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“Without water there is no life”

Guest post from Hayley Hontos, LWR's Communication Projects Coordinator, traveling in Bolivia

I am visiting LWR’s water projects in Bolivia on this World Water Day. It is especially fitting because the theme of this year’s World Water Day is Clean Water for a Healthy World. And in Bolivia and around the world, this is what LWR’s water projects aim to do – bring clean water to those in need throughout the world, so they can live happy, healthy and productive lives.

The theme was the same with each family and community we visited. The story of Marta Zalazar Beltran from Thojra Pampa Baja is representative of each person with whom we spoke.

“Before we used to drink dirty water without boiling it or taking any other precautions. But now we know how to treat water. Now we use solar purification and boil water to kill the bacteria, and now the children don’t get sick.”

LWR is working in several communities throughout Bolivia to bring clean water to children and families by installing water systems at schools and teaching children and families to use that water for cleaning themselves and preparing food and how to make water safe to drink through solar purification. It’s as simple as putting water in a clear bottle and leaving it in the sun for one to three days, depending on how sunny it is.

Ruben from Ulca Alta shows a bottle of drinking water cleaned through solar purification.

Ernesto Choque, president of the Kerhuani school board, has seen a noticeable difference in the health of the children. “Thank you LWR… We’ve learned a lot so far, and we appreciate having the opportunity to learn… The children are more healthy, and now they have the knowledge to continue to grow.”

But while LWR has reached many communities and families, it is still difficult for families who don’t have access to water systems. Delfina Yancala showed us that there is more work to be done. Dellfina explained, “here in this community [Thojra Pampa Baja], they have drinking water, but where I live we don’t.”

As Ernesto Choque reminds us, “without water, there is no life.” Help LWR Fill the Well and continue to help bring clean water for a healthy world this World Water Day and in 2010.

Capitol Hill Prayer Breakfast

Guest post from Annalise Romoser, LWR's Director for Public Policy and Advocacy

Former LWR board chair Kirk Betts addresses lawmakers on Capitol Hill

LWR's former board chair, Kirk Betts, and I recently attended a Capitol Hill prayer breakfast in which we encouraged members of Congress to remember the struggling nation of Sudan when they pray and when they legislate.

Kirk served on LWR’s board for 12 years before his final term ended this January.  We brought him out of retirement so he could share some Lutheran wisdom with U.S. lawmakers.  And he did just that.

“The greatest accompaniment we can offer Sudan,” he told the crowd, “is to play the role of peacemaker.  This includes helping to develop capacity within Sudan to achieve peace, dignity and development.”

The highlight of our morning on the Hill was meeting Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) in person. After talking with the senator about Sudan we presented him with a copy of “Humpty Dumpty,” in which an egg sits on a wall, has a great fall and can’t be put back together again.  We thought it was a clever metaphor for the tenuous peace in Sudan.

Five years ago, the United States helped broker a peace treaty between north and south Sudan. Final implementation will happen (or not) within the next 12 months – making 2010 a “make or break” year for Sudan.

Learn more about LWR’s Sudan advocacy and send a message to President Obama, telling him 2010 is make or break!

Sarah's Story

More from LWR International Policy Analyst Krista Zimmerman's trip to Sudan

I met Sarah in a small clearing about a mile from the town of Nzara in southern Sudan. She is the eldest of eight children and is internally displaced. This means she still resides in her home country but cannot safely return to her hometown.

Sarah used to live on a farm where she helped grow a variety of crops - including ground nuts, cassava, pineapples and bananas. Like many farmers in the area, Sarah’s family rotated crops throughout overlapping growing seasons to ensure a nutritious and consistent food supply. The family also had solid huts and the children were able to attend school and access healthcare.

But Sarah’s life changed dramatically in April of 2009 when the Lord’s Resistance Army started to loot and kill in the areas around her farm. Traumatized by the deaths and abductions of relatives and friends, Sarah’s family fled. They took what belongings they could carry and walked until they reached a place that seemed safer and had vacant land available.

Now they are struggling to make ends meet. They live in makeshift structures built with brush and plastic tarp. The children are not in school because the school fees are beyond their reach. Sarah misses the fresh cassava and pineapples she enjoyed on the farm.

Sarah says she wants people in the United States to know that the LRA are a serious problem.

“The needs of our family cannot be measured,” she told me, “but most of all we need security.”

LWR would like to thank the U.S. Senate for recently passing the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Register to receive LWR advocacy news and action alerts so you can help ensure this bill becomes an effective law that will help Sarah and others like her.

