A vendor signs information at a CRS seed fair in Seko, Central African Republic. CRS piloted a barcode tracking system in CAR in June 2011 as a more efficient and effective way to register and track beneficiaries and vendors. Photo by Sandra Basgall/CRS
Sandra Basgall turned seventy a few weeks ago. But there’s no easy chair in sight for this Colorado-born CRS staffer. Sandra’s an advisor on monitoring and evaluation for the Central Africa Region, lives in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is still very much in on the action. She’s lived in 15 different US states and 6 different countries, but home is wherever she lays her hat. “I don’t look back and think ‘oh I wish I was there again’. I just look forward and think ‘where am I going to go next and what am I going to do next?’”
Technology has never held any fear for Sandra. She touched her first computer in 1982. “The woman who was teaching us was maybe a week ahead of our lessons”. Since then she’s moved with the times … she started typing her Masters thesis on an electric typewriter before graduating to a huge word processing system that took up most of the office. By the time she was writing her Ph.D, she was on a laptop computer—albeit a 22-pound one, which looked like a portable sewing machine…
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Posted
May 14th, 2012 in
Africa, Technology by:
John Lindner |
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A young boy in India receives receives polio vaccine drops. Photo by Laura Sheahen for CRS
U.S. poverty-focused international assistance is making it possible for this child in a poor, remote village in India to receive a polio vaccine. While polio is rare, it is a frightening reality in India and other developing countries. Moreover, a polio outbreak in India or elsewhere in the world could have serious consequences for unvaccinated people in far-off places, spreading rapidly and causing paralysis in children for life and sometimes even killing them.
Congress is now preparing to make important decisions about how much funding to make available for programs such as this polio vaccine initiative and many others that are saving and changing lives around the world. While our nation’s fiscal challenges are significant, poverty-focused international assistance makes up less than 0.5% of the U.S. federal budget. This little bit of funding saves millions of lives around the world by providing food to the hungry, shelter to refugees, helping small farmers grow more crops, and educating children for a more prosperous and stable future. Cutting this assistance will not balance the federal budget, but careless cuts will cost lives. For further background, read these recent letters to the House and Senate Subcommittees by Bishop Richard Pates, Chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Dr. Carolyn Woo, President of Catholic Relief Services.
Your voice makes a difference. Your support for this lifesaving funding last year helped stave off steep cuts. Your voice is now needed again. Contact your members of Congress today and urge them to support poverty-focused international assistance in the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bills at the highest levels possible.
Posted
May 16th, 2012 in
by:
Patrick Carney |
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Keddo Umar is one of more than 302,000 people to take part in the CRS Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia. Photo by David Snyder for CRS
Imagine you lived in Ethiopia, where millions of people like Keddo do not know where their next meal will come from. Before they could rely on their farms to provide much needed food to eat and to sell, but increasingly unreliable rains have changed this. Now many families must sell precious household items like their chickens or goats just to get through the hungry season. They are increasingly trapped in a cycle of poverty and hunger.
But imagine that something simple could be done to help people like Keddo.
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Posted
May 15th, 2012 in
Africa, Ethiopia by:
John Lindner |
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On May 7, 2012, eight youth and faith formation ministers and two CRS staff members traveled to El Salvador through the Called to Witness program. Sponsored in collaboration with the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (www.nfcym.org), Called to Witness provides short-term, firsthand experiences of the developing world as seen through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching. Bill Staley, Associate Director for the Office of Youth Ministry, Diocese of Nashville, filed this reflection.
El Salvador isn’t an easy country to prepare for, whether it’s immunizations, state department registry, or packing for a variety of “what-if” situations that could arise on a nine-day tour of a country where the memory of a horrific civil war is still hovering over the people of this Massachusetts-sized nation. Despite the detailed guidelines we received from Catholic Relief Services, one thing they failed to prepare us for is how fast we would fall in love with the Salvadoran people.
Driving through the crowded city streets of San Salvador, the remnants of political tensions and barb-wired rooftops tell their own story. However I was struck by a wall painted with the words “PAZ Y AMOR,” translated “Peace and Love.” The sentiment was amplified by the young people participating in various youth-development programs.
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May 15th, 2012 in
by:
John Lindner |
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Hearing stories of hunger, starvation, the need for water supply and poverty are very emotional. Even though a picture is worth a million words, the truth is never captured by text in comparison to gaining the experience first hand.
Catholic Relief Services student ambassadors on campus began planning the first annual Food Fast Retreat six months ago and on Sunday, April 29, their dreams were put into action. The ambassadors began planning this event because they wanted to bring awareness to the many people in the United States and globally who suffer from food insecurity.
“The purpose of the Food Fast Retreat was to live in solidarity with the many around the world that go hungry each day,” Kelsey Kastrava, vice president of CRS Ambassadors, said.
The 14 students and three faculty who participated spent 10 hours fasting, interacting in case-study scenarios and then reflecting, in order to put themselves in the shoes of the many who go hungry daily.
Read more about their experience.
