In Brief: Afghan Red Crescent condemns NATO operation at its office

PAKISTAN: Bomb-blast victims lack trauma care, counselling

AFGHANISTAN: Displaced Pakistani families hosted in Kunar Province

AFGHANISTAN: “We feel exposed to greater risks now” - local aid workers

SOMALIA: Life getting harder for Mogadishu displaced

YEMEN: Nearly 100,000 uprooted civilians get WFP food aid

PAKISTAN: UN seeks safe access to IDPs

SOMALIA: Donor caution alarms aid workers

GUINEA: Political crisis only sharpens daily hardship

MOZAMBIQUE: Help for landmine victims hard to come by

SUDAN: Poor start to Southern voter registration

DRC: Fish war prompts thousands to flee

DRC: Sexual violence prevention and re-integration funding "falls through cracks"

In Brief: Burundians hand in thousands of weapons

KENYA: Samuel Mwangi, "Being an IDP is like being in jail"

GUINEA: Timeline since independence

PAKISTAN: Little aid reaching "highly militarized" South Waziristan

MOZAMBIQUE: Demining - the devil is in the detail

GUINEA: Caravans and kola nuts - keeping a lid on communal tensions

PHILIPPINES: Safety first as Mindanao IDPs consider going home

Lasting change

Gunanto is a vendor who sells healthy snacks for children in one of Jakarta's poorest neighborhoods. Mercy Corps staff visit vendors of their healthy street food project, KeBal, several times each week to monitor them and ensure proper hygiene and nutrition standards are met. Photo: Greg Briggs for Mercy Corps

Behavior is hard to change. I know. I’ve tried. Even with support, it’s still extraordinarily difficult to change. To learn new skills. To give up character flaws. To be a better person.

The last program I visited in Jakarta is a Healthy Street Foods Project called KeBal, translated: My Child’s Café. (Coincidently, this program is one of two selected just weeks ago as the 2009 winner of Mercy Corps’ most innovative projects worldwide.)

Children in Jakarta’s slums are extremely malnourished. Oftentimes, the easiest option for a mother is give her child small change (usually about, 2,000 Indonesian rupiah, which is only 20¢) to buy something from a food cart. Most of these options are fried or sugary foods that are really unhealthy and make children sick.

KeBal takes an innovative approach to address this problem: developing a food cart that is child-friendly (colorful, plays music and food is eye-level) and choosing a menu that provides vitamins and nutrients to children. Part of this project is teaching the cooks and food cart vendors about good hygiene and healthy food preparation. (Not wanting to risk getting sick because I was in Jakarta for such a short time, the only food cart I ate from was ours — and it was delicious!).

This pilot project has been so successful that it is being expanded to other neighborhoods in Jakarta.

Mercy Corps field staff talk about “continuous engagement” with the people we serve. I love that term. It’s encouraging, loving, unfailing. It means: we’re here to support you. Whatever it takes. We’re here today and if you need us, we’ll be here tomorrow.

I saw examples of continuous engagement in all the programs I visited in Jakarta. The problems are complex and the solutions are multifaceted. Even if you provide access to clean water, you still need to teach people the importance of washing their hands. Even if you provide a system to turn a community’s waste into compost, people still have to learn how to maintain it. Even if you provide access to a mother’s support group, you still have to have trained facilitators there to dispel myths and answer questions. And, even if you provide a food cart with healthy ingredients, you still have to show someone how to cook the food safely so children don’t get sick.

Mercy Corps’ programs work because there is continuous engagement. We don’t put the well in and walk away. Lasting change — the important kind — comes from teaching people how to do things differently and supporting them along the way.

Honored to be back among a people I love

It had been 33 years since I had lived there. When I heard that an earthquake and resulting tsunami had struck the Samoa Islands on September 29, I was taken back to a time when I had lived among the Samoan people as a young missionary.

The Samoan people I knew were a friendly, open and culturally rich people with deep traditions of respect and honor. I was deeply concerned, and felt Mercy Corps could be of assistance.

