HAITI

(MissionNewswire) Ten years after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, the country continues to face challenges and serious issues with hunger and undernutrition. Three-quarters of the population lives on less than $2 a day and faces the highest levels of severe food insecurity in the world, according to the World Food Programme. More than half of the country’s population of 10.7 million people is undernourished. Nearly 100,000 Haitian children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition, causing irreversible stunted growth for close to 30 percent of all children in the country.

To ensure youth in six Salesian centers have access to better nutrition, Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco, launched its Hunger for Education project, which was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from September 2016 to March 2019. The project aimed to increase the health and learning capacity of students by implementing school feeding programs in Salesian centers within the country.

Overall the project provided lunch five days a week for 12,746 students at six school centers from January 2017 to Oct. 31, 2017, 15,541 students from November 2017 to September 2018, and 18,161 students from November 2017 through the end of the project on March 31, 2019.

The project helped support the shipment of 40 40-foot shipping containers of meals—16 from Breedlove, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping eradicate world hunger; 17 from Rise Against Hunger, an international relief organization that provides food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable; and seven from Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit Christian organization committed to “feeding God’s children hungry in body and spirit.”

The donation was shared among Salesian centers in the cities of Port-au-Prince, Fort-Liberté, Cap-Haïtien, Les Cayes, Gressier and Gonaïves. The feeding programs also covered two months of summer programming at Les Cayes, Gressier, Fort-Liberté, Cap-Haïtien, Gonaives, Thorland, Petionville, Drouillard and the Salesian post-novitiate.

The Hunger for Education project has also helped to ensure each of the six Salesian centers had kitchens equipped to cook the rice-meals while training 15 school cooks to prepare the nutritious meals for students. Prior to this project, the Cardinal Keeler Center in Gonaïves had no kitchen at all. With funding through the project, the center was able to develop a new kitchen from the ground up, including cooking supplies.

“The new kitchen and feeding program have been well received by students from all disciplines within the school,” said Father Yves Jorcelim Pierre, director of the Cardinal Keeler Center. “This new kitchen has also provided access for teachers, support staff, cooks and managers to eat there as well. The feeding program and donation of food aid have been a great blessing to our center. Children are now assured a hot meal each day. Prior, many were coming to school on an empty stomach and knowing they had no food to go home to in the evening. Children are much more focused on their studies now.”

Salesian vocational training students who received meals from the Hunger for Education project expressed high levels of gratitude for having food to fuel their practical exercises. In Fort-Liberté, agricultural students work in the school’s fields from 8:00-11:00 a.m. every day, and they count on having food available when they are finished with their morning projects.

In Cité Soleil and Les Cayes, Salesian students work hard in vocational training workshops to learn skills in carpentry, welding, auto-mechanics, electricity, sewing and beauty. They rely on the meals to keep them going through practical training workshops as well as classroom learning. Before the feeding program began, administrators noted instances of vocational training students fainting during their practical exercises due to a lack of food. Now students have energy not only to make it through the day but also to stay after school to participate in soccer or other programs.

Each of the six participating school directors noted that the feeding program improved student academic performance and enhanced the learning environment. Students who previously were sleepy in the afternoon after recreation time had more energy to continue in their studies after meals were implemented during the school day. School directors also noted that report cards have improved and that their students study much better when they have proper nutrition.

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Sources:

Photo courtesy of Salesian Missions (contact for usage permissions)

Breedlove

Feed My Starving Children

HAITI: USAID-funded Hunger for Education project feeds 18,161 students at six Salesian centers

Rise Against Hunger

Salesian Missions – Haiti

World Food Programme – Haiti

The post HAITI: USAID-funded ‘Hunger for Education’ provided nutritious meals to thousands of school children first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The university has also made energy and renewable energy a focus of its curriculum. There is an electrical engineering program, which includes subjects in management and design of solar plants, as well as two-year renewable energy master’s degree program. This program is aimed at professionals who wish to study more on energy exploitation and renewable sources such solar, wind, biomass, tidal, hydraulic and geothermal.

Courses are focused on teaching the fundamentals of renewable energy systems and providing criteria to analyze the technical, economic and environmental viability of their possible applications. There is also a non-degree 60-hour program for professional development on the installation and maintenance of solar panels. The course is an open program for people preparing to enter the labor market.

Don Bosco University also has an Energy Research Institute, which not only supports research and training in these areas, but also offers services to companies in the country, especially in the field of energy efficiency. Through strengthening training programs and the development of new projects, the institute supports the country in the process of converting its energy economy to an equitable and ecologically sustainable clean model.

In November 2016, with the help USAID, through its Regional Clean Energy Initiative, Don Bosco University installed a photovoltaic system with the objective of improving the learning practices and professional competencies of engineering students.

This system allows students to make assessments of efficiency, performance and profitability, through the information obtained from the production of electricity under different technologies of photovoltaic panels, meteorological conditions and orientations in their installation. This allows students to put into practice knowledge for their future professional careers and better prepare for better job opportunities.

“The energy sector takes more importance in the country every day, since it contributes to solve the problems of growth in other industries by decisively promoting the generation of energy through alternative sources,” said Tim Hurley, USAID economist in an article on the Don Bosco University website about this partnership.

“I congratulate Don Bosco University for its constant commitment to the education of future professionals. I share this vision of training competent and comprehensive professionals, and we accompany them in their work to build a better El Salvador with a solid education, where young people can opt for better job opportunities and contribute positively to their country,” added Hurley.

Close to 35 percent of El Salvador’s population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank. Youth in El Salvador are confronted not only with poverty, but with instability, high levels of violence and inadequate access to educational opportunities. Despite ranking high for economic indicators, the need for practical education in the country is more important than ever with 12 percent of youth ages 15 to 24 unemployed and 41 percent underemployed.

Salesian missionaries in El Salvador provide social development services and primary, secondary and vocational education as well as university degree programs to aid youth in breaking the cycle of poverty and contributing back to their families and communities.

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Sources:

Don Bosco University

World Bank – El Salvador

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According to USAID, the lead U.S. government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential, there are more than 62 million girls around the globe who are not in school. Many families cannot afford school fees and others send their daughters to work at a young age instead. As a girl ages, the fight to get an education becomes progressively more difficult. USAID notes that in the developing world, one in seven girls is married before her 15th birthday. Girls with secondary schooling are up to six times less likely to marry as children compared to girls who have little or no education.

For those who are able to attend school, the walk to and from school is often unsafe. Around the world, 246 million children experience gender‐based violence at or on their way to school every year. A report released by the United Nations Human Rights Council noted that attacks on schools occurred in at least 70 countries between 2009‐2014, and that approximately 3,600 attacks against schools, teachers and students were recorded in 2012 alone.

“Young women and girls face many disadvantages and barriers to accessing education and achieving financial independence despite their huge potential,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “It is very important for girls to attend school and gain an education. Girls that are empowered though education are more often able to achieve financial independence, marry at an older age and make better and healthier choices that affect not only themselves, but their families and communities as well.”

In honor of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, Salesian Missions is proud to highlight programs around the globe that empower and educate young women and girls.

BOLIVIA

Started in 1992, the Casa Maín girl’s home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, provides shelter, nutritious meals and schooling for girls and young women with little access to education and those who were once living on the streets. Currently, there are more than 160 girls living and being educated at the home. Casa Maín is comprised of three houses and the girls are divided among them by age. The youngest girls, attending elementary school, live together in one house supported by several volunteer students from the secondary school. A second house provides shelter and peer support for girls attending secondary school while a third house is for young women attending the local university.

The university students enjoy a setting that allows them to finish their degrees in a stable environment while learning how to live independently. In addition to academic classes, the young women and girls at the home learn skills in communication and conflict management. Additional classes in dance, gymnastics and crafts are provided in the evenings and on weekends. Most recently, the organization offered a three-week technology workshop to teach the girls basic computer skills including typing, word processing and drawing.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

In the Dominican Republic, women striving for a better life can access support services through the “Madres Project” in Santo Domingo. This project addresses the root causes that force children to live on the streets. By teaching mothers skills that enable them to earn a living wage and improve their living conditions, their children become more likely to stay at home and off the streets. Made possible through a partnership between Salesian Missions and the International Volunteer Movement for Development, the program offers women complete courses in literacy, post-literacy, health care and computer skills with each training module including lessons in human rights. Salesians in Santo Domingo also operate a training program for youth in the poorest areas of the city called “Boys and Girls with Don Bosco.”

