In DR Congo, we’re helping children get the nutritious foods and schooling they need to grow up strong, healthy and educated. Helping one another along the way, they’re breaking the mold of poverty.
Children of DR Congo
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International Day of Families
May 15 is dedicated to family awareness around the world. Known since 1993 as the International Day of Families, it is a day to acknowledge the social and economic processes affecting families worldwide.
The City of Smell
For more than 50 years, Sitio Duco, Philippines, had few toilets to offer its 49 families. In fact, in 2009, surveys showed that there was merely three toilets in the community–two privately owned and one open to the public. Made of plastic and used truck wheels, the public toilet was in no way appealing.
And for lack of adequate facilities, residents of Sitio Duco would openly defecate in their backyards or in nearby fields. As a result, the village became known to surrounding communities as the “village that stinks.”
The Most Important Gift on Mother’s Day
“I am blessed to know so many strong, selfless and resilient mothers in the community of Kuljing,” said Rashmireka, a community leader in Outreach International’s India program.
Rashmireka has now seen 28 widows in two communities access their pensions. Witnessing their financial struggles firsthand, she’s seen mothers who once had no means to feed their children no longer worry.
75 Families in the Philippines Create Clean Water for the Community
One hot , summer day in Canantong, Philippines, a young boy went for a swim in the irrigation canal near his home. He was abruptly interrupted when his mother, Mary Ann, came out to scold him. What Mary Ann’s son was naively oblivious to was the fact that broken bottles lined the floor of the irrigation canal.
Celebrating Malaria Prevention in Africa
In the last year, roughly 3.3 billion people were considered at risk for malaria—that’s almost half the world’s population. About 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa. And most of those deaths are in children under the age of five years old.
Right now, Outreach International is working with several communities to boost health and prevent malaria in children as well as adults.
Reforesting Helps Fight Poverty
This year, on the 43rd celebration of Earth Day, a special focus has been placed on climate change. In impoverished communities around the world, families experiencing deforestation are seeing that climate change manifest itself in their home villages. Although deforestation is damaging for all of us, the ones who suffer most are the impoverished people who rely on the forest for food and income.
Outreach villages in Malawi and Bolivia are taking action to reforest their communities, repairing our environment and increasing their resources.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Bolivia
How well do you know Bolivia? Here are a few intriguing facts you may not have already heard. From its diverse culture to Outreach’s work to fight hunger in its impoverished communities, there is so much to learn about this South American country.
A Kitchen Changes Everything for a Nicaraguan Feeding Program
In La Prussia, Nicaragua, the Immaculate School Community has been providing children with lunches for five years. With help from community mothers, 120 children are no longer scraping by each day, suffering through hunger and low-energy levels—they’re eating nutritious rice and vegetables and excelling in school.
As Outreach International observed this process over time, staff members were able to adjust the program as the community needed. And through the slow-but-steady progression of the project, we realized we needed to take the feeding program one step further.
Communities in Malawi Take Action to Improve the Environment
While deforestation no doubt takes an extreme toll on our environment, in poverty-stricken areas where water and crops are scarce, the negative effects are already unfolding, causing extreme harm to the people who depend on the land for survival.
In Malawi, communities are experiencing land degradation due to deforestation. Trees release water vapor into the atmosphere and provide shade to keep soil from drying out. Deforestation means soil erosion and a lack of water in these communities, so Outreach International is taking serious action to improve environmental conditions.