With support from Mercy Corps’ generous donors and assistance from Western Union, I knew that we could do much to assist the traumatized and devastated communities along the southern and eastern coasts of Upolu and Manono, two of several Samoan islands hit hard by the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Steve Mitchell, Mercy Corps Chief Financial Officer and Vice-President for Financial Services, stands amidst tsunami wreckage in Samoa. Photo: Carol Ward/Mercy Corps

Upon arriving in Samoa, and after a long drive from the capital city of Apia, my fellow Mercy Corps colleague Carol Ward and I arrived in the southeastern district of Aleipata in Upolu, one on the most severely affected areas. Relying upon my rusty Samoan language skills acquired so many years before, I spoke with a village chief doing repairs with members of his family on his badly-damaged home near the beach.

As I expressed deep condolences for his village’s losses, he immediately interrupted me to express his profound gratitude and deep appreciation to all the people of America and abroad for their support of food, water and shelter. He even wished the blessing of God upon us as we conducted our work. As he thanked Mercy Corps for being there, I could not help but think that the Samoan culture of courtesy and gratitude that I knew so many years ago persisted even in this time of deep suffering. Under the worst of circumstances, I felt honored to be among a people I had come to love so long ago.

As Carol and I travelled along the only road linking villages in the district, we had heard that the village of Lalomanu, further south, had been particularly hard hit. As we summited a small rise in the road, and looked out upon what was left of Lalomanu, I was utterly shocked at the devastation. This village, which I later learned had the most fatalities, was simply no more. The surging waters had wreaked utter destruction.

One family, encamped in a salvaged home with tarpaulin covers, said they needed more help to reestablish themselves, and that many of their fellow villagers had moved inland because of their fear of the ocean, a recurring topic of discussion with the affected Samoans we met with. One woman I met with, as she looked out to sea, said she was afraid, or “fefe” of the ocean. The look in her eyes clearly demonstrated this fact. Particularly heart-rending was learning that so many children has perished, being unable to escape the rushing waters. Flowers marked the places where loved ones were lost. Bedding, clothing, tools, household goods, toys and building debris were scattered everywhere.

A later meeting I had with the Deputy Minister of Finance, Noumea Simi, helped me to understand what the beleaguered Samoan government was confronted with in reestablishing whole new villages inland from the ocean for devastated costal communities. Since so many affected villagers were terrified of living near the shore, the Government had to build roads, bring in power and put in infrastructure for these new inland communities, all the while having to rebuild the heavily damaged coastal village infrastructure for those Samoans not wanting to move away from their traditional home sites.

Tsunami-displaced families in parts of Samoa are living in makeshift shelters. Mercy Corps and its local partner, SPBD, has been helping meet their urgent needs with deliveries of critical supplies. Photo: Carol Ward for Mercy Corps

The following day, we travelled with representatives of our partner agency, South Pacific Business Development (SPBD), to the island of Manono to assess the cash-for-work program implemented the prior week by SPBD, and funded by Mercy Corps and Western Union. The cash-for-work program pays each villager needed cash for documented hours of work, typically at the end of the week, to do clean up and reconstruction.

After a slow boat ride from the eastern coast of Upolu, we arrived near the villages of Faleu and Lepuia’i. No vehicles of any kind are to be found on Manono, as the island is too small and isolated from the larger islands. The Manono villages, like others in Samoa, are nestled right up against the waters edge, to take advantage of cool breezes that keep the mosquitoes at bay and ensure proximity to the abundant supply of food take from the reef.

The earthquakes’ two tsunami surges had flowed over the village seawalls and destroyed homes and eroded foundations. Upon our arrival, we noticed numerous men in the village placing rocks in severely eroded areas of Lepuia’i village that threatened a home and the village church. Further down the coast, we saw extensive repair work to the seawall protecting both villages. For the past week, under the cash-for-work program, 51 men had done an amazing amount of restorative work to damaged seawalls and ground erosion.

Not only did major infrastructure repair work get done in these communities, but desperately needed cash was injected into their economies. Each worker earned 100 Samoa Tala, or about $40, for one week’s worth work, a significant amount of money where the per capita income is less than $1000 per year.