INDIA

In the state of Tamil Nadu, India, the Salesian “New Beginnings” program helps to educate Sri Lankan refugees while giving their families the chance to achieve stability in their new country. The program offers technical and vocational courses and skill training as well as job placement support to aid refugees in finding employment.

For women with children who are unable to leave the refugee camp and attend traditional classes, a special program has been developed within the camp. Through it, women receive training in skills such as jewelry making and sewing and are also provided entrepreneurial workshops. In addition, they are eligible for financial assistance to start up new businesses where they can use their new skills while continuing to take care of their families. One such business is a cooperative that utilizes sewing machines and equipment financed through a micro-credit program. To date, close to 2,500 refugees have received vocational training scholarships through the program and 550 women are benefiting from the refugee camp-based small business incubator program. In addition, Salesian missionaries are currently serving 550 individuals by providing vocational training through a network of nine Salesian-run Don Bosco schools spread across Southeast India.

MEXICO

Salesians working in Mexico City, Mexico, are directing their efforts toward the country’s at-risk population, including girls and mothers living on the streets. Innovative programs are preventing poor youth from dropping out of school and are providing them important educational and training opportunities. Through the “Yolia” program, girls and young women are able to spend their days at a Salesian center in the city where they can have meals, receive tutoring, obtain therapy and learn job skills such as jewelry making and hair styling. Some girls choose the residential program where they receive additional education and services while gaining a renewed sense of dignity and self-worth.

SIERRA LEONE

Salesians at Don Bosco Fambul in Freetown, Sierra Leone, have been running a Girls Shelter for the past three years. Here, professional social workers and pastoral workers provide crisis intervention and follow-up care for girls and young women who have been the victims of sexual assault. Those that access services at the shelter are also able to enroll in educational programs that are a part of the broader Don Bosco Fambul network and which train them in the skills necessary to find and retain employment. The training helps to empower them to overcome the discrimination they have faced and gain a greater awareness of their rights. It also helps to build character while allowing the girls and young women the freedom to make decisions that affect their lives, improve their health and boost their work prospects.

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Sources:

Salesian Missions

United Nations Human Rights Council Report: Attacks on Girls February 2015

UN Women – 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

USAID – Let Girls Learn

The post GLOBAL: Salesian Missions Highlights Girls Education and Empowerment Programs for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Don Bosco Kep was one of 34 programs funded by USAID grants that support construction projects and the purchase of equipment for overseas institutions. For children with disabilities living in Cambodia, access to education is limited and the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty is almost nonexistent. UNICEF notes in its State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities report that globally, close to 61 percent of boys finish school but for boys with disabilities that number drops to 51 percent. For girls, 53 percent finish school but among those living with a disability, only 42 percent finish their education.

The UNICEF report also notes that studies across countries show a strong link between poverty and disability, which in turn is linked to gender, health and employment issues. The report further suggests that inclusion in mainstream schools and educational settings is usually most appropriate for children with disabilities and when teachers and personnel are trained to consider disability-related issues, they look upon inclusion of children with disabilities more positively.

Don Bosco Kep provides basic, secondary and technical education to poor youth living in the Cambodian provinces of Kep, Kampot, Takeo, Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri. The school’s educational and social development programs help students  break the cycle of poverty and become contributing members of their communities. Don Bosco Kep provides special attention to children and young people from ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, orphans and at-risk youth in danger of becoming victims of human trafficking, labor exploitation or other abuses.

“Youth living in poverty are among the least likely to have access to educational programs that provide the skills necessary to lead stable productive lives,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Children living in poverty with a disability are even less likely to attend school when compared to their peers. Salesian missionaries in Cambodia are working to ensure that every child, no matter their situation, has access to education.”

In order to best meet the needs of the youth it serves, Don Bosco Kep is constantly expanding its services. In October 2011, technical education began at the school in social communication and journalism as well as front office management, housekeeping and tailoring. In October 2012, the electrical department opened and the information technology and language classes began. A year later, the school expanded again to include coursework in culinary arts, agriculture, food and beverage, art communication and office administration.

In 2013, Don Bosco Kep began welcoming students with disabilities. One such student, Ang, who is enrolled in the art communications program, was afflicted by polio at a young age and lost his ability to walk. While he does have access to a motorized wheelchair and a motorbike with three wheels that allows him to get to and from the campus buildings and up the ramp to his classrooms, he still requires assistance. The art school is located on the second floor of the youth center building and the male residence is on the third. It is only with assistance from his classmates that he is able to access those areas of the building, which often leaves Ang feeling like a burden to those around him.

With the newly acquired USAID funding, Don Bosco Kep plans to make specific modifications including the installation of elevators in the main buildings, the construction of ramps to access areas for community gatherings and the creation of a students’ and teachers’ residence with all of the modifications that will allow those with physical disabilities to live and attend school independently.

Jaime Correa-Montalvo, program director at the Salesian Missions Office for International Programs headquartered in New Rochelle, New York, recently visited the campus of Don Bosco Kep to oversee the implementation of the new grant.

“We appreciate the funding from USAID that will allow Salesian missionaries to transform the Don Bosco Kep campus to welcome and giver greater access to students with physical disabilities,” says Correa-Montalvo. “The new construction modifications will open up the campus allowing students to have better access from building to building and have a greater degree of self-sufficiency.”

Cambodia’s long history of violence and conflict has led to almost a quarter of Cambodians living in poverty, according to UNICEF. Since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia’s economy has been strengthening with particular growth in construction, tourism and agriculture. However, Cambodians are still struggling, particularly those living in rural areas where close to 75 percent of the population face seasonal food shortages.

With almost a quarter of Cambodians over the age of 15 illiterate with very little access to education, poor youth find it especially challenging to break the cycle of poverty. To provide youth with greater opportunity, Salesians in the country operate 45 schools and seven vocational training centers in poor, rural villages through a partnership with Salesian Missions and the Ministry of Education.

Sources

Don Bosco Kep

UNICEF – State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities

UNICEF – Cambodia

USAID – USAID Announces Awards to Support Schools and Hospitals Abroad

The post CAMBODIA: Don Bosco Kep Awarded USAID Grant to Provide Greater Access for Students with Physical Disabilities first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Agriculture is a central part of Malawi’s economy but land distribution is unequal and crops are highly vulnerable to the region’s frequent droughts. Few houses have piped water and less than one in 10 Malawians have access to electricity. Water is collected from wells or streams and most cook over an open fire. Malawians deal with hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. According to USAID, 45 percent of the country’s children under age five are stunted due to a lack of adequate nutrition. Many children also lack educational opportunities and have few options for improving their circumstances.

Adding to an already difficult situation, most people in the country live far from health care services and lack the transportation and money to access adequate care. According to the World Bank, the average life expectancy in Malawi is 55 years old. The country also suffers from an HIV/AIDS epidemic with more than one in 10 adults infected and more than 90,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Many children have been orphaned as a result and are living on their own or with relatives other than their parents.

Salesian missionaries in Milawi have been providing primary and secondary educational and technical skills training for poor youth for many years.

“Youth in Malawi have very few opportunities for education and for creating a better life for themselves and their families,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Salesian elementary and secondary education lays the foundation for early learning while vocational and technical schools teach practical skills so youth can become productive and contributing adults in their communities. Education has proven to be an effective means to break the cycle of poverty while giving the most vulnerable youth a sense of personal dignity and self-worth.”

Recently, Salesian Missions coordinated and shipped a container of donated school desks, chairs, shelves, books, computers, trade tools and other school and household supplies to a Salesian school in Lilongwe, the largest and capital city of Malawi, located in the central region of the country. The donation was prompted by Brother Robert Malusa, a Salesian missionary living and working in Malawi, who wished to start a library for students at the Salesian school.

The donations came from Salesian parishes and programs in the United States. Brother Malusa’s former parish in Long Island, New York organized a book drive and many of his friends purchased additional books on his wish list to include in the shipment. Mary Help of Christians Academy in New Jersey donated school desks and chairs and computers and additional books were donated by Saints John and Paul Parish in Larchmont, New York.

