Every Child Every Day Updates | News
May 4, 2010
Kitgum, Uganda
In Kitgum, Uganda, Irene Gleeson runs 4 school training centres with over 8400 students. FTH is honoured to be part of this ministry by providing food every day to these students. Food security is an ongoing issue in this region because of increases in food prices brought into Kitgum from neighboring towns; lack of adequate rains to sustain the harvests of the few farmers producing food; and because there is no income- generating activity. There is general food insecurity as those who’ve lived in displaced camps for 10 years are now returning to their land but lack seeds and tools for farming, resulting in famine. The UN World Food Programme stopped food distribution 2008 because of the “camp phase-out policy” yet the people have no access to tools and seeds for planting and weather bad for farming.
FTH, along with the Childcare Kitgum Servants Ministry are committed to improve health conditions of the children and eradicate cases of malnutrition. In addition to this Irene’s goals are to increase school enrolment and class attendance for the children, and to improve classroom concentration and academic performance of the children.
Kampong Thom, Cambodia
Evangelical Mission Association is currently funded to feed 500 children in the villages of Kampong Thom, Cambodia. However, they are stretching those funds to feed 565 children, and are constantly having to turn hundreds more away because there isn’t enough food. The food being sent by FTH partners is making a great difference in these villages – not only for the children but also for the adults who are hearing the Gospel message and finding their lives transformed. In 2007 there was only about 40 to 50 people in each congregation throughout 5 villages, but since receiving funds from FTH for food, they expanded and started 9 growing churches!
Yei, Sudan
Pastor Stanley Lo Nathan, of Sudan for Christ Ministries wants you to know that “the children love the rice meal you send”. They are so grateful to be able to feed over 700 children every day!
Right now, water is the major challenge! The Nursery/Primary School compound has NO water supply at all! During the dry season, it’s terrible to see children go without water, as there’s no easy access to the precious liquid. To compensate, water is harvested into a tank during the rainy season, but this is not entirely safe for the children and other users.
At the Dreamland Children’s Home compound, there is a borehole located outside the premises intended to be shared with people in the neighboring villages. During the dry season like now, it becomes a “mini war” for our children to have access to it as many villagers also come to fetch clean water.
Pastor Stanley tells us, “It will be great if FTH can help us dig a borehole at the Nursery/Primary school premises for the 552 children in the school and another one inside Dreamland for the children’s home alone.” The cost of digging a borehole is between $8,000 - $10,000.
Chiangmai, Thailand
Charlie Milbrodt, of Living Word Ministries International in Thailand tells of an emergency rescue they conducted with a family: “[Recently] two new children were accepted into our program. Their mother and father divorced two years ago and then disappeared leaving three children to fend for themselves. The two older sisters, Patchara (now 10 years old) and Chantisa (now 8 years old) have bounced from house to house and neighbor to neighbor for two years until someone contacted our foundation to see if we could give them a permanent home. We immediately opened that door. However, my first question was “Where is the younger sister?” After researching for a week and following leads across two provinces, we located the youngest sister Pawntita, who is 4 years old.
Two years ago the mother gave the baby to a woman with a promise to send 2000 baht/month (approx $65.00) for the care of the child. Money never came and the mother has never made contact with any of the children. We tried to get Pawntita into our home so she can grow up with her sisters. The woman caring for Pawntita was adamant that she deserves to be paid the money she was promised for caring for the child. She demanded $1,500.00 for the two years she has cared for the child.
2009 closed out in the most beautiful way for us. We received a phone call the afternoon of December 31st that Pawntita was finally with us and reunited with her sisters. It was the culmination of a two week ordeal that ended up with travels over more than a dozen provinces and thousands of kilometers. The three sisters had not seen each other in over two years since their mother abandoned them. What a blessing seeing these three sisters holding hands, playing and enjoying being back together again in the safety of our home.
Pawntita, being only four years old, is the “darling” of our Mae La Noi Home. It appears that she is making up for the love and attention that she missed in the last couple years. Thank you to the partners who responded to this need. Funds came in almost to the dollar of the expenses involved in getting this child under our care. God is good!
Gitega & Rutana, Burundi
Dr. Aline Muryango of African Revival Ministries is doing a fantastic job of partnering with FTH to help feed needy children in Burundi. So far we have begun feeding projects at 2 provincial schools and feed 1954 children every day. All the parents who have children at KIBOGOYE and NYAKIRURI schools are thankful to FTH. Even teachers are grateful for this support because children are no longer forced to abandon schooling because of hunger. In fact, there are no more cases of malnutrition in those two schools, and no child misses school the day of the feeding (currently 3 days/wk).
Not only has there been a significant health improvement in the students, but a noticeable academic one as well. The rate of success has risen 7% compared to the second term of last year. Many parents joyfully exclaim that they can now see that their children will finish primary school and that they will do all they can to send them to secondary school as well. Before receiving food, because of discouragement, they let their children go up to year 3 or 4 and then kept them home to work in the fields in order to have enough food for all the family. This was especially prominent if the child was a girl.
At the primary school of KIBOGOYE, 30 children from the pygmee families have joined the school this year, and not one has abandoned school up to now! Before the feeding program began 2 years ago 100% of these tribal children left school after the first term. The local authorities together with the parents have been asking if we can extend this program in other schools of the region. We look forward to being able to expand our efforts to help needy children in Burundi through the ministry of ARM!
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