Haiti Cholera Outbreak

Cholera-contaminated drinking water has already claimed over 900 lives…14,000 are sick…and the numbers are sky-rocketing

CLEAN DRINKING WATER IS THE KEY.

Right now, Feed The Hungry has the opportunity to install two 10,000-gallon water purification systems that will provide 20,000 gallons of safe drinking water PER DAY in the heart of the cholera outbreak area. But we must raise £28,000 immediately to make it happen.

Every £1.40 you share will provide a gallon of life-saving water DAILY until this crisis ends.  A one-time gift of £14 will provide 10 gallons of clean water every

day through the end of the cholera crisis.

Your one-time gift of £56 will provide 40 gallons of drinking water DAILY!

Clean drinking water is vital to prevent the spread of disease as well as to treat already-infected cholera patients.  PLEASE GIVE AS GENEROUSLY

AS YOU CAN TODAY.

Call today on 0845 519 6025 or email me gwilliams@feedthehungry.org

May God bless you for whatever you can share today to help save lives!

Childcare Kitgum Servants – Uganda

Kitgum district is in the northern part of Uganda. It is located between Longitude 320E, and 340E, Latitude 020N and 040 N. It is bordered by the Republic of Sudan in the North, Kotido District in the East, Pader District in the South and Gulu District in the Northwest. Kitgum is almost exclusively an agricultural district. The land available for subsistence farming In Kitgum is 3,200 sq. km, producing mainly food crops such as beans, pigeon peas, millet, simsim, cassava and sorghum. Cash crops grown in Kitgum are cotton, rice, maize and tobacco. 53,103 hectares are forest reserves, which belong to both the Central government and the district.Most animals in Kitgum were rustled away during the insurgency. At the moment there are 3,946 indigenous and only 35 exotic (crossed) heads of cattle in Kitgum.

‘Kitgum is located sixty miles to the south of the Sudanese border.  It has been ravaged by a civil war for the last twenty years, thanks largely to the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army).You can feel the pain and suffering that the war has caused wherever you go in Kitgum. The children were to afraid to sleep in the villages where they might be kidnapped and be forcibly recruited in the LRA.  They walked many kilometers every day to the relative safety of the night shelters. Most adults lived in the IDP camps (Internally Displaced People).  Their own villages are either too unsafe or just not there: the mud brick huts are just too easy to burn down.  We heard many stories of people perishing in mud-huts set alight by the LRA.’

This is an extract from a journal from 2006, since then peace has come to the area with the LRA chased out of Uganda and Sudan. However the ravages of war are still apparent in the stories of the people and children you meet. For an Australian woman: General Gradma Irene Gleeson as they call her,  not only live through but achieve so much in the last 19 years is more than extraordinary. Her story is an epic  tale in itself, yet her heart is for the people and especially for the children who have gone to Hell and back in the past few years.

Creating not only a safe house or a place of rest, but a place of restoration and hope, working with the children to enable them to reach to their full potential, and if there was no opportunities for their skills to be used elsewhere she has developed the opportunities for them to excel. As part of the endeavour to make this happen Feed the Hungry support the feeding program for the school, which is a significant task as they use 8 tons of Rice, maze and beans every week, to feed over 8,000 children through the 5 different schools they run in the area.

The Schools program has been extended by developing A technical college for the youth to learn building skills, carpentry, metalwork, tailoring and even a driving school, whilst also developing creative opportunities for the young people to express themselves through painting, dance, music, and rap. Guns for guitars is one of those programs helping  child soldiers get over there traumatic experience of being forced into war and being able to release their energy in a positive way. Seeing Hakiim teach rap and dance moves to the younger kids was exquisite, and standing in front of 15ft high murals painted by Everest Otto was extraordinary. 

 

All this would not be possible without your support, as there is no government funding ( though this is becoming closer: please pray for a breakthrough ) or very little from the family members or clans to support Childcare at Kitgum. Feed the Hungry are proud to support the work at Kitgum and look forward to supporting Irene And her team, as we see how a pound here can make such a huge impact 4,500 miles away. 

Through the generosity of our partners and friends none of this would be possible, it cost us less than £4 a month to feed a child as we have been provided with meals to send out to our projects world wide, so all we have to do is provide the means to get the meals to the projects across the world.