The donation of desks and chairs was shared with Don Bosco Youth Technical Institute in Lilongwe, one of the largest private colleges in Malawi and home to more than 600 students and 30 staff. Courses are offered in a wide variety of subjects including accounting, automobile mechanics, construction, electrical engineering, hospitality management, information and communication technology, and fashion, art and beauty. Prior to the donation, students had to use pre-school desks from the primary school next to the Institute.

“Adequate school supplies, including books and computers, offer students and teachers better educational resources,” says Fr. Hyde. “The addition of proper desks and chairs provides a more structured learning environment in which students can feel more comfortable and ready to learn.”

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Sources

USAID – Malawi

World Bank – Malawi

The post MALAWI: Donated Supplies for New Library Reach Salesian School first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The ILO launched the World Day Against Child Labor in 2002. Each year on June 12, the day brings together governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, civil society and millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child laborers and what can be done to help them.

The movement is succeeding in its ambitious goals. In the late 1990s, the estimated number of children in various forms of child labor was nearly 250 million. Today, that figure has dropped to 168 million. The decline has particularly benefitted girls; total child labor among girls has fallen by 40 percent since 2000, compared to a drop of 25 percent for boys.

Child labor is defined as work that is hazardous to a child’s health, education, or physical or mental development. Too often, it traps children in a cycle of poverty. Too many children in the world still work instead of going to school. For example, an estimated 98 million children worldwide work in agriculture. Children harvest tobacco, cocoa, rubber and other global commodities. Children also work in dangerous industries like shipbreaking in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in services such as construction and restaurant work. However, the U.S. Government has made a substantial contribution to ending this vicious cycle for tens of millions of children.

What have we learned about what works?

Social mobilization and awareness-raising: Like so many of the world’s ‘wicked’ problems, addressing child labor requires a concerted effort by multiple stakeholders acting together. Work to promote awareness of child labor among citizens and consumers in developed countries, and among families and communities in developing countries where children are at risk, has proven to be an important part of the solution. U.S. Government agencies, in particular the U.S. Department of Labor, have produced important reports documenting the issues thoroughly. Recognizing that raising public awareness also requires compelling photo and video documentation, in the mid-2000s USAID supported the creation of a photo and video repository, in particular to document conditions faced by girls. This material was ultimately turned into a film, Stolen Childhoods. The film documented not only the problem but examples of what interventions could help working children – such as a new USAID-supported schoolhouse in communities of coffee pickers in Kenya, creating opportunities for children who had been working on coffee farms to attend school for the first time.

Another very important part of the solution is mobilizing communities and empowering them to work at a grassroots level on practical solutions to address root causes of child labor. For example, through our Global Labor Program, USAID has helped workers in the rubber sector in Liberia to organize, mobilize and negotiate with their employer to end exploitative wage practices that compelled rubber tappers to bring their children to work. In the early 2000s, the problem of child labor on the world’s largest rubber plantation in Liberia came to light. Adult tappers were compelled to bring their entire families to work with them just to meet their daily quotas. Following the exposure of this problem, a transnational campaign emerged, linking civil-society organizations and trade unions in Liberia with consumer, labor and human rights groups in the United States. Through USAID’s Global Labor Program, the Solidarity Center was able to work directly with rubber workers in Liberia and assist them to organize, join unions and negotiate better wages and working conditions for themselves and their families. Today, thanks to the combination of effective awareness-raising, campaigning in the United States and the work of trade unions in Liberia to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement, there is a school on the rubber plantation where all children attend school while their parents, the adult workers, are paid a living wage.

Businesses are also an important part of the solution to the child labor problem. Awareness-raising campaigns have succeeded in flagging this as a business issue for many companies worldwide in many industries, and those companies and industries are working on innovative new approaches to ensuring their supply chains do not exploit workers. Goodweave is one of the best-known examples of a program effectively addressing child labor in a sector where it was endemic, the carpet-weaving sector in India. Goodweave is a certification system that works with retailers, rug importers and exporters, and looms to ensure that child labor is not used in carpet production. The program is active in the ‘carpet belt’ of India and Nepal, and recently extended into Afghanistan. The program provides educational transition programs and works with schools to ensure that children that are found working receive the assistance and support they need to go to school. By building awareness about the widespread use of child labor in the rug industry and creating an effective market-based solution, GoodWeave is ending child labor one rug at a time. Since 1995, 11 million child labor free carpets bearing the GoodWeave label have been sold worldwide, and the number of ‘carpet kids’ has dropped from 1 million to 250,000. GoodWeave’s work in Afghanistan is supported by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Finally, governments also have a very critical role to play in addressing child labor, through their role in establishing laws and policies to protect children, and equally important, their role in ensuring that all children have access to basic education. USAID’s Education Strategy is working to increase access to education for all children worldwide, and in particular for children in crisis and conflict environments. To achieve these goals, USAID is committed to working closely with host country governments and civil society to contribute to shared goals. For example, we are supporting a multi-million dollar initiative in Haiti, Room to Learn, that is working to provide universal, compulsory access to education in Haiti. USAID works closely with the Government of Haiti to build up the education system and provide safe, equitable education to children. USAID and the Government of Haiti are planning to work together to offer schooling to working children. Last March, USAID Assistant Administrator Eric Postel visited Haiti to set priorities for the design of the program. Postel visited an evening school for working children with former Minister of Education Vanneur Pierre. A study commissioned by the USAID/Haiti’s education office estimated more than 24,000 children work as domestic servants. Most of them are teenage girls whose education level is low. The Room to Learn project will work with the Haitian Ministry to offer improved services for these girls.

This year’s theme for World Day is Social Protection: Keeping Children Out of Work. This theme builds on last year’s World Report on Child Labor [PDF]. As we learn more and more about the root causes of child labor, we also are moving further back toward addressing those causes and preventing child labor from taking place at all. We now know that poverty and shocks play a significant role in driving children into work, and also in driving adults into forced and trafficked labor. Development assistance will have a very significant role to play in addressing these issues. With more support for social protection programs that have been proven to play an effective role in helping poor families cope with various types of shocks, we can keep even more children in school and continue to ensure children receive other basic protections.

Support for the World Day grows every year and today we look forward to even wider support from governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, NGOs and civil society, international and regional organizations and active citizens worldwide. You can add your voice to the millions worldwide that will celebrate our continued progress toward ending child labor.

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Posted by Bama Athreya on Thursday, June 12th 2014

Photo © U. Roberto Romano

See this Article at its original location >

The post USAID: Ending Child Labor first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The country has 4 million orphans which account for nearly 12 percent of all children, and according to UNICEF, more than half a million of these were orphaned as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis that has affected the country. Thousands more children run away each year seeking a better life on the streets.

Through various programs, Salesians in Ethiopia are meeting the most basic needs of poor youth while providing educational opportunities to enable them to break the cycle of poverty and find hope for the future.

One such Salesian program, the CARING Orphans and Vulnerable Children project is funded by USAID to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS in the country. It provides holistic care, community reintegration and support for 60,000 orphans and street youth who are living at-risk due to HIV/AIDS. A shelter where youth are able to access medical care, clothing and food is available as well as formal and non-formal education opportunities. As a result of the program, more than a quarter of the youth have been reintegrated back home with their extended families.

“Salesians in Ethiopia are helping the most poor and vulnerable children in the country,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “As a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, children have been left alone to fend for themselves. Salesians are working hard to make sure that these children have a chance at a brighter future.”

In Ethiopia, the Salesians’ primary focus is on the education of poor youth. They accomplish this through the operation of six primary schools, three secondary schools and six vocational training centers for older youth. At all these Salesian-run educational facilities, youth are able to gain an education while having access to support services, including family sponsorship and school feeding programs, that provide care for them and their families all with the goal of keeping youth in school as long as possible.

In Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, a Salesian Center provides a variety of programs designed to instill confidence and self-respect to 750 at-risk youth. The Center features dormitories, classrooms, a recreation hall and cafeteria and serves hundreds of poor youth by providing for their most basic needs of food and shelter. While educational programming is offered at the Center, the Salesians there believe in meeting the basic needs of youth first, so they are better able to focus on their studies.

