Recently, British actress Emma Thompson wrote an article for the BBC about the role that women play in making progress in the global fight against poverty. It’s an interesting read, with some salient points.

For example, did you know that women produce 80% of the food in poor countries? So shouldn't agricultural training and tools be targeted towards the female farmers that are growing the food for literally billions of family tables?

It has long been HOPE International Development Agency's experience that going out of our way to recruit women for anti-poverty work produces positive changes in families and communities at an accelerated rate. Indeed, leaving women out of the process makes no sense at all.

Read more about HOPE International Development Agency's efforts to help and equip women living in some of the poorest communities on earth.

Afghanistan: A Cost-Benefit Analysis with a Human Face

While the Canadian government continues to grapple with the financial and human cost of our military (and nominally reconstructive) commitment in Afghanistan, we are happy to note that HOPE International Development Agency’s investment into northern Afghani communities is making clear returns.

Regardless of whether one supports the NATO mission, bemoans it, or supports it while bemoaning it, few will suggest that the Afghani people are not worthy of assistance. But the question for the demonstrably compassionate Canadian public is always going to be: does our assistance work?

Humble though it may be when compared to the $100 million the Canadian government is spending on ‘development and reconstruction’ (and that number itself is humble compared to the yearly average of $1.3 billion expended on the military effort), HOPE International Development Agency's assistance is working for Aghanis.

We have clear goals that are connected the expressed desires of local people. The money is donated by discerning supporters who understand the projects. Our Afghani staff members are trusted friends. It’s easier to pull this sort of thing off when you’re working at the ‘grassroots’ level, as opposed to the incredibly ambitious scale of Canada’s current mission. But it’s still satisfying to see modest investments pay off rather richly. And we, unlike our beleaguered government, have a much easier time linking our efforts to the hope and happiness of our Afghani partners.

Here is a message from Gul Buhar, a young woman in a village where we are about to construct a secondary school when the funds become available through donations.

“During the war in Afghanistan my family moved to Pakistan and after the Taliban . We returned to our village which was completely destroyed and we had to rebuild our shelter again. I had chance to attend a school to 6 grades. I completed 6th grade last year and there is no school for higher grades. The school which has grades up to 12 is located 16 kilometers from our village and it is impossible for me to walk so long distance rough roads. Beside it girls are facing many limitations by community and families. So my best dream is having a school in my village.”

When the school is built, we’ll know what it means for Gul and other young men and women in the village. And we will have no trouble saying that money was well spent.

Hurricane Ike hits the Dominican Republic

Our friends in the Dominican Republic have let us know that Hurricane Ike has hit their communities particularly badly.

While there has been no loss of life, many of the mountain villages in which HOPE International Development Agency-partnered families live have been cut off from the rest of the world. Roads that have been built painstakingly on minimal funds have been washed out. Many families who had still been waiting to receive the materials to build sturdier, hurricane-resistant homes are now out in the open. Crops for food and income were damaged extensively.

Fortunately, damage to our rehabilitation work undertaken following last years’ Hurricane Noel has been minimal.

As with any disaster, the challenge is to build back better. It may seem like Central Americans are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to their climate. But to forget the role we can play in helping them to adapt to this challenge as well as to stand a better chance of coming through future storms in better condition (for example, by investing into higher-quality infrastructure or terraced hillsides that resist erosion) we fall prey to the classic temptation of the first-world onlooker. That is, to throw up our hands in despair and say, “A tragedy! I guess there’s nothing that can be done. You can’t control the weather.”

Well...when it rains, you can take an umbrella outside. And when Dominicans experience frequent hurricane conditions, they can work on building back their communities better — to be more weather-resistant and better able to spring back from their losses. And they will, if we continue to invest into them.

To see a few pictures of the damage wreaked in Ocoa province, where we are working, check out this blog that a friend in San Jose de Ocoa passed along to us.

We’ll be in touch with our Dominican people to find out how we can help. As we know more, we’ll share more.