After Japan’s Tsunami, a Glimmer of Hope

Posted on May 24, 2013 | Leave a comment

By Kate Andrews, ChildFund Staff Writer

From ChildFund Japan, one of our ChildFund Alliance partners, comes a touching video about how the seaside city of Ofunato is recovering from the deadly earthquake and tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011. “The Garland of Smiles,” which focuses on ChildFund’s people-centered approaches to healing and rebuilding, is nearly 22 minutes long, yet if you are interested in seeing what has happened in the aftermath of the tsunami, it’s well worth viewing.

More than 15,000 people in Japan died as a result of the disaster, and as we see in the video, numerous homes and buildings were destroyed, forcing as many as 8,000 people in Ofunato to live in temporary housing. It’s in this makeshift community where we meet ChildFund Japan project manager Yoshikazu Funato, who oversaw many initiatives to bring back some normalcy to children and adults.

ChildFund Japan, which normally assists children and families in the Philippines and Nepal, had to focus its energy inward after the disaster. With financial support from other ChildFund Alliance members, including ChildFund International, ChildFund Japan concentrated its activities in Ofunato because outside support was less available there than in other stricken areas. Beginning its work in the weeks after the earthquake and tsunami with a variety of volunteers and staff, ChildFund completed its projects in March 2013.

In preparation for the rebuilding, Funato and others conducted a door-to-door survey to see what Ofunato’s residents wanted and needed most. Some projects were small — building wooden benches in the temporary communities to promote socializing — while others were more ambitious, like providing grief counseling to preschoolers and creating a collective farm that keeps residents supplied with healthy food.

As a result of ChildFund Japan’s work throughout the past two years, some residents in temporary housing became invested in the improvements, from working at the farm to taking part in a residents’ association.

As you’ll see in the video, Ofunato has undergone a transformation in the past 24 months — not just physically but in attitude as well.

 

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Posted in ChildFund Alliance, Programs, Success Stories

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Celebrating 50 Years of African Unity and Remembering Children

Posted on May 23, 2013 | 3 Comments

By Tenagne Mekonnen, ChildFund Africa Regional Communications Manager

logo commemorating 50th anniversary of African UnionThe 50th anniversary of the Organization of Africa Unity is being celebrated this week in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

The official anniversary on May 25 marks a significant milestone in the journey of Africans since the OAU charter was signed in 1963 by representatives of 32 governments. The aim was to promote the unity and solidarity of the African states and achieve a better life for Africa’s people. South Africa became the 53rd member in 1994, and in 2002, the OAU’s successor, the African Union, was formed.

Anniversary celebrations will draw on African narratives of the past and present, while looking to the future. The anniversary is expected to motivate and energize denizens across the African continent to accelerate a forward-looking Pan-African agenda and a 21st-century renaissance.

Against this historical backdrop, ChildFund International’s Africa regional office, Save the Children, Plan International and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Children are staging a one-day conference to shine the spotlight on Africa’s children.

Today’s event, “Children’s Rights in Africa 50 Years of the OAU/AU” reflects on challenges and progress during the past five decades, while seeking even greater protection and promotion of children’s rights by leaders across Africa in the future.

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Posted in ChildFund International

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An Early Marriage Averted: Kadiatu’s Story

Posted on May 21, 2013 | 2 Comments

Reporting by ChildFund Sierra Leone

For 50 days, ChildFund is joining with numerous organizations to demonstrate support for government policies and programs that will allow women and girls to be healthy, empowered and safe — no matter where they live. Ending early and forced marriage is this week’s theme.

Sierra Leone girl in school uniform

School has been a refuge for Kadiatu.

In 2005, at the age of 10, Kadiatu was enrolled in ChildFund’s programs serving the Daindemben Federation in her Sierra Leonean community. With support from her sponsor to pay for school fees and learning materials, Kadiatu eagerly embraced the educational opportunities available to her.

But when she reached junior secondary school, Kadiatu’s father decided to remove her from school and give her in marriage to a middle-aged man in the village. ChildFund and its local partner intervened on Kadiatu’s behalf, standing firm to ensure that her father’s decision was overturned. The marriage was cancelled, and Kadiatu continued her schooling. But her father withdrew all support. Her mother has died long ago and her stepmother showed no love to her.

Without ChildFund sponsorship and the support of Daindemben Federation, Kadiatu would have had nowhere to turn.

girl sitting on bench near her home

“I have no fear now. I can continue my education.”

