Nearly 800 students of the Msabaha Primary School in central Kenya take part in the Junior Farmers Field School, supported by Catholic Relief Services. Of the school’s student body, 60 are orphans and vulnerable children. The project teaches them useful farming techniques that will help boost their own household food supply. Photo by David Snyder for CRS

Students of the Masandare Primary School line up for a morning role call. Each carries a plastic jug that will hold the only water they will have for their entire day. Catholic Relief Services is carrying out a project that will not only provide running water to the school, but also rehabilitate the school’s toilet facilities to increase sanitation at the site – all part of ongoing projects in Tanzania’s Same (sa-may) District, which is part of the Global Water Initiative. Photo by David Snyder for CRS

Helen Odong of Uganda lost her husband to rebel fighting in 2000, leaving her alone to care for their seven children. Labor vouchers provided by Catholic Relief Services and our Caritas Gulu partners helped her hire people to clear some of her land three miles from Opit camp, where she now lives. With profits from her small harvest she bought a sow that bore six piglets her family can now eat or sell. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

Residents from the Chhatisdebil village in Orissa, India, hold a mock drill on disaster preparedness. Chhatisdebil is one of 75 villages along the highly vulnerable coastal belt of Orissa. The Community Based Disaster Preparedness Project, supported by Catholic Relief Services, assists villages in a comprehensive flood preparedness program. Photo by Amiran White for CRS

Nestled along the Sierra Madre forests in Chihuahua, Mexico, the Tarahumara face numerous struggles. Their land rights have been challenged, their forest depleted by logging, and they face increased malnutrition and scarcity of food supply. The Farmer Justice Campaign, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services Mexico, has partnered with the local organization, Frente Democratico Campesino or The Farmers Democratic Front, to provide product development resources as well as legal services. Photo by Hilda M. Perez for CRS

Community leader Edwin Roblero Barios prepares rations of oil for a food distribution in the Sanajaba community in the northern highlands of San Marcos, Guatemala. Expectant women and mothers with children under three years of age receive supplemental food rations and attend workshops that promote proper childhood development. Photo by Sara A. Fajardo/CRS

Bunson Ngozo of Malawi works on farmland that he has cultivated using irrigation equipment and technical expertise provided by Catholic Relief Services and our partner agency, the Catholic Development Commission. Teaching farmers better growing techniques helps them to improve their crops and make them resistant to drought and other natural emergencies. Photo by David Snyder for CRS.

The Makuach Water System in Bor County of South Sudan provides the surrounding community and health clinic with access to clean, fresh water. CRS rehabilitated an overhead tank and existing borehole. A solar panel provides electricity to pump water from the borehole to a holding tank, which releases water to local taps twice daily. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

Dr. Kazadi Mwayabo, a coordinator for the CRS-led AIDSRelief program in Zambia, is leading an HIV program that’s transitioning from CRS to a local partner control. According to UNAIDS, 15.2 percent of Zambians between the ages of 15 and 49 are HIV-positive. In the fall of 2009, Dr. Kazadi spoke at the St. Kilian Catholic Parish in Chicago on HIV treatment and care in Zambia. Photo by Jesus Huerta/CRS

Today the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative, led by Catholic Relief Services and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is helping farmers in Kenya and five other countries in Africa’s Great Lakes grow disease resistant cassava plants and monitor their crops with mini, hand-held computers designed by Microsoft. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS