This request from Lori Funderburk, BGR’s international prayer strategist:
In the past ten days, Pakistan has been hit by the largest flood in a century. [photos] Nearly 12 million people have been affected by the flood. Over 1,500 people have died and another 1,500 are still missing. Government reports that more than half a million homes have been destroyed or severely damaged. Many towns and villages are isolated because of the destruction of the bridges over the rivers. A full assessment will not be easy or quick.
Because of your gifts to the World Hunger Fund, BGR partners were able to act immediately to send assistance. Thousands of people are being fed each day in areas of Pakistan that are some of the most devastated and difficult to access. Please pray for the health and safety of our partners. Pray for smooth coordination between partners and communities.
Gifts to the World Hunger Fund help our ministry partners respond quickly to disasters such as this. For information about donating, click here.
Life was hard enough in the remote villages of central and northern Afghanistan before a magnitude 5.3 earthquake killed at least 10 people and destroyed or damaged some 2,000 houses on April 18.
But the World Hunger Fund is making a difference even in this isolated area, says Francis Horton, who with his wife, Angie, directs BGR’s work in Central and South Asia.
“I was in this part of Afghanistan about one month ago and the needs under normal circumstances are great,” Horton says. “When something like this happens, it can be devastating to families.”
An initial emergency distribution of $30,000 has been released from the World Hunger Fund for relief supplies, Horton said. BGR partners are mobilizing emergency flour, rice, beans, and cooking oil for approximately 7,200 people – directly assisting 1,200 affected families at a cost of $25 per family.
“This help will reach into very remote areas,” Horton says. “Thank you to all who have donated to the World Hunger Fund that makes it possible to immediately connect people in need with people who care.”
KABUL, Afghanistan –– In a rural area of Afghanistan, where unemployment is high and many of the people lack job skills and literacy, nearly 50 women are finding new hope for their families through an independent business venture launched with Southern Baptist world hunger funds.
Ministry partners in the country recognized a need for helping people in the village develop sustainable sources of employment. Working with Baptist Global Response, they developed a plan that would help locals launch a self-sustaining business to supplement their families’ incomes.
“The problems are compounded for women, who are generally hard-working but have little opportunity to earn income because they appropriately invest their energies into their own households and children,” the project director explained. “Our aim was not to take them away from those ongoing responsibilities, but to provide sustainable supplemental income to them, income that would boost their total household income and provide some dignity to these ladies.”
The ministry partners worked with the women to begin processing and spinning camel down into yarn, which they hope to begin exporting to buyers in the United States this spring. The project initially was designed to involve 10 to 15 women, but more women came as the word of the new venture spread.
The initiative is helping the women find hope and peace so they can raise their families in confidence and have full, meaningful lives, the project director said.
“This project has provided supplemental income to poor Afghan women,” the project director said. “As it is supplemental, rather than primary income, it is difficult to know just how much of an impact it makes in alleviating physical needs. I suspect that most women use the income they earn for basic food supplies, such as potatoes, rice and flour, and children’s needs, such as clothing and school supplies.”
The husband in one family being helped had been paralyzed by a fall from a tree. After a doctor in Kabul said nothing could be done for the man, both the mother and her oldest daughter were able to join the camel down project to provide income for the family of eight.
As field partners continue to work to sell the product and develop the business, they hope to continue to provide employment to Afghan women, the project director said. He said the business venture has had a positive effect on the community.
“Afghans want to experience the freedom and dignity of earning what they work for, rather than needing handouts,” the project director said. “The surprise was not that the women enjoyed this type of relationship, but that the community also largely seemed happy about it, including those who did not directly benefit from the project.”
–––
Submitted by June Lucas, a collegiate correspondent for Baptist Global Response. Donations to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund or to BGR General Support can be made here.
A wonderful project in a remote Kenyan village — funded by the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund — is saving lives with a simple ceramic water filter that strains out harmful bacteria and parasites that cause diarrhea, cholera and other waterborne diseases.
A ministry partner has posted this brief video to communicate the urgency of the hunger problem in Kenya and the critical role played by gifts to the Southern Baptist World Hnger Fund. One hundred percent of every dollar given to the WHF is used to meet hunger needs. World Hunger Sunday is Oct. 11.
—–
Hunger is a very real problem all through the drought stricken Rift Valley region of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Thanks to the generous gifts of Southern Baptists to the World Hunger Fund, BGR partners are able to plan hunger relief projects to help alleviate some of the suffering. God is blessing these efforts. Pray for good rains this next season. Pray for God to strengthen people in these food distribution efforts.
Jeff and Regina Palmer hand out the new “bread banks” for the World Hunger Fund at the Baptist Global Response booth during the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville. The banks are available at http://worldhungerfund.com.
