246 posts categorized "Global Hunger"

(From left to right) Peter Vander Muelen, Office of Social Justice at the Christian Reformed Church in North America; David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World; Andrew Ryskamp, director of Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC); and Ida Kaastra Mutoigo, director of CRWRC Canada gathered in Grand Rapids, MI, to celebrate CRWRC's 50th anniversary on Friday, May 4, 2012. Photo by Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy.

While Bread for the World’s niche is Christian policy advocacy, we often partner with dozens of church entities that respond to global poverty with relief and development programs and ministries. Organizations such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), and Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) operate as the “official development arms” of the national church bodies reflected in their names. The on-the-ground wisdom and best development practices of these organizations inform Bread’s policy advocacy analysis and policy platforms about what works.

This past Friday evening, Bread for the World had the honor of celebrating the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in Grand Rapids, MI. The Christian Reformed Church, with about 280,000 members in the United States and Canada, and its relief arm, CRWRC, with an impressive budget of about $40 million, celebrated its five decades of work in 86 countries.

Along with tens of thousands of Christian activists and thousands of congregations, relief and development organizations help to strengthen Bread’s “collective Christian voice to end hunger.”  It was an honor for Bread’s president David Beckmann to reflect with CRWRC staff, board, and donors and consider the unique contributions CRWRC made in the life of Bread for the World.

CRWRC is a partner of the Alliance to End Hunger. Also, the Christian Reformed Church has faithfully supported Bread’s Hunger Report for the last 20 years. 

Andy Ryskamp, CRWRC’s executive director in the U.S., has been closely involved with two of Bread’s more recent high-profile religious-leader events aimed to engage influential evangelicals in foreign assistance reform: the evangelical consultation hosted at Wheaton College 2010 and its predecessor consultation hosted by Dallas Baptist University in 2011.  Ryskamp’s involvement in these initiatives helped attract other CEO’s from evangelical development organizations to participate in these events and to articulate why evangelical Christians should engage in advocacy, especially around U.S. foreign assistance.

CRWRC will change its name to World Renew this summer to reflect the wider reach of its relief and development ministries across the globe.

CRWRC’s commitment to local leadership, capacity building, empowerment, collaboration, and integral mission has impacted thousands of communities around the world. These aspects of CRWRC’s development work shape the kinds of effective development programming and policies that Bread for the World advocates for stateside.

Thank you for you partnership CRWRC.  Happy 50th anniversary!

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy coordinates evangelical church relations at Bread for the World.

A Liberian girl sits on her mother's lap during church. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl.

As a 21-year-old woman in the United States, I have many opportunities to share my opinions, ideas, and thoughts.  Sadly, many women and girls live in countries where they are not allowed to speak their minds -- places where their freedom of speech is repressed. However, organizations such as the G(irls) 20 Summit are working to change this as they invite young women, ages 18 to 20, from around the world to voice their opinions as they gather to freely discuss issues relevant to them and their countries. 

A delegate from each of the G-20 countries and the African Union are selected to participate in the event. At the G-20 Summit, the leaders of powerful countries discuss global economics and the policies that govern them. The girls invited to attend the G(irls) 20 Summit will have a similar agenda. The delegates discuss innovative ideas that will help empower girls and women globally. While the agenda is the same for the G20 Summit and focuses on economic advancement, all of the participants are girls. What an amazing opportunity for these young women! It is such a wonderful chance for them to make a difference despite their youth, race, or gender.

As an intern at Bread for the World, I see first-hand the importance of economic stability in order to break the shackles of hunger and poverty.  As a woman, I also understand how a society’s treatment of women can affect its economy. When women are respected and educated, poverty decreases.  As Elizabeth Gibbons said in a speech several years ago, “Education for girls is the key to the health and nutrition of  populations; to overall improvements in the standard of living;  to better agricultural and environmental practices; to higher Gross National Product; and to greater involvement and gender balance in decision-making at all levels of society.”  Although great strides are being made around the globe to provide equal opportunity for women, there is more work be done.