I had the privilege, along with our party, or accepting the heartfelt thanks, or “fa’afetai lava” of the village workers and chiefs for this badly needed program. They were truly amazed at the response of Mercy Corps and South Pacific Business Development to help their tiny island come back from this tragedy. Mercy Corps’ funding will help do more cash-for-work programming in Manono and the hardest hit areas of Upolu.

On the returning boat ride from Manono, as I looked out over the beautiful sea — the same sea that had caused so much pain and suffering to the wonderful Samoan people — I took great comfort knowing that the Samoan people were resilient and enduring, the same traits I recalled them having so many decades before.

Dr. Paul R. Polak Lecture

Come to this lecture and learn about design dedicated to developing practical solutions that attack poverty at its roots.

The speaker for the evening is Dr. Paul Polak, Founder and President of the Design for the Other 90% Board. For more on the current exhibit, Design for the Other 90%, running from now until February 27, 2009 at the Mercy Corps Action Center, go to http://www.mercycorps.org/other90.

Thursday, November 12, 2009
7:30pm

Mercy Corps Community Room
28 SW 1st
Portland, OR

Helping Assamese Women Go Back to School

Anami Bawri's greatest regret is leaving school at age nine because her parents wanted her to look after her younger siblings. Today, she is a daily-wage worker at Moran Tea Estate in Assam, India. And she is illiterate.

With funding from the Western Union Foundation, Mercy Corps is helping Anami and more than 300 other Assamese women learn to read and write.

Under a program called Women's Empowerment for Literacy (WEL), Mercy Corps worked with the Indian Government’s Department of Adult Education to design a special curriculum for the women, most of whom work in tea estates. In groups of about 20, the students attend two-hour classes six days a week. Trainers also make house visits to motivate the women to keep studying.

When Anami heard about the WEL program in a meeting of her self-help group, she was excited to join. Now she's a regular member of the class and is progressing fast. Her husband promises to let her handle the family expenses if she learns to read and write and do basic calculations. As the president of her self-help group, she now has the ability to keep the minutes of their meetings.

Anami proudly recalls a recent success: she and a group of co-workers were having lunch when their tea estate supervisor pointed to a signboard and asked, "Who can tell what's written here?"

Everybody became quiet. Anami then read out the words: khowa pani, or drinking water.

Western Union and Mercy Corps have been working together since 2007 to bring Western Union's "Our World, Our Family" program to life. Since the start of Mercy Corps' participation in "Our World, Our Family," we have helped more than 200,000 people through programs in China, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Design For The Other 90%

Presented by Mercy Corps and The Lemelson Foundation, Design for the Other 90% features some of the most inspired inventions to improve the lives of low-income people around the world. Go to other90.cooperhewitt.org/about for complete information about this innovative and uplifting exhibition revealing the power of design to improve the lives of millions.

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.

Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

Curated by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Design for the Other 90% is made possible through the generous support of the following individuals, businesses and organizations:

Bart and Jill Eberwein; John and Jane Emrick; Glumac; Gray Family Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation; Hoffman Construction Company; KPFF Consulting Engineers; Gary Maffei and Marc Lintner; McKinstry Construction Corporation; Meyer Memorial Trust; Lindley Morton and Corrine Oishi; Dan and Tracy Oseran; Mark an Judy Peterman; Vesta Corporation; W+K and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects.

Spring 2010 Rickshaw Run

Welcome Rickshaw Runners!

A warm welcome to all those taking part in the Spring 2010 Rickshaw Run, Mercy Corps is once again delighted to be one of the beneficiary charities for this fantastic event. This Spring, the route will see brave explorers travelling in their Auto Rickshaws from Cochin in Kerala to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.

The event is pretty simple with no preparation and less luggage participants fly to the Indian Subcontinent to force 150cc of Indian engineering over thousands of miles of questionable terrain in around two weeks. For more details on the event itself, visit the Adventurists website.

