Stories of Mission supported through One Great Hour of Sharing Gifts to Church World Service

Pronunciation tips for mission stories
1) SENEGAL
Anta Niang - AHN-tah nee-ahng
Ganket Guent - GAHN-ket goo-ent
ASREAD - AHS-ree-ahd

2) AFGHANISTAN
Rahmuddin Huzruddin - RAH-mu-deen HOOS-roo-deen
Rabat-Qarabaghi - rah-BAHT KAH-rah-BAH-gee

3) MALAWI
Rose Gwangwara - gwahn-GWAH-rah
Anne Kachinde - kah-CHIN-deh
Mabuleni - mah-boo-LAY-nee
Blantyre - BLAN-tire
Malawi - mah-LAH-wee

4) BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (HAIR-sah-GO-vin-ah)
Vitali Vorona - vee-TAH-lee voh-ROH-nah
Mostar - MOH-stahr
Lokve - LOHK-veh
Bivolje Brdo - biv-VOHL-yeh BRID-oh
Grandina Pocitelj - grahn-din-ah poh-chee-tel-yeh

5) ANGOLA
Belinda Chilombo- chee-LOHM-boh

6) CAMBODIA
Chum Sophan - choom soh-PAHN
Kien Svay - kee-in SVAH-ee (rhymes with why)

Women taking notes—men taking note

In Anta Niang’s women’s association, in the village of Ganket Guent, Senegal, there are now ten or more women who can take notes and keep records of financial transactions. Not that long ago, there were none. “The men used to come and do it, and trick us because we couldn’t read,” said Niang. “Now, they come to learn. They respect our new abilities.”

Women are making great strides in Ganket Guent and in many other villages in northern Senegal. Church World Service partner ASREAD, the Senegalese Association of Research, Study and Aid for Development, works with communities over a three-year period starting with women’s literacy. The women students eagerly learn to read information important for themselves and their families nutrition, sanitation, health, HIV/AIDS, and environmental protection. In the second year, the women gain additional agricultural training and learn to plan together. In the third year, the women evaluate the results of their efforts, both agriculturally and financially. And, through a participatory process, they learn to make course corrections for the future.Raising the roof in Afghanistan.

“We are very thankful. This has come at a very crucial time for us,” said Rahmuddin Huzruddin, 22, as he placed wooden beams atop the house he and his family have rebuilt in the village of Rabat-Qarabaghi, Afghanistan.

Huzruddin lives in an area just yards from what at one time was the frontline of fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

Church World Service and its local Afghan partners assisted 40 families in Rabat-Qarabaghi as they reconstructed their homes. This was part of the overall project that has provided housing to some 1,500 families in the Shomali Valley, just north of Kabul.

For Marvin Parvez, director of CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan, the hard work and dedication of the people is a marvel. “The two things I most admire about the Afghan people,” he said, “are their resilience and capacity to bounce back.”

Water for life

Rose Gwangwara and Anne Kachinde lead the Village Water Committee in Mabuleni village, Blantyre District, Malawi. Twice a month they do routine maintenance on the village’s borehole well, installed in 1999. Repairs, when needed, are funded with monthly user fees, about 20 cents per household.

In Malawi, thousands of people each year are gaining access to clean, safe water thanks to Church World Service and One Great Hour of Sharing. Boreholes wells are proving the most popular form of water supply. Because of their simplicity, they can be managed by village-level committees. And, a key to a successful water program is local management.

Simple irrigation systems also play an important role in improving food security. When drought-related famine hit Malawi and other areas of Southern Africa in 2002-03, communities with borehole wells were able to continue watering vegetable gardens, lessening the drought’s impact on their food supply. (OGHS has also helped CWS provide emergency food and seed for replanting.) Potatoes, payback, and peace dividends in the Balkans.

As the embers from the Balkans wars continue to cool down, and the region settles into a still somewhat tenuous peace, Church World Service is moving away from emergency-related work and into longer-term development projects. “We know what the risks are in creating dependence on paternalistic relief aid,” said Vitali Vorona, CWS Balkans Director. “That is why we focus on assistance that empowers people and helps them generate their own resources.”

Among the empowered people were 250 families in three villages near Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina Lokve, Bivolje Brdo, and Gradina-Pocitelj -- who received agricultural assistance from CWS in the form of 22,000 kilos of seed potatoes.

To “pay back” the seed potatoes loan, the communities sent more than 35 tons of potatoes to seven soup kitchens throughout the country, where more than 6,000 people received food based on need, not on ethnic background. The families are on their way to independence, and in the process, they are helping to build peace in a country still struggling with the legacy of war.The road back home

No one is more vulnerable than the more than 35 million people in our world today who are uprooted from their homes by the horrors of war, intolerance, and natural disaster.
In 1991, Belinda Chilombo, her husband, and five children fled their village in Angola. For eight years they hid in the bush as war raged between government troops and UNITA rebels. Three of Belinda’s children died there.

When peace finally came to Angola, more than a decade later, the Chilombo’s returned to their village. Only the walls were left of what was once their mud house. Belinda planted a few seeds she had jealously saved over the years, hauling water from a well two kilometers away. She cut down some small trees to turn into charcoal and sell to passing traders on the armament-littered highway near her home.

Though times remain hard, Belinda hopes her two remaining children can attend school. “They grew up in the bush and don’t know anything but how to run from other people,” she said. “I’d like them to learn something else.”

Church World Service and OGHS have helped some 9,000 war-displaced and returned Angolan families with health services, agricultural and food assistance, landmine awareness training, and rebuilding and rehabilitation of school facilities.

Healthy animals and healthy families

Bring a sick pig to Chum Sophan and she will have no trouble diagnosing and treating it. In the past, her family tried raising pigs to generate extra money, but they would usually get sick and die before they were old enough to take to market. As a young woman in Cambodia, Sophan had very little opportunity for extra education, much less specialized veterinary training. Then Church World Service came to work in her village, and her dream came true.

Sophan was selected to train as a Village Livestock Agent to provide preventive care and treat animals. She was also given a small loan to build a pig pen and buy one sow. Today, she’s one of 28 CWS-trained Village Livestock Agents in Kien Svay district, and a successful pig farmer. Her reputation for healthy pigs has other farmers lining up to buy from her. And, her family has gained the skills they need to work with the animals a source of pride and income for the whole family.

Working Together to Help Iraq's Children

Children are typically the most vulnerable to shortages of food, medicine, and hygiene supplies. For the past two decades, the children of Iraq have suffered at the hands of both internal and external forces. During this period, between 500,000 and a million children are estimated to have died as a result of shortages. Today Iraqi children continue to suffer from a host of ailments, including diarrhea and acute respiratory infection, nutritional anemia, vitamin and iodine deficiencies, malaria, and measles.

Through Church World Service, One Great Hour of Sharing is supporting a coalition campaign called "All Our Children" to meet critical ongoing health needs of Iraqi children for medicine and other essentials. Church World Service is providing blankets, medicines, first aid and personal hygiene kits, and medical and surgical equipment for pediatric hospitals and clinics. With help from One Great Hour of Sharing, Church World Service, and the "All Our Children" campaign, a lot of Iraqi children will be healthier and happier in the years ahead.