Bread for the World is proud to partner with the G(irls) 20 Summit this year. One of the issues the young women will be discussing is food security. Nearly 1 billion people in the world don’t get enough to eat and many of them are women and children. Food insecurity is also very closely linked to malnutrition, which is a key issue for Bread for the World. Children, especially those younger than 2, are at special risk of hunger and malnutrition. The 1,000 days from pregnancy through a child’s second birthday are the most crucial for a child’s development. But many women around the world don’t have access to proper nutrition for themselves or their children. Without proper nutrition during this critical period, children can suffer permanent cognitive and physical delays.

Even though I won’t be attending the G(irls) 20 Summit, I’m still planning to support people intent on changing the world, one girl at a time.           

Jael Kimball is media relations intern at Bread for the World.

Neelum Chand carries her son, Shuvam, 1, through the Nutrition Rehabilitation Home (NRH) in Dhangadhi, Nepal, after lunch on Sunday, April 29, 2012. The NRH, a project of the Rural Women's Development and Unity Centre, a Nepali NGO, works to restore malnourished children to health. Forty-one percent of Nepali children under age 5 are short for their age (stunted), according to the preliminary 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. Stunting is an indicator of malnutrition, and ensuring children are properly nourished in the 1,000 days between pregnancy and age 2 are vital to a child's development. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World

The circle of protection isn’t just a symbol for retired Pastor Jim Anderson; it is a promise to a friend who is an HIV positive AIDS orphan living a continent away. Now, the circle of protection is my promise too.

Earlier this year, Christians in Portland, OR, braved a rainy day to show support for the circle of protection.  Pastor Anderson carried a sign that had a circle around a picture of a young boy from Tanzania named Eliya. 

The day before Portland's Offering of Letters workshop, I received an email from Jim. He said he was extremely jet lagged, having just returned from Tanzania, but he would like a minute to address our members.

Jim told us the story of Eliya.  Globally funded anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines and nutritious supplements such as plumpy nut have saved Eliya’s life.  He told us about the compassionate care-givers in a Catholic-run program helping children like Eliya.  From them he learned that his own tax dollars helped provide global funds keeping these children alive and flourishing.  He also learned that potential cuts were very worrisome for the care givers who saw the lives that were daily affected.  In his blog post, Jim writes,

“I was thrilled to be able to assure Father Vincent that he did not battle alone. In America there are battalions of caring people who write letters to their senators and representatives, urging that they work to maintain a circle of protection around programs that make up the U.S. contribution to poverty-focused development assistance, including the Global Fund, PEPFAR, and other programs aimed at reduction of disease, malnutrition, and poverty.”

The Senate Agriculture Committee considers amendments this week on food aid in the Farm Bill.   Now Eliya is in my circle thanks to Pastor Jim, and I will be advocating for a circle of protection around lifesaving food aid.  If you have a member of Congress on the Committee, your voice is particularly important, so please take three minutes to call your member for Elyia or another picture and another story in your circle.

Call your member of Congress at 1-800-326-4941, or click here to send them a quick email.

Robin Stephenson is a regional organizer at Bread for the World.

Photo caption: Eliya (left) and Rev. Jim Anderson (right) sit together in Dodoma, Tanzania.

+Learn more about our mini-campaign on international food aid programs!

Kaleda Begum holds her friend's child Adia Akter (left), 17 months, and  her own daughter, Akkee (right), 18 months, in Char Baria village, Barisal, Bangladesh, on Thursday, April 19, 2012. These children are healthy and overall the rate of stunting fell among Bangladeshi children from 51 percent to 43 percent between 2004 and 2007, according to USAID. However, more than 10 million children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition in Bangladesh. It's an issue being addressed by the Bangladeshi government and donor partners incuding the United States. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World

Read Luke 5:17-20. This Gospel story offers a vivid image of group members working together to help their friend. God calls us into such community.

Genesis makes it clear from the beginning of creation that God intends for us to have helpers. God says of Adam, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The biblical story continues as a description of the relationship between God and the people of God. It is a community, not an individual, who is called to the Promised Land. And God blesses community.

In Matthew, Jesus promises the disciples, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there amI in the midst of them.” In the community described in our passage, a collection of people combined their resources and skills to get the paralytic man to the place where he could receive what he needed.