Posted
May 9th, 2012 in
cabrini, Food Fast by:
Patrick Carney |
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Salvacion Pacatang at her desk in the CRS/DSAC Cayagan de Oro, Philippines Office. She lost her home to flash floods triggered by Typhoon Sendong in December 2011. Photo by Autumn Brown/CRS
By Autumn Brown
Seeing Salvacion Pacatang walk around the office as the area coordinator working with Catholic Relief Services’ partner, the Diocese Social Action Center, you would never guess that her life had been turned upside down only a few months before. She is a survivor of Typhoon Sendong, the cyclone that ravaged her community in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines on the night of December 16, 2011—killing many of her friends and neighbors and sweeping her home out to sea.
The morning of the flashflood, Salvacion traveled with her family to visit a sister—leaving her 10-year-old daughter, Delseah, behind in the care of her 20-year-old nephew, John Mark.
It started to rain very heavily that night and Salvacion began to worry about her daughter. Over the phone Delseah told her that the first floor of her home was already flooded. Salvacion began to panic. She knew her daughter could not swim. Their neighbors who lived in one-story homes had come over and were staying with Delseah on the second floor for safety.
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Posted
May 8th, 2012 in
Emergency Response, flood, Philippines by:
John Lindner |
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Bishop Robert Guglielmone of the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., has an op-ed in this morning’s edition of the Post and Courier urging Congress to preserve poverty-focused international assistance in the federal budget.
I do not envy our elected officials these days. They are faced with many difficult choices, with many pressures coming from different directions, with many asking for resources and many others trying to limit those resources.
In making difficult choices to reduce future unsustainable deficits, our leaders must keep in mind the plight of the poor, here and around the world. Those among us who have the least power and the greatest need should be at the forefront of their minds.
For me, this is a moral choice. My church asks that we — individually, as communities and as a nation — give special consideration to the poor, that we recognize our obligation to help those who are not just at the bottom of the ladder, but those who are below that, trying desperately to reach the bottom rung, constantly pushed down by forces beyond their control.
But helping the poor is not just a matter of good morality, it also makes good sense.
Read the full article here.
Posted
May 3rd, 2012 in
by:
John Lindner |
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to China for high level meetings this week and the Administration has signaled that the increasing violence between Sudan and South Sudan may be on the agenda. Thanks in part to your advocacy, President Obama recently urged the people of Sudan and South Sudan “to walk the path of peace” in a video message. He assured them that if they choose peace they “will have a strong and steady partner in the United States of America.”
This is just another example of how your voice matters and makes a difference. Pope Benedict XVI said in his Easter message: “May the risen Jesus comfort the suffering populations of the Horn of Africa and favor their reconciliation; may he help […] Sudan and South Sudan, and grant their inhabitants the power of forgiveness.” Your prayers for peace are needed now. Use this prayer resource for individual reflection or group setting.
Your voice for peace in solidarity with our Sudanese brothers and sisters is needed now more than ever. The promise of lasting peace and stability after South Sudan peacefully seceded from Sudan last year hangs in the balance. Read more about the situation in Sudan and South Sudan.
Stand with the Sudanese people and for peace. Sign this letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton, urging her to do what she can to promote peace, stability and a hopeful future for our Sudanese brothers and sisters.
Posted
May 2nd, 2012 in
by:
Patrick Carney |
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Cécile Mujawayezu is a nurse at Bungwe Health Centre, one of the partner sites of the AIDSRelief program. She’s been counseling 12-year-old Jean-Claude about his HIV status. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS
Cécile is talking to Séraphine about her medicine. Séraphine is HIV positive. She lost her husband to the virus and is now bringing up their six kids in Bungwe, a village high in the hills of northern Rwanda.
A senior nurse at Bungwe Health Center, Cécile used to have to wait for a doctor to come to start people on antiretroviral therapy and conduct more complex medical evaluations—and those visits are only once a week. But now she can handle it by herself. She’s had the training courtesy of the Ministry of Health.
It’s just one of the changes since the center became an AIDSRelief site in 2005. Catholic Relief Services leads the consortium that runs the AIDSRelief program, which is funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
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Posted
April 30th, 2012 in
Africa, HIV, Rwanda by:
John Lindner |
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A CRS team distributes emergency food in Mopti, Mali to people who have fled their homes due to separatist violence in the North of the country. Photo by CRS Staff
Unrest and uncertainty are continuing in the West African state of Mali, as rebel separatist forces have taken control of the northern desert region. Interim civilian power has been restored in the capital, Bamako, after last month’s military coup, but Mali’s political future is still unclear. Violence in the north continues and many thousands of people are still fleeing their homes – either to move further south or to cross the borders into neighboring countries. CRS remains committed to serve the people of Mali and to continue its relief and development work there.
Timothy Bishop, CRS country representative in Mali has stayed at his post in Bamako throughout the crisis. He talked to us about the reopening of one of CRS’ offices and how CRS is leading the way in providing help for those displaced by the violence.
Two weeks ago CRS’ office in Mopti was temporarily closed. Why has it now re-opened?
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Posted
April 25th, 2012 in
Africa, Emergency Response, Hunger, mali, Sahel by:
John Lindner |
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