Today, Kadiatu, 18, is in senior secondary school preparing for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination. She credits ChildFund and Daindemben Federation for restoring her hope and believes she would have been the mother of two or three children by now had it not been for the intervention of the federation. “Daindemben has made me realize my importance and value in society,” she says.

Now she is determined to go all the way to university to study accounting. “I want Daindemben Federation and my sponsor to be proud of me. They have done so much to get me to where I am today. I don’t want to let them down,” she says. “Even my father is proud of me now,” she acknowledges. “He has regretted the action he had wanted to take then.

“I would like Daindemben Federation and my ChildFund sponsor to continue being my pillar, so that I will achieve my dream of becoming an accountant.”

Read more about ChildFund’s work to prevent early marriage.

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Posted in Programs, Success Stories

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50 Days: Keeping Women and Girls Healthy

Posted on May 16, 2013 | 1 Comment

 By Kate Andrews, ChildFund Staff Writer

For 50 days, ChildFund is joining with numerous organizations to demonstrate support for government policies and programs that will allow women and girls to be healthy, empowered, and safe — no matter where they live. Improving the Health of Women and Girls is this week’s theme.

Senegalese mother and daughters

Sadio and her twins, Awa and Adama.

Visiting the doctor is usually a mild inconvenience in the United States. It may entail a drive across town and a sit in a waiting room filled with people coughing and sneezing. But in Senegal, which has only 822 doctors serving a population of more than 12 million, seeking medical attention is a major undertaking.

For some families, it’s too much. Sadio is the mother of 2-year-old twin girls in the village of Pakala, which is often flooded during the rainy season. This makes it difficult to travel 6 kilometers (more than 3 miles) to the nearest health post staffed by nurses. Awa and Adama suffer from respiratory problems, and Adama is especially sickly, having come down with a debilitating cold that required a doctor’s care — a 30-mile journey from home to a hospital. 

Senegal health hut

A health hut in a Senegalese village.

Sadio and her husband Moussa, a farmer, have experienced loss before; their first child, Matar, died in 2007 at 13 months from diarrhea and a respiratory infection. But today their village has a health hut, which is staffed by a matron, community health workers and birth attendants. They can help patients with basic needs, but more complicated illnesses and ailments still call for a trip to the health post 3 miles away or 30 miles to the hospital.

Sadio reports that her diet improved during her pregnancy with the twins after receiving advice at the health hut, but her girls still face challenges from the respiratory infection; also, they were born underweight.

Senegal mother and children

Sadio, the twins and their 4-year-old brother, Assane.

The health of women and girls is important to ChildFund, as we work with local partners to provide access to health care in isolated villages as well as underserved urban areas in developing nations. In Senegal, ChildFund is leading the implementation of a $40 million grant from USAID to establish community health care services for children and families in great need.

Over five years, we plan to establish 2,151 health huts and 1,717 outreach sites throughout the country, along with a sustainable national community health policy working in partnership with USAID and other key community development organizations. By the end of the project, we expect to have helped more than 9 million Senegalese people in 72 districts.

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Posted in Health, In the Field

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Kin Is the Focus on International Day of Families

Posted on May 15, 2013 | 1 Comment

 By Meg Carter, ChildFund Sponsorship Communication Specialist

Think about your most important memories. Who figures in them? Your family, most likely.

Indian family

Neetu (center) and her family in India.

So what makes a family? The United Nations defines family in residential terms: a household of people related by blood, marriage or adoption, making common provisions for food, shelter and other essentials of survival.

The U.N. designated 1994 as the Year of the Family, and since 1996, it has recognized the International Day of Families, celebrated annually on May 15. This year’s theme is “Advancing Social Integration and Intergenerational Solidarity.” In other words, bringing many kinds of societies and different generations together, including vulnerable groups, so they have a voice in political, social, cultural and economic decisions.

Honduras family

Oscar and his family in Honduras.

By nature, families make long-term commitments. Parents care for children and, in turn, adult children support ill and elderly parents. Especially in developing countries, families share resources across generations. Families also decide together about major purchases, work division and savings.

What Households Look Like

Marriage, childbearing, adoption, death, migration and divorce directly affect households. Income and other socioeconomic variables affect fertility rates and — over time — the number of children. Other factors such as delayed marriage, reduction in child mortality rates and housing shortages can lead to an increase the number of adult children living at home.

Ethiopian family

Lemlem (center) and her family in Ethiopia. Photo by Jake Lyell.

Large households with many children correlate with low personal income and, on a national basis, high fertility rates correlate with low gross national product (GNP).