This Spring 2010 event is extremely exciting for Mercy Corps, as the participants will fully fund a brand new project working with rural farming communities in the village of Jasodapur, Orissa. For more information about this project Click here

We know that fundraising can seem like a daunting task, but we are here to support you every step of the way. Our events coordinator Jennifer Adams will be delighted to hear from you, contact her on +44 (0) 131 662 5173 or email jadams@uk.mercycorps.org.

For further information on what we can do to help you fundraise click here

Mongol Rally 2010

A warm welcome to all those taking part in the 2010 Mongol Rally, Mercy Corps is delighted to be a beneficiary charity for this fantastic event for the fourth year running. To date the Rallies have raised an unbelievable £416,000 for our ongoing work in Mongolia.

The 2009 Rally was a great success with 500 teams from across the globe taking part, raising an incredible £120,000 for Mercy Corps.

The Mongol Rally is not an event for the faint hearted, 10,000 miles in a car with about as much power as your hairdryer, not to mention no maps and no support unit! To find out more visit the the Adventurists website.

For details about the projects that you will support in 2010 click here.

For information on what the 2009 event supported click here.

We know that fundraising can seem like a daunting task, but we are here to support you every step of the way. Our events coordinator Jennifer Adams will be delighted to hear from you, contact her on +44 (0) 131 662 5173 or email jadams@uk.mercycorps.org

For further information on what we can do to help you fundraise click here.

Fighting for their homes

Mercy Corps Program Manager Allison Huggins (left) stands with the widow's association near Bangui, Central African Republic. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

In the Central African Republic (CAR), women’s rights here are few, and the enforcement of the laws is almost non-existent. Most women are not even aware they have many rights. In a country where almost 70 percent of women cannot read, this is not surprising.

Widows are a group that is particularly taken advantage of and discriminated against. It is common at the death of a woman’s husband that the in-laws will take all the property that is legally due to the wife and dependents. Even more common, is that the government will refuse to pay the pension payments the widow is entitled to upon her spouse’s death.

Mercy Corps is working with the Organization of Widows and Orphans of Central Africa, a group of more than 150 widows who have joined together to defend their property rights, as well as assist widows and orphans who need financial assistance. The Association of Women Lawyers — another partner of Mercy Corps’ Women’s Empowerment Project — provides free legal counseling to the women, who otherwise would not be able to afford legal fees to defend their rights and keep their property.

I went out with the Mercy Corps Women’s Empowerment Program Manager to meet several widows in the group and learn more about their challenges. Just outside of the capital, Bangui, we met at one of the widow’s association offices. I heard the painful and traumatic stories of several widows, but I also heard inspiring news from the association about how they have begun to have a real positive impact on defending the rights of the widows.

I spent the afternoon with Marcelinne Gbenou and her neighbor Angele Tikoro — both widows and members of the association. Marcelinne’s husband died last year and was survived by her and their six children, the youngest just four years old. They had a relatively good life prior to his death: two simple homes (one in the village and one in town), enough to eat and all the kids able to attend school. By average CAR standards, they were doing well.

After her brother-in-law sold her house, Marcelline had to negotiate to live in a one-room mud brick house with her six children. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

When Marcelinne’s husband died, her brother-in-law came, sold their houses and kept the money for himself. No one questioned the sale of the homes, because it is common for a male to handle the financial transactions in CAR.

Marcelinne was left homeless and without any skills to earn a living and support her six children. Illiterate and never having attended school, Marcelinne was not aware of her rights and unable to navigate the complex legal system to defend her property.

She managed to find a charitable landlord who agreed to rent her a one-room mud brick shack for a very minimal fee. She moved her family in with the few items they had after selling off most of her possessions to pay for rent and food. Her eldest daughter dropped out of school and took a job as a maid to help the family survive.

When she moved into the rental home her new neighbor, Angele stopped in to welcome her. Angele, also a widow who had experienced similar problems when her husband died, urged Marcelinne to join the widow’s association so the group could assist her in taking her case to court.