Consider the many gifts people in the story likely offered: resources such as a ladder and tools to get through the roof, creativity, strength to carry the man, and even the willingness of the homeowner to have a hole put in the roof.

After the group achieved its goal, Jesus recognized their faith, not simply the faith of the paralytic. And so it is with our nations. When we in the United States and other countries combine our resources, we can help people around the world who do not have enough food.

Molly Marsh is managing editor at Bread for the World.

Photo caption: Martha Togdbba of Kpaytno, Liberia, grows vegetables, including tomatoes and chili peppers. She irrigates her small farm with water from a nearby stream that she walks back and forth to with a watering can. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World.

+Learn more about our mini-campaign on international food aid programs!

Ferries wait to transport people across the Payra River in southern Bangladesh, about six miles north of the Bay of Bengal, on Saturday, April 21, 2012. This area was devastated by Cyclone Sidr in 2007, the latest in a series of natural disasters that often hit the country due to its unique location. Bangladesh, inhabited by 150 million people in a land mass the size of Wisconsin, is in the largest river delta in the world. It could be the country with the most people to be negatively affected by climate change, which exacerbates threats to food security, according to a 2010 USAID report. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World

Mukul Begum, a shasthya shebika (community health worker) for BRAC, stands in front of her home in Barisal, Bangladesh. Begum delivers basic health care, counseling, and treatment to people in her community.

Text by Molly Marsh / Photos by Laura Elizabeth Pohl

BARISAL, BANGLADESH---Mukul Begum reaches into a plastic jar for tuberculosis medicine and brings it to 70-year-old Amjed Ali Sikder, who sits on a bench outside her front door. She pours a glass of water from a clear pitcher, watching closely as he puts the pill in his mouth and swallows it. Satisfied, she gives him the water.

Begum, 37, is a shasthya shebika, one of about 80,000 health workers trained by BRAC, an international nongovernmental organization, to deliver basic health care, counseling, and treatment to people in their communities. BRAC’s social, health, and economic empowerment programs operate in each of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, reaching about 110 million people.

Shasthya shebikas such as Begum are the engines of BRAC’s work—in 2010, they treated 1,650,673 people, the vast majority in rural areas where medical information and care is limited.

For five years, Begum—a formidable but jolly woman—has made door-to-door visits to counsel people in Barisal, a district of Bangladesh, about safe sanitation, basic hygiene, and nutrition. She currently looks after 263 households; 2 percent of these receive what BRAC calls “Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course.” In other words, if Sikder hadn’t come to her house to take his medicine, she would have gone to his to make sure he took it.

People in the community also visit Begum’s house, a low concrete building that sits under a thick canopy of coconut trees, for help with a variety of ailments. Begum listens and then reaches for a shasthya shebika’s constant companion—a small blue plastic bowl that holds medicine for fever, dysentery, diarrhea, gastric ulcers, skin diseases, and allergic reactions. It also contains home pregnancy tests and pills for calcium, vitamin B, and birth control.

Begum purchases the medicine from her local BRAC office, which she can then sell to her patients at a slight profit. She also receives money when pregnant mothers deliver their babies in a hospital or when patients complete treatment—for example, she’ll receive 500 taka (about $6.50) when Sikdar finishes his 6-month treatment for tuberculosis.

Before they embark on their caregiving, shasthya shebikas receive 15 days of training at a BRAC learning center on health basics and communicable diseases. They also gather for refresher classes once a month, in which they and shasthya kormis (health supervisors) review training themes and discuss issues that have arisen in their communities. Shasthya shebikas also meet once a month with a BRAC manager to report their activities.

It’s a role Begum seems to enjoy. “In the community, people believe I’m a doctor,” she said through a translator. She stands in her front doorway; behind her a clothesline stretches down the hallway, filled with colorful clothes. To the left of her house sits a small shack with items for sale, including toilet paper, candy, bread, and snacks.

BRAC’s main health program, called Essential Health Care, targets poor people—especially women and children—with medical care using seven different components. They include programs that focus on malaria, tuberculosis, and vision problems, and on the needs of pregnant mothers, infants, and children.