Over the past 12 months due to the HUGE help of 

people worldwide we have been able to stretch 

out our comittment from around 23,000 meals 

every dayto just over 30,000 meals every day 

for children who without your help would go without.

If you would like to help please call me today 

On 0845 519 6025

or email me at

gwilliams@feedthehungry.org

 

 

Kampala

Since the late 1980s Uganda has rebounded from the abyss of civil war and economic catastrophe to become relatively peaceful, stable and prosperous.

But the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the north remain blighted by one of Africa's most brutal rebellions. In the 1970s and 1980s Uganda was notorious for its human rights abuses, first during the military dictatorship of Idi Amin from 1971-79 and then after the return to power of Milton Obote, who had been ousted by Amin.

During this time up to half a million people were killed in state-sponsored violence.

Since becoming president in 1986 Yoweri Museveni has introduced democratic reforms and has been credited with substantially improving human rights, notably by reducing abuses by the army and the police.At home, the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has perpetrated massacres and mutilations in the north for nearly two decades.

The group's leader has said he wants to run the country along the lines of the biblical Ten Commandments. The violence has displaced more than 1.6 million people and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or kidnapped. The UN estimates that the group has abducted 20,000 children.

Uganda has won praise for its vigorous campaign against HIV/Aids. This has helped to reduce the prevalence of the virus - which reached 30% in the 1990s - to single-digit figures.

It’s amazing how much a cup of rice or cornmeal can brighten a child’s day! But that’s exactly what the partners of Feed the Hungry provide for children in Uganda through the Every Child Every Day program. The Effects on the children’s health is immense even down to simple things like hair growth, stronger teeth, and the largest  change they see is a significant change in concentration levels and the ability to retain information. 

Pastor Solomon, our outreach ministries partner in Uganda helps oversee the assistance of our daily food program at several locations outside the capital city of Kampala. The King Solomon Academy, Good News Evangelical Ministries, Vineyard Christian School, and Little Angels Christian School help bring the love of Christ and provide a hot nutritious lunch to 1400 children daily.

Along with the School curriculum Pastor Solomon Runs a sports outreach, which over  weekends ranging from playing chess to netball and the most popular football, in which they have one several under 16 trophies, which sit very proudly on his desk.

Ever mindful of the support that Feed the Hungry  provide the program pastor Solomon  has now a small farm of around 4 Acres, were he a chickens goats, cows and is looking at creating a fish farm in order to support and expand the school program. He hopes that the farm within a couple of years will support around 400 children enabling the work to outreach to other communities around the Kampala region.

Through the generosity of our partners and supporters for Feed the Hungry, and our partners on the ground, we can break the bonds of poverty and hunger, and reach out to a people in need.    

North Korea

Feed the Hungry has been involved in feeding North Korean children since 2006 in Sunbong, North Korea,which is an economic free zone close to the China border of Tumen River. We are to feeding 400 children with a piece of bread and a cup of soymilk during school days, we invite our donors to commit HKD$150/£12 each month to feed four children. For the price of two takeaway’s  a needy child’s hunger pang is kept away. 

Most children went to school without breakfast, evening meals may or may not be served on the table, but the security of receiving something to eat in school is a joy and comfort to teachers and parents.After a few years of good relationship building and trust, I have come to love and respect the hundreds upon hundreds of lives touched by the ongoing work of Christ in DPRK through Feed the Hungry, and through other Christian ministries, who quietly and faithfully working for the good health of North Korean children.

Over the summer period, I was invited to visit Children Homes in Pyongyang, to see if we would like to partner with a North Korean agency to help orphans, I said yes right away to such invitation, but the visa did not arrive till the last week of September, and we planned on leaving for Pyongyang via Beijing on 7th October. We were told by our minder, to bring a formal evening wear with us. We joked and said did they plan for us to have a photo session with their leader, Kim Jong Il….. little did we know, we were quite close to that.Whatever fantastic tales come out of North Korea and quoting from the New York Times, “would-be successor has had cosmetic surgery to make him resemble his grandfather.” Or from a Newsweek recent issue, they reported “Kim Jr., now heralded as the “brilliant comrade” in Pyongyang propaganda. Some analysts believe he was the brains behind the March attack on the South Korean ship Cheonan.” I am just as curious about this nuclear-armed “hermit kingdom” and Kim Junior and if Pyongyang is a model city of North Korea, I would like to see. This would be a special trip to me. On one occasion, when I looked at Kim Jong Un close up, I thought wow he does look like his grandfather, Kim Il Sun.

