Women gather grass to build traditional tukul homes in Jonglei, South Sudan. The town of Boma has received more than 2,400 people displaced by recent fighting in Jonglei. Photo by Renee Lambert/CRS

By Renee Lambert,

My colleague, Jane and I, flew in a small eight-seater plane from Juba to Boma Town in Jonglei, South Sudan. We were on our way to see how Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Internationalis might assist thousands recently displaced by conflict. In recent weeks, Boma, a small verdant mountain town of around 7,000 had swelled with the arrival of roughly 2,400 people displaced by inter-communal violence between two ethnic groups the Lou Nuer and the Murle. The U.N. estimates that more than 60,000 Murle fled their homes when around 8,000 armed Lou Nuer youth raided towns in search of stolen cattle and kidnapped children.
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A young Mom with her baby girl at a nutrition education event in Dindefelo village, Eastern Senegal. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS

By Helen Blakesley,

Only yesterday I was under the British rain, bidding farewell to my nearest and dearest. Today I’m back to my francophone, sun-filled Dakar days, catching up on the latest political intrigue as Senegal heads towards a contentious Presidential election. That, and trying to work out why my water’s been turned off.

The trick, as I see it, is to try to exist in the moment, to connect with the places and people around you. Let your several lives and worlds mingle to make a space where certain universal truths exist: we all laugh, we all cry, we all need love, we all need God’s grace. Not always an easy feat.

But sometimes, a trip to “another world” can be the eye opener you need when your status quo seems to leave something to be desired. A mini adventure into the Senegalese outback just before Christmas (otherwise known as my latest work trip) served to transport me—in mind, body and spirit.

I’d been feeling rather flat since returning from Benin after the Pope’s visit (hey, it’s a hard act to follow.), so getting back on the road was just the ticket for restoring my joie de vivre. A 12-hour car journey took us first past the urban sprawl of Dakar, through dusty savannah landscapes, and then—way out East—we reached the hills, the forests, the monkeys and the wild boar.
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A young girl in Somalia carries a jerry can full of water provided by CRS and a local partner. Photo courtesy of CRS partner staff

By Muzaffer

I have a daughter of my own who is now studying architecture at the University. When I compare her and the future she holds in her hands with that of the children I’ve seen in Somalia I feel deeply troubled. The only difference between my daughter and the sons and daughters of Somalia is that they suffer from the sin of circumstance. The one thing that separates them is that my daughter was born into comfort and they were born into poverty.

Of all the children I met during my last visit to Somalia there are two young girls that stick out in my mind, Fawziya, 11, and Naima, 8. To me they are the anonymous heroes and victims of this terrible drought.

Fawziya has never been to school and is completely illiterate. At the age of four Fawziya took over the care of her older brother, Abdulahi. who suffers from neurological problems that left him bedridden. All of her siblings attend school, but Fawziya was chosen by her parents to care for her brother because of her loving nature and gentle touch.
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Father Eustache Nobime, Caritas Coordinator for the Diocese of Abomey in Benin, stands outside Ouidah’s Basilica where Pope Benedict XVI signed His latest Apostolic Exhortation. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS

By Helen Blakesley,

Here in Benin, the roads have re-opened, the banners are down, you could say “the Pope has left the building”.

But for one Catholic priest, working in the Diocese of Abomey, 2 hours north of the capital Cotonou, “out of sight” is certainly not “out of mind”.

Father Eustache Nobimè is Diocesan Coordinator for Catholic Relief Services’ partner organization Caritas. He’s been a priest for 11 years. And this was his first Papal sighting. Father Eustache got closer than most – he met Pope Benedict in the small coastal town of Ouidah when His Holiness came to speak to members of West Africa’s oldest seminary, Saint Gall.
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By Kim Pozniak,

This week, the CRS-led AIDSRelief consortium is handing over its HIV care and treatment programs in Rwanda to the local Ministry of Health. After a six-year partnership, and a carefully planned transition period, the local government will fully own and implement those programs that bring lifesaving treatment, care and counseling to thousands of people living with HIV.