“Education is always our primary focus,” adds Fr. Hyde. “But we know youth in Ethiopia are dealing with much more than just having access to education. Salesian programs are tailored to meet the needs of the youth in the communities they serve. Homeless and malnourished youth are simply not able to focus effectively on their studies while they struggle to meet their basic needs. Our services provide food and shelter so youth are able to focus on the education provided.”

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Sources

Feed the Future – Ethiopia

UNICEF – Ethiopia

The post ETHIOPIA: Salesian Programs Help Break Cycle of Poverty and Give Youth Hope for the Future first appeared on MissionNewswire.

I used to call them “disease du jour” bills. As a staffer on the U.S. Senate committee with jurisdiction over public health issues, every time a Senator’s nephew or cousin or college roommate’s daughter got a terrible diagnosis, it was my job to explain why passing a one-time bill wasn’t the answer for every disease. Washington’s attention span tends to wane after the galas end, the celebrities leave town, and the surge of early funding and enthusiasm dries up. Without unglamorous vigilance, the disease remains after the politicians and paparazzi move on to the next disease du jour. Global health was no different. After working on malaria policy for several years, I noticed the buzz starting to shift to tuberculosis. Malaria control was just so… 2006.

Surely the private sector wouldn’t be so fickle, right? I joined MosquitoZone International, a U.S.-based firm that offers malaria prevention services to companies with operations in endemic areas. How exciting to work with clients who were absolutely committed to keeping their workers and communities safe from malaria! It turns out, of course, that companies can sometimes be a lot like governments. They invest in controlling malaria and they make so much progress that pressure builds to redirect scarce resources into one of the other health and safety threats facing their workers and their bottom line. But malaria doesn’t go quietly into the night.

One of our clients started off doing everything right. They committed to eliminating malaria at a sub-Saharan African project site. They hired us to run a comprehensive vector control program and we don’t play around. Our entomologists knew every mosquito on that jobsite by name and killed it. By 2011, our client had zero new cases among non-immune expatriate workers and zero complicated cases among semi-immune local workers. They bragged about their success on the company web site. Problem solved.

Inevitably, the urgency of the need for investment in sophisticated entomology was questioned. After all, there were plenty of other problems clamoring for their health and safety resources. Unfortunately, when you stop putting experienced entomological eyeballs on surveillance data, the bugs get the upper hand. After we left, the company failed to respond to entomological data suggesting a major spike in the mosquito population that should have prompted a five-alarm investigation. The company recognized the problem, recommitted to entomological excellence and their success continues with MosquitoZone’s entomologists driving their prevention program today.

Time and again, we see the same predictable cycle in public and private sector programs all over the world. Success turns the volume down on the alarm bells that drive the investments that produced that success in the first place, and when that happens, only failure raises the alarm again. But failure isn’t just a technical abstraction about budget line-items or resistance data. Failure means babies dying, workers downed, and human productivity and potential plummeting.

When it comes to the wily mosquito, every day has to be World Malaria Day.

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This originally appeared on the Impact Blog.

Posted by Katy French, Vice President for Corporate Affairs, MosquitoZone International on Wednesday, April 24th 2013

Photo credit: USAID

The post USAID: Malaria is a Marathon, Not a 50-Yard Dash first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The President’s proposal would eliminate funding for Food for Peace and Food for Progress programs. Further, it would transfer $1 billion of Title II funds to the International Disaster Assistance Account for local/regional procurement, US commodity procurement and cash transfers to local populations during emergencies and transfer about $200 million to the Development Assistance Account to support a “Community Reliance and Development Fund” that would provide assistance to chronically hungry and poor communities, but would not provide food aid. Lastly, it would create a $75 million contingency fund for emergencies and provide $25 million to a maritime-related program as a partial offset for decreased use of US-flag vessels to carry food aid cargoes.

These proposed changes amount to less funding and less flexibility than what is available in food aid today. The Alliance for Global Food Security, made up of partners from private voluntary organizations and cooperatives including Salesian Missions, believe the stakes in food aid reform are very high since the proposed reforms will affect the lives of millions of vulnerable people around the globe.

“Improvements and containing costs are necessary, but we must remember that the United States has the most comprehensive, transparent and responsive food aid system in the word,” says Ellen Levinson, executive director of the Alliance for Global Food Security.

“Once funds are shifted from Food for Peace to disaster assistance and development aid it is not possible to ensure that in the future they will continue to be used for food aid and technical assistance to help people overcome chronic hunger, the purposes stated in the President’s budget proposal,” explains Levinson. “Instead, it becomes a year-by-year process, eliminating the surety and oversight provided by the Food for Peace Act which has statutory objectives, publicly-vetted guidelines, procedures and regulations and a track record.”

The Alliance therefore recommends a three-pronged approach: maintain funding for Food for Peace and improve procurement and the approach to monetization under that program; use International Disaster Assistance funds for local and regional procurement, cash transfers and food vouchers; and fund a “Developmental Local-Regional Purchase Program” to build the capacity of small farmers and processors in food insecure areas of the developing world to improve the quality, safety and quantity of food aid for local programs. Further details are provided in a briefing paper that has been made available.

The Alliance points out that there is flexibility now to increase the amount of USAID disaster assistance funds used for local-regional procurement, cash transfers and food vouchers during food crises. Despite the difficult budget climate, the amount used for those purposes increased from $232 million in FY 2011 to $375 million in FY 2012. However, local procurement and cash distribution for food crises are not necessarily less costly than providing U.S. commodities. In FY 2012, the USAID programs cost an average of $2,836 per metric ton, compared to $1,188 per metric ton for emergency Food for Peace Title II food aid.

Moreover, the Alliance notes that the types and amounts of commodities available are typically limited in areas where food crises occur.

“Let’s not undermine a system that works and is the most visible sign of U.S. goodwill worldwide,” says Levinson. “Commodities from the United States are greatly needed since recipient countries do not produce enough food to meet their needs with an estimated 12 million metric ton shortfall across the 70 most food insecure countries.”

“Add to that poverty, poor infrastructure and recurring cycles of floods and droughts and it becomes sadly apparent why one out of every seven people has too little to eat,” concludes Levinson.

Alliance members are committed to addressing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. They operate in over 100 developing countries implementing emergency and development programs that build the capacity of local communities, enterprises and institutions. Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco, is one of 14 partners in the Alliance for Global Food Security.

For further information, please see FoodAid.org.

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ABOUT SALESIAN MISSIONS AND THE ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

The Alliance for Global Food Security is made up of private voluntary organizations and cooperatives–including Salesian Missions) which are committed to addressing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity through the effective and accountable use of food aid and other resources in programs that are conducted in partnership with and improve the food security and nutrition of poor and vulnerable populations.  The Alliance seeks the adoption of responsible governmental policies and programs and the provision of adequate resources to achieve this goal.

The post UNITED STATES: Alliance for Global Food Security Suggests Changes in Opposition to President Obama’s Food Aid Reforms first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Poverty and lack of opportunity keep generations in the cycle of poverty. According to USAID, El Salvador’s per capita income is the fifth lowest in the Western Hemisphere when adjusted to reflect the cost of living. The poverty rate sits close to 42.5 percent of the population.

The Salesians are working hard in El Salvador to empower youth to create their own opportunities for success now and later in life. Salesian programs focus on academic and trade education to help students find stable employment upon graduation.

Student input, innovation and involvement over the years has resulted in exceptional programs that are enabling youth to overcome poverty and realize their full potential. Salesian partnerships with government-funded facilities are further strengthening the positive impact on young people.

Most recently, youth leadership has been a focus. Fifty-six youth, former graduates of Salesian schools, gathered in San Salvador for an in-person training session that is part of an overall 16-month leadership training program. Alumni came from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Nicaragua to learn and share their life experiences with one another. The leadership program focuses on ethics, social engagement and character building as well as leadership skills. Students learn primarily through a virtual platform but have two in-person meetings, one that just took place earlier this year and another scheduled in Costa Rica in 2014.

“Developing our youth to be leaders is important for their personal development and their communities,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Youth learn leadership skills and then apply them in the real world, helping to shape their environments and give back to the communities they grew up in.”