Our formal dress turned out to be very useful, our minder never told us anything except once or twice he slipped and said we would see the power of North Korea, like all the Pyongyang citizens, our minder was keen to show visitors and the world through the eyes of the journalists that all is well in their country, the young heir has been appointed, the ruling power is still in control. I have visited Sunbong a few times, I walked the embankment of Tumen River many times, across the river, North Korea generally is all dark. But today the whole city’s lights were on, from my hotel bed room I could see the Juche Tower clearly. Juche ideology insists that 'humanity is the heart of everything’, this dominates how the North Koreans live, behave and call for total loyalty to the Kim Dynastic ruling power. 

When the fun was over, we were back to the real agenda of our visit, which was to visit the Orphanage Schools in North Pyongyang. We took a six hours train ride from the city centre to Shinaju, along the way, it was nothing but rice paddy fields, as we travelled further away from the city, we saw many rice fields were destroyed by the recent flooding. This year will not be a good rice harvest, this year many will suffer from hunger again, even on a good harvest year, the nation’s demand was still higher than supply. We visited three government run Orphanage Schools. 

We travelled past so many check points, soldiers were everywhere, if we did not have our proper papers or right accompanying units, I don’t think we could travel around the country side at all.At the age of 5, children enter Kindergarten for 2 years, between the age of 6 years old to 16 years old, children need to attend school, which consists of 4 years primary school and 6 years middle school. Children came to the Orphanage School when their parents died and their neighbours reported them and the school would take these children in. When we met with the workers and helpers, they admitted honestly that the Government had tried to supply their needs, but much resources were still lacking to support the young children in their formative years, their main sources of supply for food, for building materials, for general needs are from the designated village that were called to provide. But the farmers themselves were also in the lacking. The first school principal was sharing how some of the windows in the school could not shut well to keep the rain or wind out, farmers in their unit, whenever they got money, they would supply two or three new window frames or glasses, then they had to wait for the next round of haves. The School Principals were reaching out for help for the good of their children.The second school tried to do experimental farming within the school, their tries brought them extra 10-12 tons of vegetable last year, and they were happy with the result, the green house technology, know-how and equipment was the contribution and donation from a group in Europe.

 They admitted children were under nourished, they needed better food; the school faced clean water and sanitation issues as well, the children became sick because of these two unresolved issues, and they did not know how to resolve the problem given the lack of resources. We found a school hall of over 200 children watching DVD cartoon on a little TV set. We were shown 7-8 children a room playing or singing with their minders, this would be their sleeping area as well as play area. When we walked in, they were so happy to greet us in traditional Korean greeting, but they would not have a second greeting or any other answers to any questions we asked. It was sad to see the children were like robots being winded up, and computed to say certain greetings. Despite it all, we found them happy, playing football and skipping ropes in the playground, no toys around, we did not see any. No school library, no computer room, no game room.


The third School was deep in the countryside, we found classrooms to be basic, good stationery and reading books were absence, no educational toys, no musical instrument that one would see in a school. They were supposed to be high school kids, but they looked so tiny small compared to their same age group counterparts in Asia. The average intake of any given orphanage school was 1,000 children maximum, with 45 teachers serving these children. Most of the funding to sustain these schools came from overseas. In an open conversation, the Principal shared their needs of stationery, warm clothing, noodles, sugar, cooking oil, soybean, wheat flour, bedding etc; their roof top needed fixing, windows were falling away; no medicine in the medical room. The list went on.down our journey, we deeply felt the urgency to help these orphan school children, most of the children carry the after effect of one that gone through hunger or malnutrition. Hunger created many ill effects to the development of a child’s future growth, not just physically but the development of the brain too. We need to help them to eat well when they were young. We also believed God would use His Church strategically to make disciples of all nations. It is our sincere prayer that many people will be raised up to help the poor, feed the hungry and have God’s heart for North Korea. To give hope and a future to those not able to help themselves.


This report filed by our FTH Hong Kong Director, Armanda da Roza