Shasthya shebikas are critical to each of these efforts, in many cases receiving additional training to be able to diagnose and treat malaria, for example, or identify vision problems. Begum and others are the front line of care in their communities—not just in dispensing medicine but also referring people to clinics when ailments are beyond their expertise.

Molly Marsh is managing editor and Laura Elizabeth Pohl is multimedia manager at Bread for the World. You can follow Laura on Twitter at @lauraepohl.

Funding for poverty-focused foreign assistance comprises just 0.6 percent of the U.S. federal budget, yet these programs save millions of lives and help improve conditions for millions more by giving people the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty.

Poverty-focused foreign assistance programs fight systemic poverty and provide a chance for people to thrive. With the help of poverty-focused foreign assistance:

• The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen by 400 million since 1990.
• In 2010, 46.5 million of the world’s most vulnerable people and children received emergency food aid.
• In 2010, 5 million schoolchildren received school lunches through the McGovern-Dole School Feeding Program.
• More than 1.3 billion people have gained access to better sanitation since 2000.
• 3 million lives a year are saved through immunization programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
• U.S. funding for medication helps prevent more than 114,000 infants from being born with HIV each year. Additionally, more than 33 million people affected with HIV since 2004 have received counseling.
• More than 1 million lives could be saved each year by funding programs that focus on adequate nutrition during the 1,000-day window from pregnancy to age 2.
• A recent U.S.-funded project in Honduras successfully raised participating farmers’ purchasing power by 87 percent, compared to an 11 percent increase for non-participating farmers. Protecting poverty-focused foreign assistance ensures our national security:
• Research shows that for every 5 percent drop in income growth in a developing country, the likelihood of violent conflict or war within the next year increases by 10 percent.
• Poverty-focused foreign assistance is an important, strategic investment that saves our country from costly interventions later. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has stated, “development is far cheaper than sending in soldiers.”

Protecting poverty-focused foreign assistance programs bolsters our nation’s economy and helps build markets for U.S. goods and services:

• These programs expand our future trade capacity—50 percent of U.S. exports go to emerging markets, and one in five U.S. jobs are tied to trade.
• For every 10 percent increase in U.S. exports, there is a 7 percent decrease in the U.S unemployment rate.
• By enabling the most vulnerable people around the world to get out of poverty, we are ensuring future markets for U.S. goods and services and a brighter economic future for Americans.

Molly Marsh is managing editor at Bread for the World.

+Learn more about our mini-campaign on international food aid programs!

For more than 50 years, the United States has played an important role in alleviating global malnutrition and hunger, especially during emergencies.

This is done through a handful of international food aid programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Despite the tremendous need around the world — including the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa — Congress is considering deep cuts to these programs. We are particularly concerned about:

The Food for Peace Program or P.L. 480 represents the majority of food aid the U.S. provides to meet emergency and humanitarian needs in response to malnutrition, famine, natural disaster, civil strife, and other emergencies.

• In fiscal year 2010, the United States spent about $1.5 billion on emergency food aid that benefitted about 46.5 million people in poor countries.
• The World Bank estimates that an additional 44 million people have been pushed into poverty since mid-2010 as a result of the recent rise in food pricess
• In the world’s poorest countries, families spend between 60 and 80 percent of their income on food, which means that continued increases in prices hit the world’s poorest people the hardest.

The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program provides U.S. agricultural commodities and financial and technical assistance to carry out school feeding programs. The program also supports maternal, infant, and child nutrition programs.

• With funding of about $200 million in 2010, McGovern-Dole served approximately 5 million beneficiaries in 28 countries.
• For most schoolchildren, the one meal they get through this program is often the only meal they get all day.
• Where school meal programs are offered, children stay in school longer and their academic performance improves. Children who are hungry have a difficult time concentrating in school.
• In-school feeding and take-home rations improve school enrollment for girls. Educating girls in developing countries is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.

What's Our Message?

Create a circle of protection around funding for international food aid programs that serve as the greatest — and often only—line of defense between millions of families and hunger.

Molly Marsh is managing editor at Bread for the World.

Photo caption: Kaltoum Adam Imam with one of her five children collects millet in a land rented by a community leader in Saluma Area, near El Fasher (North Darfur). UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran.

+Learn more about our mini-campaign on international food aid programs!