This is the first transition of a program supported by the President’ Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to a local government entity. But it comes at a time when PEPFAR and other life-saving aid programs are facing the possibility of drastic budget cuts from the U.S. Congress.
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By Kim Pozniak,

It’s been called the “Resource Curse,” the fact that many countries rich in natural resources also have high and growing levels of poverty, extreme income inequalities, greater risk of conflict, and high levels of corruption.

Too often, government revenues from resource extraction—oil, gas, mining and logging—are not used to support basic social services such as health, nutrition and education. They certainly don’t find their way into investments that benefit the poor as often as they should. Worse yet, profits from extractives too often fuel terrible violence in some countries. At the same time, people living near extractive operations often suffer from degradation of the environment and their own health, conflict, unjust labor practices, displacement from their land and interrupted livelihoods.

To address such issues, CRS and the U.K.-based Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) sponsored an extractive industries conference in the southern African country of Zambia this month. More than 130 people representing faith-based, legal and human rights and environmental organizations from 15 countries came together in Lusaka for the conference entitled “Connecting Resources, Connecting People.”
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By Kim Pozniak,

After six years of working in partnership with the Rwandan government, the AIDSRelief consortium led by Catholic Relief Services is transitioning its HIV care and treatment program to the Rwanda Ministry of Health in a move that marks the first such transition to a local government partner.

AIDSRelief—an international consortium funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—and the government of Rwanda have worked together to scale up quality HIV care for Rwandans since 2005; planning for the transition has been in the works for the past two years.

“In the short time that we’ve worked with the Ministry of Health, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of personal commitment to learn how to run the HIV treatment program.” says Leia Isanhart Balima, chief of party for AIDSRelief Rwanda. The government has really been committed to seeing the process through and to work through the challenges. It’s neat to be able to let go and say that we’ve put in place the basic building blocks.”
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By Helen Blakesley,

Epiphanie Uwiduhaye and her one year-old son Benoit, right, wait with Josiane Nyiranizeyimana and 3 month-old Fabrice for a consultation at Bungwe Health Centre in Northern Rwanda. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” my godmother used to remind me, as a rather impish child. Well if that’s indeed the case, Kigali, the capital of Rwanda is but a few steps from Heaven.

The main city of the land of “mille collines” – a thousand hills – so the French claimed, looks the picture of cleanliness, efficiency and order.

As I arrived here for my latest reporting trip with CRS, I drank in my surroundings. Pretty red brick homes with blue or terracotta roofs dot the hillsides. Grasses and flowers and trees are abundant thanks to regular rains (a spectacular growling of thunder presaged the next refreshing downpour as I gazed). People and vehicles carried on by, minding their own business.
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The ONE Blog recently ran the following story about CRS with with AIDSRelief in Rwanda:

Last week, I visited the Bungwe Health Center, a small clinic nestled in the hills about two hours outside Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. The center is part of AIDSRelief, a program that has been providing HIV care and treatment in Rwanda since 2005 with funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). My employer, Catholic Relief Services, is the lead agency for AIDSRelief in nine countries.

During my visit I met a nurse named Cecile and her 12-year-old patient, Jean Claude. His mother is an AIDSRelief patient and Jean Claude had come to the health center to find out his own status. He’s been sick for quite some time.

Cecile counseled and tested Jean Claude, then talked with him about his results. To my surprise, he smiled. When asked what he will do now that he knows his HIV status, he said he will go to school to become a doctor. Jean Claude knows that with antiretroviral therapy and good medical treatment, he can live a long, productive life.

Read the full story here.

It’s jarring to enter a medical facility in Somalia. I visited a hospital that had depleted its supplies and was forced to run without medications. In one room I entered I was faced with 15 severely malnourished children. There were eight such rooms at this particular hospital. The medical staff was completely overwhelmed. There were four to five doctors to oversee the most severe cases along with the countless others who arrived daily in search of help. Nurses were in even shorter supply.

Mothers are often forced to become both nurse and doctor for their children. They cling to their frail bodies and try to nourish them as best they can. When a person is starving, they can’t eat or drink, they require special food. In the face of such severe malnutrition, medical expertise is really required, and yet these women who have had no training and often can’t even read are struggling to keep their loved ones alive. The doctors provided serum and the mothers do their best to lovingly administer what they’ve been given. But there is no technology to support them, no IVs and no monitors to measure vital signs.
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