Prospects and Pitfalls in South Sudan

Guest post from LWR's International Policy Analyst, Krista Zimmerman 

Buses transporting people and goods between Juba, Sudan, and the Ugandan border.

I recently flew into a small, crowed airport in Juba, Sudan as part of a policy research trip.  The airport and its regular international flights are small miracles to those who live here. 

A civil war that ended in 2005 left Juba virtually destroyed. But today it is something of a boom town – buzzing with air traffic, entrepreneurial activity and construction projects.

At least one resident, 20 year-old Moses, could not be happier.

Born in Juba, Moses fled to Uganda during the war.  Four years ago he returned and is beside himself at the changes that have overtaken his city. He is especially pleased with new employment opportunities.  Currently working as a waiter in one of the city’s popular new restaurants, he looks to a future he believes will be even brighter.

Like many young people, Moses is particularly excited and concerned about the year ahead.  Sudan expects to soon hold its first national elections in 20 years, after which the south will vote on whether to become an independent nation.

Conflict surrounding these events, especially all out war, could destroy much of what was rebuilt.

In the years to come, young Sudanese say they hope the United States will continue to support and strengthen southern Sudan as it struggles to sustain a fragile peace.

Lutheran World Relief is supporting Senate Resolution 404, calling on the U.S. Government to increase efforts to assist Sudan and to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  It encourages the President to develop contingency plans for all eventualities – and to focus on long term development in the region.

Find out if your senators are co-sponsors and either thank them for their support or ask them to add their names to this important piece of legislation.

A Tiny Grain, A Big Difference

Dan Lee, LWR’s director for marketing, is in West Africa visiting development projects.

Maimowna Boire, the president of the fonio society

LWR approaches its work in Mali, West Africa with an eye toward gender equity.  By focusing energy on women, we have seen time and again that empowered women become catalysts for change within their families and communities, changing oppressive traditions and cultural norms that deprive people of dignity. These projects mean fewer people are hungry. They mean more girls go to school. They mean being able to spend additional time working for a better life.

We spent four hours today driving from the capital city of Bamako to a rural community on the outskirts of Segou. There, an association 184 women are harvesting a tiny grain called fonio. This traditional grain is making a huge impact in the community because it is high in nutrients and safe for diabetics.

Communities had moved away from fonio because it was so labor intensive to thresh and husk. The process used to take one woman 45 hours and 15 days to accomplish. With your donations LWR purchased a husking machine, and the process now takes one woman one hour to complete.

It is inspiring to see the work LWR is able to do in West Africa. Working to promote the status and well-being of women is not only a moral imperative - it's a wise investment of our resources for reducing poverty and building healthy families and communities.

Fonio can reach maturity in 6-8 weeks, making it one of the fastest growing grains in the world. Your gifts to LWR help purchase things like the husking machine and allow communities to move beyond isolating poverty.

Merci, Merci, Merci.

More from LWR's team in Haiti. Photographer Jonathan Ernst shares his observations. 

Tuesday I observed a food distribution in the village of Masson, just outside the very hard-hit town of Leogane. At a small church across the way from a large expanse of sugar cane, one of LWR's sister agencies in the ACT Alliance, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, trucked in bags of beans and rice and oil - enough food for each of the 1050 families in the village to eat for about a month. The rice and beans were from Canadian Foodgrains, a group of farmers who grow 10 percent of their crops each season to give away.

Men from the village eagerly volunteered to unload the goods and neatly stack them in the church. First was the beans, then the two loads of rice. One of the trucks of rice limped in with a flat tire, and listed heavily to starboard under the weight of its cargo. When the door to the rice truck opened up, the men erupted in laughter like schoolchildren. I assumed they were amazed by the scale of the task. Instead of a quick-moving bucket brigade they set up for the 17-pound bags of beans, now they would have to heft 110-pound bags of rice. And a lot of them. But it wasn't the size of the task that got them giddy, it was their amazement at the size of the gift they were being given.

"Receiving this food today is the biggest thing to happen in their lives since the earthquake," CRWRC's local project coordinator Henry Emmanuel Alexis told me. "Some of these families had sold their meager possessions to be able to feed themselves, others shared what little food they had with friends and family members."

As people formed an orderly line, walking through the church, they marked their names off the the master list and went station to station, quickly being handed a sack of beans, 2 gallons of vegetable oil and the huge sack of rice. One older woman, a gallon of oil already in each hand, had a helper place the sack of beans on her head. She expertly balanced it, took a few steps, saw me taking her picture and paused.

"Merci," she whispered. "Merci. Merci."

One of the helpers took her by the arm and hustled her over to the rice, and then out to the courtyard where some people waited with bicycles or wheelbarrows to help with the load.