There are currently 123 alumni enrolled in the leadership training program, which is coordinated by the Past Pupils Executive group from El Salvador. Salesian Past Pupils Associations are made up of graduated Salesian alumni who work together to give back locally and pay the lessons they learned forward to other poor youth currently being educated in Salesian-run programs. The leadership program has been developed to further the associations’ work in education and community building.

“We encourage all of the youth we have worked with over the years to give back to their local communities,” says Fr. Hyde. “The alumni are showing what a difference someone can make when they apply the skills learned at Salesian-run schools. We are very proud of our former students.”

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Sources

ANS – El Salvador – Young pupils trained as leaders

Salesian Missions – El Salvador

USAID – El Salvador

The post EL SALVADOR: Youth Leadership Training Helps Salesian Alumni Give Back to Local Communities first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Pregnancy-related deaths remain an acute problem in many places, despite overall global declines in rates of maternal mortality. Every day, nearly 800 women die from complications in pregnancy or childbirth, and 99 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries. These deaths are largely preventable with interventions and training to prevent or treat complications such as hemorrhage, infection, and obstructed labor, and with increased access to reproductive health services and emergency care.

We traveled to Zambia because it has a disproportionately high rate of maternal mortality – an estimated 440 women dying for every 100,000 live births, which is 20 times higher than the U.S. But Zambia, as well as Uganda, is also the site of a new program, called Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL), designed to reduce maternal mortality by up to 50 percent in selected districts in a year.

SMGL builds on the fact that most maternal deaths result from one or more of three delays: in seeking care, in arriving at a health facility, and in receiving appropriate care. SMGL is working to address those delays by supporting linkages between communities and health facilities through Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs); by improving communications and transportation in the districts to speed the care and referrals of pregnant women; and by training and hiring health care providers, while improving equipment and standards of care at health facilities.

Although the U.S. government has been a driving force behind SMGL, it is a public-private partnership. The U.S. Agency for International Development leads SMGL for the U.S. Government, in partnership with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Peace Corps, and the Department of Defense.  The other SMGL partners include the governments of Norway, Zambia, and Uganda, the Merck for Mothers program, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Every Mother Counts.

SMGL has generated excitement, but its implementers know that there is no quick fix for reducing maternal mortality. Accordingly, the initiative faces significant challenges to national scale up and to sustainability, and many experts believe that the changes required will take years – not months — to achieve.

Effectively addressing maternal mortality — in Zambia and elsewhere — will demand ongoing commitment, from national governments and international partners – and investments in community awareness, in improving health facilities and transportation, and in expanding women’s access to health services, including family planning programs. As Professor Chomba said, we want to get to a point where “every woman can look forward to labor, and not say, I may die.”

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This originally appeared on Smart Global Health.

Posted by Janet Fleischman and Julia Nagel, Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday, March 14th 2013

The post USAID: Saving Mothers: A New Initiative to Address Maternal Mortality first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index—developed by USAID, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)—tracks women’s engagement in agriculture in five areas: production, resources, income, leadership, and time use. Unlike any other tool, it also measures women’s empowerment relative to men within their households, providing a more robust understanding of gender dynamics within households and communities.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (or WEAI) makes empowerment a solid and quantifiable concept Feed the Future and partners can work toward. It also helps us improve the way we do our development work. We’re using the tool to systematically assess and improve our food security programs in regard to women’s empowerment and gender equality.

We asked Emily Hogue, the acting team leader for monitoring and evaluation in the Bureau for Food Security at USAID, to reflect on the one-year anniversary of this innovative tool, which she helped create.

1. How is Feed the Future currently using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index?

We’re using the WEAI to track changes in women’s empowerment that occur as a direct or indirect result of Feed the Future programs. There’s a couple of different ways we do that. First, in our focus countries, we’re monitoring changes within the targeted geographic regions where Feed the Future works to track the contribution our food security programs make to women’s empowerment. Second, we’re collecting WEAI data within our impact evaluations on specific activities to learn more about the approaches we’re using and how effective they are. This helps us understand and assess how different approaches impact women and men and identify which program approaches are showing the most promise so we can expand their use.

2. What’s happened over the past year with the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index? What’s new?

In 2012, we collected data for the WEAI through population-based surveys in 16 of the 19 Feed the Future focus countries, alongside other Feed the Future indicators. We’re collecting data in the additional three focus countries in early 2013. This has allowed us to calculate baseline values for the WEAI so we can measure change from these baselines in future years. USAID and partners are also analyzing the large amount of data collected in the surveys to learn more about the relationships between empowerment, poverty, and nutrition, as well as relationships between WEAI indicators. Through our analyses, we’re also exploring how to further refine the tool to make it as practical and broadly useful as possible.

The WEAI team (USAID, IFPRI, and OPHI) produced a number of materials over the past year to support use of the tool, such as a brochure (PDF), a video, a webinar, and a discussion paper (PDF). So far, we’ve trained more than 600 people on how to use the tool—and that doesn’t include the number of people who have viewed our webinar training.

USAID is also funding the WEAI Resource Center at IFPRI, which offers assistance to users on fine-tuning the questionnaire for new contexts, tabulating and analyzing data, and interpreting the WEAI data to inform program design. Through IFPRI, WEAI partners selected four dissertation grants, funded by USAID, for research related to the WEAI. This research is helping build evidence on how women’s empowerment relates to other development outcomes, such as improved nutrition.

We’re excited to roll out a new instructional guide this week, published by IFPRI, that provides detailed information to users on how to use the WEAI questionnaire, analyze the WEAI data, and use the findings of the WEAI to inform program design.

3. How are you using the WEAI to improve the way Feed the Future works?

We created the WEAI as a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tool to track the effects of our programs over time, but one of the most exciting uses of the WEAI has been as a diagnostic tool to identify constraints women face in the agriculture sector. Because the WEAI examines several dimensions and uses direct measures of empowerment rather than proxies, it can identify specific obstacles to women’s advancement in agriculture, such as limited access to credit or limited involvement in leadership roles. Once we identify those constraints, we tailor our programs to address them.

We’re currently examining WEAI baseline data to better understand the primary constraints and how our programs are addressing them. Then, we use the WEAI to track change over time in those specific areas, along with all five dimensions. We’re closely tracking how our programs impact equality and empowerment so we can strengthen and replicate practices that work well and reorient programs that aren’t working.

4. What has been the development community’s response to the WEAI?

Many development partners have expressed interest in using the WEAI for tracking their own programs.  Several international organizations like the International Fund for Agricultural Development, non-governmental organizations like CARE International, and a number of universities are planning to use or are already using the tool for program monitoring and research.

The WEAI team is developing tools and guidance to help our partners use and replicate the WEAI beyond Feed the Future’s focus countries and the targeted regions we work in. With the help of our development partners, we believe we can greatly increase the potential for learning through the WEAI. What started as a fairly modest effort to develop a monitoring tool for Feed the Future has greatly exceeded our expectations and provided the development community with a robust and accessible instrument to tackle one of the most complicated development challenges.

5. What’s next for the WEAI in its second year?

Now that we have a tremendous amount of data on the WEAI, most of our focus for 2013 is on analyzing and learning more about the context of empowerment in the areas where we work, as well as how the WEAI is working as a tool. The WEAI Resource Center and M&E partners are helping us conduct analyses to make this learning happen.

In 2013, we will also be designing and collecting baselines for a few impact evaluations of Feed the Future activities that use the WEAI. The WEAI team has many other materials in the works, so stay tuned in the coming months for baseline reports and a few case studies interpreting the results of the WEAI in our baselines. We’d also love to hear from others about how they are using and learning from the WEAI, so please let us know* about any work you will be doing in 2013 related to the WEAI.

While just a first step to improve learning and programming in this critical area, the WEAI signifies the commitment of the U.S. Government to prioritize empowerment as an essential development outcome that we will measure and strive to achieve.

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This originally appeared on the Feed the Future Blog.

Posted by Emily Hogue, Team Leader for Monitoring and Evaluation, Food Security on Wednesday, March 13th 2013

Photo credit: Elisa Walton, USAID

The post USAID: Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index first appeared on MissionNewswire.