In the countries we serve, three-fourths of households include two spouses, although in Sub-Saharan Africa, one-third of families have a single parent or a single grandparent as head of household. In Kenya, where elderly widows often raise grandchildren orphaned by AIDS, more than a third of households are female-headed.

Effects of Migration

Youth migration poses another challenge to family structures. In Africa, rural poverty and youth unemployment is reaching crisis proportions, affecting communities we serve in Ethiopia, The Gambia, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia.

In 1950, only 11 percent of Africans lived in cities, but by 1996, nearly a third had migrated from rural areas in search of jobs, social mobility and other opportunities. The U.N. projects that half of all Africans will live in urban areas by 2025. Family ties still survive because city dwellers often send money home, but distance and poverty can shred such bonds.

As we acknowledge the fragility of families, we also celebrate their inherent strengths — loyalty, support and shared history. We invite you to invest in training for young adults and single mothers through a gift to our Family Livelihood fund.

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Posted in Gifts of Love and Hope, In the Field

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Getting Parents Engaged in Their Children’s Schools

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 2 Comments

By Aydelfe M. Salvadora, ChildFund Timor-Leste

At a primary school in Timor-Leste, parents are becoming more involved in their children’s education through the Parent-Teacher Association.

Timor-Leste mother and children

Madalena Soro and three of her children, who are benefiting from renovations to their primary school.

“As a member of the PTA, I have to help so that my children will have a comfortable classroom,” says Madalena Soro, a mother of four. Two of her children are at EBC Samutaben, a primary school in the Bobonaro district, where AusAID and ChildFund Australia fund a project to promote child-friendly preschools and primary schools. Seventeen Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers and 13 primary schools participate, with more than 4,000 children benefiting.

One of the program’s objectives is to strengthen schools through active PTAs. Parents and teachers are expected to understand their roles and responsibilities and how they contribute to a child-friendly school.

ChildFund is not new to Madalena; her children all benefit in different ways from projects run by our national office in Timor-Leste and Hamutuk, a local partner organization.

Her second child is a fifth-grader, and her third-born is in second grade. The youngest attends an ECD center in the same compound as the children’s school. Ricardo, the fifth-grader, has had a sponsor from Australia since 2007. 

Madalena helped cook and provided vegetables and bread for workers who were renovating the school recently. She also was happy to assume the responsibility of supervising quality control whenever the workers asked her to check the alignment of blocks and proper placement of ceilings.

She excitedly anticipated the end result: a comfortable learning space for the schoolchildren. Before, children endured leaking roofs, which disrupted their learning, as well as unsecured doors and windows, which allowed the entry of stray animals into classrooms. Madalena says that before starting classes in the morning, the children had to clean the classrooms and the land around the school, putting their health at risk and reducing learning time.

Positive Changes

But, today, with the help of parents, teachers and students, EBC Samutaben is more comfortable and has proper chairs and tables for the children. Teachers now have space to prepare their lesson plans and keep school records in a renovated faculty room. Madalena added that rehabilitated classrooms are not only good for students but for the entire community.

Still, the school has remaining challenges; animals continue to enter the school premises because there is no perimeter fence, and there’s no safe drinking water. Children also are at risk because the school is dangerously close to the community’s main road.

The PTA’s participation continues to be very important in improving the condition of the school, Madalena notes, and she hopes more parents will participate as time goes on.

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Posted in In the Field

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Best Advice Your Mother Ever Gave You

Posted on May 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

 By Sumudu Perera, ChildFund Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka mother

A Sri Lankan mother and son.

We asked community members in our ChildFund program areas as well as staff in the Sri Lanka office to share bits of advice that their mothers gave them when they were children – advice that they still value and want to pass on to their own children. Here’s a sampling of what they shared. Happy Mother’s Day!

Sri Lankan man

Rathnamalala

Community Members Share Wisdom From Their Mothers

“Not every bad thing that happens to you is bad. Sometimes they happen for good.” – Rathnamalala

 “Even the god worships good people.”– Deepangani

“A person who walks on others’ footprints never sees his own footprint.” – Airangani

Sri Lanka woman

Deepangani

ChildFund Sri Lanka Staff Recall Their Mothers’ Advice

 “Listen to your elders. They have plenty of experience in life.” – Kaushalya

“Try to manage within whatever you have.” – Dilrukshi

young Sri Lankan woman

Airangani

“Don’t try to change others; change yourself.”
– Sudarshani

“Be a blessing to others.”
– Fiona

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Posted in In the Field

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