SINGAPORE – In one part of South Asia, where as many as one-third of the people suffer from malnutrition, Southern Baptists are making a difference with a project called “Wise Mother, Healthy Family.”
More than 15 tons of grain, along with multivitamin supplements, are being made available to pregnant women and malnourished children in four districts, using $33,270 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.
“A recent United Nations report states that an average woman in this area has five children, that all of her children under age 3 are malnourished, that she works 15 hours a day, and is anemic,” said Francis Horton, who with his wife, Angie, directs work in Central and South Asia for Baptist Global Response. “Other projects have discovered a large percentage of underweight children as well.”
The “Wise Mother, Healthy Family” project will help at least 500 women and their families with an ongoing distribution of rice, corn and “dal,” a dietary staple in South Asia made of hulled, split beans or lentils, Horton said. Women in the communities will work in groups of 20 to 25 to clean, roast and mill the grain, producing a high-protein, pre-cooked flour that will greatly improve the nutrition of their families.
A two months’ supply of high-protein flour and multivitamins costs about $10. The project also will monitor the weight of children under 5 years old. The women also will be involved in small-group dialogues about family health.
“The food situation in this area has worsened dramatically, and this project can set in motion a multiplication process that eventually could help far more families than the ones currently being assisted” Horton said. “This project has a goal of establishing five or six locations in each of the four districts. Once completed, it will leave behind leaders who have been trained and can multiply the health education through out the province.”
Women in this part of South Asia desperately need the prayers of concerned Christians, Horton added.
“Their world is becoming increasingly insecure due to economic, political and religious conflict,” Horton said. “Please pray that this project would help them understand God’s love for them and that they would experience the full and meaningful live he wants them to have.”
–––
Donations to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund make projects like this possible. For information about giving to the World Hunger Fund, please visit our Giving page.
Ashleigh Campbell is a collegiate correspondent for Baptist Global Response.
MARDAN, Pakistan - Relief workers are mobilizing to identify ways Southern Baptists can help some of the estimated 1.2 million people who have fled Pakistan’s Swat Valley as their country’s military inflicts heavy casualties on Taliban
insurgents who control the area.
“This is being called by some the worst internally displaced person emergency in recent times,” said Francis Horton, who with his wife, Angie, directs work in South Asia for Baptist Global Response. “Field partners are in the process of assessing the needs and what is already being done or planned to be done so we can then fill the gaps and meet needs that might otherwise go unmet. We will work with them to assess what response will be most strategic.”
The United Nations’ refugee agency said Monday that 1.2 million people from Swat and two adjoining districts in northwest Pakistan have registered as “internally displaced people,” according to the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. Barely 10 percent, however, are living in the camps opened to accommodate them.
“It looks like the vast majority is opting out of the camps in favor of staying with relatives or taking a place on rent,” Horton said. “Somewhere around 80 percent of the displaced people are women and children.”
Pakistani authorities said Monday more than 1,000 militants have been killed since they launched their assault on the Taliban April 26, the AFP news service reported. The government puts it own losses at 46 soldiers. The Pakistani government had signed an agreement with the Taliban in February that would allow the Taliban to implement Sharia law in the Swat Valley in return for ending their year-long insurgency. Taliban militants, however, quickly moved into surrounding districts as close as 60 miles to the capital and even made shows of force in the Karachi area, some 700 miles away.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani recently convened the country’s political parties to demand the Taliban to disarm and said the government intends to “eliminate” the threat Islamist militants pose to the nation’s sovereignty.
The military said Monday that as many as 15,000 troops were fighting about 4,000 Taliban fighters in Swat, where troops reportedly are closing in on Mingora, the capital. Pakistan President Asif Zardari said the army also will move on Waziristan, the remote, rugged area where the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and Afghan insurgents are based.
Zardari told London’s Sunday Times newspaper: “Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.”
The United Nations is establishing “humanitarian hubs” in Pakistan to provide help to people who are staying outside of the camps, Horton said. The agency also has opened up stockpiles in Pakistan to provide locally obtained relief items such as tents, kitchen sets, sleeping mats and blankets. The UN also announced it would conduct an airlift to bring additional urgently needed supplies from Dubai. Those supplies are expected to include plastic sheeting, mosquito nets and two large portable warehouses.
“We will take the field partners’ assessments and put together a response that will help people in the best way we can,” Horton said. “Some of the initial needs will be food, water, toiletries, cooking utensils and livelihood.”
—
Contributions to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund allow Southern Baptists to provide financial resources to help people during a crisis like this. For information on giving through the World Hunger Fund, please visit our Giving page.