India is a regional leader and can guide and support other countries in several ways.  We commend the progress India is making in tackling child survival and strengthening India’s health sector.  India is one of the countries to have significantly reduced the incidence of HIV – from 0.41 percent in 2002 to 0.27 percent in 2011.  India has reduced its maternal mortality by more than 50 percent – from 570 in 1990 to 212 in 2009 per hundred thousand live births – and child mortality by 45 percent from 119 in 1992 to 59 per thousand live births in 2012.

The United States has been a longstanding partner of the Government of India, and our relationship dates back more than six decades. The U.S. Government through its agencies including the United States Agency for International Development, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been actively engaged in working alongside the Government of India as it endeavors towards ending preventable child deaths within a generation. In recent years, USAID has made significant investments in the area of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, nationally and in key Empowered Action Group States.

USAID is currently developing its five-year Country Development Cooperation Strategy, while continuing to provide targeted assistance to support flagship national health programs, it will increasingly adopt methods focused on innovation and partnerships: more directly engaging local partners; leveraging co-financing instead of fully funding agreements; and developing platforms and alliances to generate development outcomes that encompass multiple organizations.

The U.S. Government is proud to be a part of this initiative and to give our unwavering support to India’s Call to Action. In the coming months, USAID will look at opportunities for newer partnerships with multi-stakeholder engagement including the government, private sector, entrepreneurs, and civil society to identify, and scale up solutions to address the challenges in accelerating child survival efforts.

As USAID Administrator Raj Shah said in his welcome letter to Summit participants: “An investment in India’s children is an investment in India’s future.” We stand ready to be part of India’s tomorrow.

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Posted by William Hammink, India Mission Director on Thursday, February 7th 2013

UN Photo/Mark Garten

The post USAID: India’s Leadership Furthers Global Child Survival Movement first appeared on MissionNewswire.

This year’s theme Getting to Zero focuses on the Millennium Development Goal to halt and begin to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2015. A new Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report shows that unprecedented acceleration in the AIDS response is producing results for people. The report notes that there has been more than a 50 percent decrease in new HIV infections across 25 countries.

Women and children are the primary focus of this year’s Worlds AIDS Day. According to UNICEF, AIDS remains a leading cause of death among women of reproductive age globally and the main cause of child mortality in countries with high HIV prevalence. The good news is, according to the UNAIDS report, the area where the most progress is being made is in reducing new HIV infections in children. Half of the global reductions in new HIV infections in the last two years have been among newborn children.

The UNAIDS report also shows that antiretroviral therapy has emerged as a powerful force for saving lives. In the last 24 months, the number of people accessing treatment has increased by 63 percent globally. The report further noted that ending the pandemic was now “entirely feasible” and achieving an AIDS-free generation is possible.

Further noted in the UNAIDS report, worldwide some 34 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2011. Deaths from AIDS fell to 1.7 million in 2011, down from a peak of 2.3 million in 2005 and from 1.8 million in 2010.

“We must make information, testing and treatment available to all, so every man, woman and child can enjoy their fundamental right to the medical care and essential services that will end this devastating epidemic,” said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General in a statement observing World AIDS Day.

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, launched by former President George W. Bush in 2003, has been a catalyst for advancing HIV treatment, particularly in Africa.

The Salesian Missions “Life Choices” program targets youth ages 10 to 19 with core messages of abstinence and be faithful to prevent HIV infection. The program also benefits youth by employing a multipronged approach to HIV/AIDS prevention. This approach not only offers youth health education on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, but also offers life skills training, parental/teacher/community support, recreational activities, sports, youth camps, counseling, and job placement.

To mark World AIDS Day, the Salesian Missions Office of International Programs is highlighting some of the successful PEPFAR programs:

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is home to more than four million orphans, or 12 percent of all children.  More than half a million of these were orphaned as a result of AIDS, according to UNICEF. The Salesian Missions “CARING Orphans and Vulnerable Children” project helps to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. The program increases access to youth orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, and provides holistic care, community reintegration, and support for 60,000 orphans, street youth and children who have been made vulnerable due to HIV/AIDS. To date, more than 13,000 orphans and vulnerable children have received services ranging from shelter and care, formal education, non-formal education and economic empowerment activities.

Kenya

In Kenya, peer education is an effective tool for reaching youth with key disease prevention messages. The Salesian Missions “Life Choices” program in Kenya focuses on abstinence and faithfulness. Gender is also an important component, and programs include a focus on sexual violence. The program extends to youth centers, schools, orphans and vulnerable children centers and in community/social outreach programs. More than 40,000 youth have learned about HIV/AIDS prevention through the program.

South Africa

South Africa is the country hardest hit by HIV/AIDS worldwide, according to UNICEF. The “Life Choices” program here is based in schools from grades 4-12. An important component is voluntary counseling and testing as an effective method of preventing new infections. In addition, the program offers one-on-one mentoring, career and guidance counseling, parental skills workshops and teacher sensitivity.

Tanzania

In Tanzania, the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is nearly nine percent. The virus has orphaned nearly a million children and forced others to assume household responsibilities beyond their years, according to UNICEF. To help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, students in 79 schools across Tanzania take part in the “Life Choices” program, as part of the U.S. PEPFAR program through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Of the 79 schools, 47 are primary, 23 are secondary and 9 are vocational training centers.

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Sources:

UN – World AIDS Day

UNICEF – In Zimbabwe, village health workers play an essential role in the primary healthcare system and the fight against HIV/AIDS

Salesian Missions – Our work

The post WORLD AIDS DAY: Salesian Missions Highlights Successful HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs in Africa first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The training program is being supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and supports the ongoing efforts Don Bosco University has already made since their work began in Haiti in February 2010. The University has collaborated with Handicap International and Healing Hands for Haiti providing emergency care and rehabilitation services for those injured in the earthquake since that time. Thirteen people including teachers and qualified students from the faculty of rehabilitation studies at the University have been part of the international aid mission.

“The aim is to help the people. We know what state the country is in after the earthquake. We know this will also help us in our lives and in our profession,” says Alexis Mendoza, one of the volunteers. Volunteers are involved in assessing the condition of the patients, planning and fitting the artificial limbs and providing orthopedic help.

During a trip in 2010, Professor Rolando Martinez Panameño, dean of the School of Rehabilitation Science, estimated that out of approximately 10,000 people in need of help, 4,000 have had an amputation. Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. fundraising arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco, added that University Don Bosco was able to provide assistance to children and adults who have had amputations following the 2010 earthquake by providing nearly 200 artificial limbs and more than 100 sessions of orthopedic assistance in Port-au-Prince.

“We are constantly working to expand our services in Haiti to ensure that people with disabilities are able to contribute to the rebuilding of their country. We know that even before the earthquake, children and adults with disabilities faced enormous challenges as resources in Haiti were stretched far beyond capacity,” says Fr. Mark Hyde who is thankful  for USAID support for Salesian programs around the globe.

The 32 new students will learn off-site at the University in El Salvador and will be supervised and mentored by a qualified professional as they conduct their work in Haiti. The training program covers all the various areas of prosthetics and orthotics and graduating students will obtain certification in the Standard Category II (orthopedic technologists) of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics. Don Bosco University is the only accredited center for this training in all of Latin America.

The University was recognized by the first-ever World Report on Disabilities for its leadership in prosthetic and orthotics education in Latin America and for providing opportunities for adults and children with disabilities. The 2011 report was produced jointly by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

The Salesian school began the first formal training program in the prosthetics and orthotics fields in Latin America in 1996 and since then, about 230 students from 20 countries have graduated with skills that are in demand in their home countries.

“The training program shows how education and training not only benefit the individual student, but also entire communities, as the students return to work in local hospitals and clinics, and even train others in some cases,” says Father Hyde.

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Photo: Courtesy of ANS (Salesian Info Agency)

Sources:

ANS article (7/6/2012) – University Don Bosco training new technicians to help injured Haitians

Related MissionNewswire article (12/22/2011) – Salesian University Recognized for Leadership in Providing Children with Prosthetics

The post EL SALVADOR: Salesian University Continues Training in Orthopedics in Support of Efforts in Haiti first appeared on MissionNewswire.

“We are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Brazil and take advantage of our countries’ relative expertise in agriculture,” said Mark Feierstein, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID. “By combining efforts, our countries can help others improve nutrition for rural communities and increase incomes for poor farmers.”

