Posts Tagged With: Food
What a Difference a Meal Makes
Since education paves a path out of poverty, we’re glad to help poor children make the most of their time in school. Especially when just getting to school is half the battle. Take the kids in rural Aripiaco, Guyana, for instance. Fr. Javier Correa recently took a few of us up river by speedboat to … Continue reading
Global Poverty: down but not out
Looking toward the future, there is some really good news for the developing world…but also some really bad news. First the good. The often-cited statistic of over 1.3 billion people in extreme poverty worldwide has been updated, and it’s gotten a lot smaller. Nearly half a billion smaller! Researchers from the Brookings Institution estimate a … Continue reading
World Food Day 2010
The 30th annual World Food Day is coming this Saturday, and there will be good news as well as bad news to reflect on as we turn our attention to global hunger. The good news is that the number of hungry people in the world has fallen by nearly 100 million from last year’s all-time … Continue reading
Helping the poor help themselves
Last year, we met a Zambian woman named Christine who had gone from riches to rags because of AIDS. Once the owner of three houses, she sold all her properties in desperation and used the money to pay a medicine man to cure her. In the end, she was left with no money, no friends … Continue reading
The will to learn
Some kids will invent almost any excuse to stay home from school. But 10-year-old Bruce Mwansa has a legitimate reason for his imperfect attendance. In fact, no one would blame him if he didn’t show up at all. At home, Bruce’s only parental figure is his blind, elderly grandfather. His grandmother is dead, his father … Continue reading
How Big is World Hunger?
Last year, the United Nations projected a rise in world hunger to 1.02 billion people – more than one-seventh of the global population! Statistics on hunger are always rough estimates, and the results can vary greatly from one study to another. But one thing seems clear: the U.N. number is no exaggeration. In fact, it … Continue reading
Rich Lesson Learned from the Poor
It is amazing to witness the incredible generosity of our Catholic brothers and sisters in developing countries. For example, Jim Kline, our Africa Projects Officer, recently returned from Ethiopia with a beautifully-woven basket. A very poor, single mom had given it to him. It was one of the very few things she owned, and she’d … Continue reading
A new kind of Lent
Now that Lent has begun, Catholics are spending even more time in prayer and fasting in the weeks leading up to Easter, when we will celebrate our Savior’s resurrection. There’s a tradition that during Lent, we are supposed to give up a particular luxury we enjoy, such as unhealthy foods or even television. But this … Continue reading
Feet on the Ground in Haiti
Haiti is still reeling from the devastating earthquake that shook much of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas to their foundations on Tuesday, but there is hope. People continued to gather in the streets of the capital today, singing hymns and offering prayers to God, as help began to arrive. We are distributing millions of meals … Continue reading
Devastating Earthquake: Haiti Needs Our Help
Reports have been trickling in all day from our staff and mission partners in Haiti. The devastation from yesterday’s 7.2-scale earthquake has been profound. “It looks like Dante’s Inferno. There are dead bodies everywhere,” said Mike Henry, our Haiti projects officer who is on the ground in Port-au-Prince today, working with our partners to bring … Continue reading