Angele (left) and her friend Marcelline are both members of the widow's association, supported by Mercy Corps. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Angele told her about her case, when her in-laws attempted to take all her family’s property after her husband's death. She joined the widow's association, which got Angele a lawyer who agreed to handle her case for free and they took her case to court. After the first court meeting, the in-laws dropped their action and Angele has not heard from them for the past several years.

Now the widows’ association is taking up Marcelinne’s case to try to get her some of the money from the illegal sale of her homes. It is often a long and complicated process, but with the help of educated and trained lawyers Marcelinne and widows like her are starting to have a fighting chance to protect their property and provide for their children.

Mercy Corps and the widow’s association are also looking at ways to help widows help themselves. On the slate for this year are literacy and basic math classes, so widows are better equipped to manage their homes and exercise their rights.

Shipping Books to Zimbabwe Schools

It's hard to learn in Africa's schools without a basic textbook.

A recent UNICEF study in Zimbabwe reported there can be as few as one textbook for as many as 40 students in schools there — if there are any textbooks at all.

We shipped a 40-foot container of donated books to Goromonzi District, Mutare and Chitungwiza areas of Zimbabwe. One thousand high-school math books. Hundreds of elementary-level texts on reading drills and language skills. Dozens of university textbooks on science, engineering and economics.

We put a total of 21,000 books into the hands of eager schoolchildren. In fact, our shipment improved eightfold the textbook-to-student ratio in 50 schools.

It's all part of our effort to ensure access to essential and quality education for 12,000 orphans and other vulnerable children in Zimbabwe. One of the ways we do that is by furnishing schools in exchange for waiving tuition fees for poor children.

These textbooks are boosting teachers' morale and feeding the minds of children hungry to learn. Help us do more with a donation to our shipping appeal. Your $1 sends $70 worth of medicines, books, clothing and other critical supplies to people in need.

Winter 2010 Rickshaw Run

Welcome Rickshaw Runners!

A warm welcome to all those taking part in the Winter 2010 Rickshaw Run, Mercy Corps is once again delighted to be one of the beneficiary charities for this fantastic event. This year the route will see brave explorers travelling in their Auto Rickshaws from the picturesque Himalayan town of Pokhara all the way to the Southern region of Cochin.

The event is pretty simple with no preparation and less luggage participants fly to the Indian Subcontinent to force 150cc of Indian engineering over thousands of miles of questionable terrain in around two weeks. For more details on the event itself, visit the Adventurists website.

This Winter 2010 event is extremely exciting for Mercy Corps, as the participants will fund a brand new project working with rural farming communities in the village of Jasodapur, Orissa. For more information about this project Click here

We know that fundraising can seem like a daunting task, but we are here to support you every step of the way. Our events coordinator Jennifer Adams will be delighted to hear from you, contact her on +44 (0) 131 662 5173 or email jadams@uk.mercycorps.org.

For further information on what we can do to help you fundraise click here

African Peace-building Agenda: "Guinée : La junte doit partir, ni plus ni moins", François Grignon

"Working together, NGOs and journalists can create stronger international reporting",Kimberly Abbott in Neiman Journalism Lab

African Peace-building Agenda: "Elements of a New Strategy to Disarm the LRA", François Grignon

"Afghanistan, la crisi di legittimità e la tentazione del ritiro", Candace Rondeaux in La Repubblica

Venezuela: Accelerating the Bolivarian Revolution

Against the spirit of the constitution, President Hugo Chávez is accelerating his “Bolivarian Revolution” by implementing radical laws that affect basic rights and liberties and thwart the political opposition’s fair chances in the September 2010 legislative elections. This update briefing examines how in 2009 the Chávez government has progressively abandoned core principles of liberal democracy. The executive has increased its power and provoked unrest internally by further politicising the armed forces and the oil sector. The government’s lack of capacity to correct serious deficiencies in the management of the state is provoking increasing social protest.

Car bomber strikes north Pakistan

Yemen rebels claim territorial gain

Military to try Fort Hood suspect

Charles Taylor to face prosecutors

Thaksin flies in to Cambodia storm

Koreas in naval border clash

Obama-Netanyahu talks see no result

Karzai hits back against critics

Iran accuses Americans of spying