In Haiti, the partnership will primarily focus on sharing new technologies and implementing exchange programs and training opportunities. The three governments will: 1) test new varieties of maize, rice, beans, cowpeas and other crops; 2) implement new farming systems that use less water, fertilizer, and seeds; 3) improve mango production; 4) adopt technologies to store and process grains and vegetables; 5) enable farmers to use their land to sustainably produce both food and wood; 6) conduct exchange and training programs for farmers and researchers; and 7) promote nutrition, specifically for mothers and children.

“This partnership leverages the expertise of Brazilians and Americans to make a difference in food security in the region and directly help Haitians,” noted Paul Weisenfeld, Assistant to the Administrator for the Bureau of Food Security at USAID.

The partnership builds upon the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative to help nearly 567,000 vulnerable Haitian women, children, and family members escape hunger and poverty and to provide 176,000 children with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality.

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See related article about the Salesian program: Opportunity Grows at Agriculture School in Haiti

See ProgressInHaiti.org for more stories of progress in Haiti.

The post HAITI (USAID): U.S., Brazil Partner to Improve Food Security in the Americas first appeared on MissionNewswire.

(MissionNewswire) International Women’s Day—created by the United Nations and celebrated by organizations and countries around the globe—is observed each year on March 8.

According to the United Nations, “it is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women.”

It is also a day for celebrating organizations and people who work year round to empower women and girls in an effort to make the world a better place. It is work that too often goes uncelebrated.

Salesian programs empower girls in impoverished countries around the globe by helping them build a sense of dignity and self worth, says Father Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

“Education builds self esteem and opens the door to opportunity,” he says. “By providing girls with the opportunity to learn life skills and a trade, they become self sufficient and are able to care for their families. When girls have access to education, families are made stronger and have more opportunities to remain together—breaking the cycle of poverty and improving entire communities.”

Salesian Missions has programs helping the poor in more than 130 countries around the globe, including programs to empower women and girls. Here are some examples of that work:

BOLIVIA

In Bolivia, women face more difficulties finding good education and productive jobs, according to the 2003 Human Development Report on Gender. In addition, education of women and girls impacts the health and education of their children.

Through the innovative “Girls in the Vanguard” initiative of Salesian Missions and USAID, more than 1,000 girls in five key countries – including Bolivia – were given the opportunity to receive training and obtain jobs in the private sector. Training focused on jobs with advancement potential, in areas that were often male-dominated. Special business advisory councils and past pupil associations were formed at each site to provide additional assistance. The program took place from 2001-2006, giving girls and young women in Bolivia the skills needed for a better future for them, their families and their communities.

CAMBODIA

In Cambodia, education for girls opens doors to opportunities. With basic education, girls are better equipped to face the daily dangers of human trafficking, child prostitution and substance abuse. Today, more than 2,000 girls who live in poverty have access to basic education through the Don Bosco Children’s Fund. In addition, with vocational and technical education, they see possibilities for jobs and independence. Hundreds of students at four specialized schools for girls/young women will open new doors with skills in printing, electronics, secretarial skills and sewing.

COLOMBIA

The “Right to Dream” program for many poverty-stricken children in Medellin, Colombia. One such child is Alejandra – who now has access to social support and educational program previously unimaginable to her and her siblings as they worked on the streets to help their family survive. One hundred students ages 7-18 receive vocational training and hot meals.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

In the Dominican Republic, women striving for a better life find support with the “Madres Project” in Santo Domingo.  The project addresses the root causes of street children by working with mothers. By learning skills to earn a living wage in the workforce, women in charge of families can improve their living conditions and keep their children off the streets.  Women complete courses in literacy, post-literacy, health care and various modules of computer studies.  All training modules include lessons in human rights. The program is a partnership with Salesian Missions and the International Volunteer Movement for Development.  In addition, they run a training program for youth in the poorest areas of the city called “Boys and Girls with Don Bosco.”

GHANA

Girls in Ghana find less opportunity than boys to improve their lives through education. In many cases, girls are expected to contribute to the family’s income – which takes priority over attending classes.

Through a boarding school for girls in Odumase, girls have the opportunity to continue their studies while learning job skills that will also help their family.

GUATEMALA

More than 21% of Guatemalans had an income of less than $1 a day in 2004 – no improvement since 1989 according to the Pan-American Health Organization. Extreme poverty is often associated with rural life.

Rural Q’echi (Mayans) are among the rural populations looking to improve their lives.  Through Salesian Missions programs, they are focusing on increasing the capacity of their communities. With the assistance of the Q’echi promoters, community groups are educated in self management for projects benefiting family and community. Salesians also work through the Foundation for Advancement of Indigenous Women in Guatemala (Talita Kumi) to raise the status of women and empower them to become house hold and community decision-makers.

INDIA

In India, education can help overcome inequities in jobs and income that are related to gender. Nisha’s story is an example of how one woman’s achievement helps contribute to the community as a whole:

Nisha, strong and confident, works in her beauty salon doing manicures, styling hair and doing facials in Pune, an Indian town with more than a million inhabitants. “Finally I am able to work for my own living and to offer my children a good education,” Nisha says. But it was not always so. Married as a young girl, Nisha worked as a maid and had to take care of her husband after a severe accident. Her life took a new direction after she became acquainted with the self-help groups founded by the Salesians of Don Bosco and now supported by Jugend Dritte Welt, an NGO affiliated with the Salesians. “Suddenly I wasn’t alone and found a new perspective for my life,” says Nisha. After completing a cosmetics course, Nisha opened her own beauty salon. Today she is able to repay her microcredit loans that she owed to the support group. More than 900 women participate in the microfinancing and skills training groups.

KENYA

At the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, girls and women receive training opportunities and learn about the important role they play in society and the community. The microfinance program funded by UNHCR and Caritas Italiana offers graduates, women and other refugees an opportunity to establish small business ventures using skills learned.

MEXICO

The Salesians in Mexico are directing their efforts toward the country’s at-risk population, including girls and young mothers who face severe dangers on the streets. Innovative programs are preventing poor children from dropping out of school and are providing important opportunities to keep their lives on the right track.

In Mexico City, girls and mothers face severe dangers living on the streets. Through the “Yolia” program, girls and women become regulars at the day center. There, they have meals, receive tutoring, obtain therapy, and learn job skills such as jewelry making and hair styling.  Some girls may also choose to live in the residential area, where they receive additional education and services, while building a sense of dignity and self worth.

PERU

The number of women in the Peruvian workforce is increasing, according to the Pan-American Health Organization.  So, too, is the need for job training for marketable skills that will help women support themselves and their families.

Since 1982, Salesian Missions has offered training for girls at a vocational school in Yanama. Currently, more than 300 students enrolled in these schools, which are now located in parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as Peru.  Girls are trained in using alpaca and sheep wool to make sweaters, rugs, gloves and other articles, which are marketed locally and abroad.  On graduating, they receive a weaving machine as the first step in the new career.

PHILIPPINES

In the Philippines, drop-out rates double as children reach secondary school, according to UNICEF, and there are more than 11 million out-of-school youth.

Salesian Missions’ Tuloy Foundation provides another chance for at-risk youth to succeed in school.  Street children are able to take part in an alternative learning module with five levels of instruction in six subjects.  Children progress from first grade through high school. Older youth pursue vocational training in a variety of technologies, including automotive, electrical, welding and woodworking.  The school developed specialized classes focused on female students, including bag making courses.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa has one of the world’s highest crime rates, according to UNICEF. While violence impacts everyone, gender-based violence is a significant problem.  Girls who live on the street face violence, drug addiction, abuse and other dangers. The “Unwind Your Mind” camps are specifically-designed to encourage girls to talk about what brought them to the street and consider their goals for the future.  They also looked at the importance that young women play in society.

TANZANIA

When a Salesian Missions secondary school opened in Didia, Tanzania, it was the first secondary school within a 40 mile radius. Just as important, girls had the opportunity to take part in classes at the co-educational facility.

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“Agriculture is the most effective way to drive inclusive economic growth of the poorest communities”, which too often include women and children, said Sara Immenschuh of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a partner in compiling the index.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index is a partnership between the US government’s Feed the Future initiative, US Agency for International Development (USAID), IFPRI and Oxford University’s Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI). It uses five criteria to measure the empowerment of developing country women in agriculture, and in their own households.

Pilot programs in Bangladesh, Guatemala and Uganda studied how engaged women were in decision-making about agricultural production, what sort of access they had to resources and how involved they were in resource-related decision-making; the extent to which they controlled how income was used; whether they were able to have a leadership role in the community; and how they used their time.

If a woman scored well on four out of five indices, she was considered empowered. The results differed from country to country, and the reasons for low or high levels of empowerment also varied.

In Bangladesh, just less than a third of women were empowered, with lack of control over resources, weak leadership and influence in the community, as well as lack of control over income the main reasons.

In Guatemala, the number was less than 25 percent. The less educated a woman was and the younger she was, the more likely she was to be lagging behind in empowerment. On the other hand, the more empowered a Guatemalan woman was in agriculture, the greater the influence she had in other key areas of daily life.

Respect and resources

Lack of leadership in the community and control over use of income were the two biggest factors contributing to disempowerment in Guatemala, the report says.

In Uganda, 37 percent of women were empowered in agriculture and more than half enjoyed gender parity at home.

However, many women in Uganda said widowhood empowered them – because they did not have to waste time asking their husband’s permission to do things but just got on with them.

Ugandan women “who are empowered in agriculture also reported significantly greater decision-making and autonomy with respect to almost all domains”, says the report.

Surveys were conducted in 450 households in southern Bangladesh, and 350 each in the western highlands of Guatemala and northern, central and eastern Uganda, between September and November 2011.

One aim of the project is to help US government agencies and anti-poverty organizations to measure just how successful their programs are at fighting hunger and poverty.

“We want to improve gender parity not by disempowering men but by bringing women up to the level of men,” said IFPRI senior research fellow, Agnes Quisumbing.

Although they make up 43 percent of the agricultural labor force, women in developing countries own less land, are limited in their ability to hire farm workers and have less access to credit, among other issues.

“Without addressing those inequities, women will be unable to effectively contribute to reducing global poverty and hunger,” said Immenschuh.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index was launched on Feb. 28, 2012, at the UN in New York.

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This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

See this article at its original location.

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This follows decades of civil war, and a referendum this past January in which nearly 99 percent of southern Sudanese who voted chose to secede from Sudan and form an independent nation.

The new nation enters a new phase while confronting humbling realities about the state of its people. South Sudan is one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate and struggles with very low literacy rates (90% of the female population remain illiterate). According to the United Nations, more than half of its people feed, clothe and shelter themselves on less than one dollar a day.

In an editorial published by the New York Times on July 7, Secretary General of the U.N. Ban Ki-Moon wrote, “I came to appreciate the sheer scale of these challenges, for myself, when I first visited South Sudan in 2007 — an area of 620,000 square kilometers with less than 100 kilometers of paved road. Within this larger context, the risk of increased violence, harm to civilian populations and further humanitarian suffering is very real.”

At the same time, he points out “South Sudan has remarkable potential. With substantial oil reserves, huge amounts of arable land and the Nile flowing through its center, South Sudan could grow into a prosperous, self-sustaining nation capable of providing security, services and employment for its population.”

A new USAID mission has been designated – in the South Sudan city of Juba – to address the country’s development needs and create a transition strategy to guide activities in South Sudan.

“The lack of economic opportunity, particularly among marginalized youth, is another critical potential driver of conflict in South Sudan,” reads the USAID’s South Sudan Transition Strategy Executive Summary.

Specializing in meeting the needs of such marginalized youth, the Salesians of Don Bosco have been working in the region since 1982 – providing educational opportunities, housing, food, youth centers, health services and other needs to those otherwise without a voice or hope for the future. The Salesians’ work continued even during the most intense warfare in 1997 and 1998, followed by the starvation of many and an ongoing humanitarian crisis that continues today. The atrocities in Darfur sparked an international outcry for the entire region – as people not only fled for their lives due to violence, but also fought starvation, poverty and disease.

After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, new opportunities arose for international humanitarian organizations to partner in the reconstruction of Sudan.

In response, the Don Bosco Network – an international network of Salesian NGOs that includes Salesian Missions in New Rochelle, NY – published a “Sudan 2007-11 Country Strategy Paper.” The paper included an outlined approach for specific interventions to help youth in the southern Sudan zone. Strategies included: improving access to schooling, especially for IDPs (internally displaced people) in the town of Wau; enabling the start-up of small enterprises in the Wau County by providing employment-oriented vocational training to youth; and promoting agro-based livelihoods in the Wau County through agricultural training and services.

As a result, Salesian involvement throughout Sudan has been further developed, including a strong presence in four of the cities in the newly formed South Sudan: Tonj, Wau, Maridi and Juba.

At St. Joseph’s Vocational Training Center in Kharotoum, Sudan, youth receive instruction in computer training, wiring, masonry, carpentry and welding.

An educational program in Tonj – which consists of a primary school for 1,200 students and educational centers in the villages – seeks to make education more easily accessible to children.  Currently there are six such village educational centers with plans in place for more. Another essential service in Tonj is a Salesian-run health center which cares for approximately 250 out-patients every day and is the only medical facility available within 125 miles.

In Wau, a Salesian vocational school trains youth in general mechanics, carpentry and plumbing in addition to promoting agricultural projects essential to the town.

These programs are examples of the many operated by the Salesians in nations throughout Africa and the entire globe, from orphanages and feeding centers to training institutes. Connecting the newly formed nation of South Sudan with the East Africa region and the world in meaningful ways, will be essential to its future.

“South Sudan must also reach out to its other neighbors,” Ban Ki-Moon wrote in his New York Times editorial. “Across the globe — and in Africa, especially — the trend is toward regional partnerships. South Sudan will be strengthened by becoming an active participant in the regional organizations of East Africa and developing durable trade and political ties throughout the continent.”

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Joseph Hobson contributed to this report.

Photos courtesy of Salesians of Don Bosco Sudan.

Sources:

USAID
– www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/south_sudan/docs/south_sudan_transition_strategy_summary.pdf
– www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/south_sudan

NY Times Editorial by BAN KI-MOON (Secretary General of the United Nations)
www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08iht-edban08.html?_r=1&ref=sudan

VIS (Volontariato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo)
“DBN Sudan Country Strategy Paper 2007-2011”
www.volint.it/sudan/localpartner.html

The post SOUTH SUDAN: New Nation Formed, Humbling Realities Remain for Aid Agencies first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Salesian Missions has been providing agricultural education in Muyurina for over fifty years, according to Matt Welsh, program officer with Salesian Missions. Although the school’s academic and technical programs had grown in size, scope and diversity, many of the original structures that were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s were in desperate need of repair.

When Salesian Missions approached USAID’s American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program regarding the possibility of assisting with this project in 2006, Muyurina had grown by leaps and bounds since its early days of operation. Today,it is a school of nearly 800 students, offering a range of degree programs, including a post-secondary program that is recognized by the Catholic University of Bolivia.

The new Multi-Use Center provides meeting space for the school and is available for a fee for local clubs and community groups to hold events and retreats in the space.  The fee is used as infrastructure support and to subsidize tuition for students.

In addition, this project provided much needed renovation to the school’s electric and water systems and the purchase of agricultural equipment helps to provide a better educational experience for the youth in attendance.

“The agricultural school offers more than just agricultural training,” said Welsh. “This is part of a larger program that also offers traditional secondary education and other vocational training, in addition to feeding programs for area children.”

“Many of the children attending the school come from an agricultural background but often their families have never received formal agricultural education and training,” said Welsh.

“The academic preparation provided enables youth to implement farming methods that are more efficient, which increases crop yields and delivers a food supply more readily accessible to their families and communities.”

Salesian Missions currently operates more than 90 agricultural schools around the world and has been providing educational, vocational and health programs for youth in Bolivia for more than 100 years.

Salesian Missions provides not only educational opportunities in more than 130 countries around the globe, they address core needs.

“The core of our mission is to provide educational opportunities to the poorest of the poor. When the youth receive training, they stay and contribute to the local economy and the needs of their communities,” said Welsh. “This delivers benefits for years after they leave our institute.”

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