Training

The past few days I have been at the FH office here in Gitarama. The training has been good. It focuses on a type of multiplication model called Cascade Groups. In this model an FH staff member has multiple community workers being trained under them. The training can be on a variety of topics from health care to agriculture. The groups that are trained by the FH staff are then dispersed to their own groups which are made up by 10-15 households. This is a very simple version of what has been a week long training. But all in all it is a good model and one that has been used by other organizations (World Vision and, World Relief among others).

So much of NGO work in developing countries is in identifying needs and then finding ways to meet those needs. Our typical reaction in the states and other developed countries,  is to meet those needs through money or material items, i.e. if someone is poor you fund them, if they are hungry

you feed them and if they are naked you clothe them. While I don’t want to take away from the realness of those needs, and the value of a physical response. It is often times very difficult to carry out. If done alone, it also leaves a lot lacking in development work. This is due to logistical challenges, monetary challenges, etc.

What the best of the organizations have figured out is how to leverage the people in the areas. How to use knowledge and empowerment to create change in cultures through educating people and correct wrongly held understandings of the world around them. Consider the information below*:

Approximately 74% of Children who die annually in developing countries can be saved through the following methods:

9.6 million children under the age of 5 die each year

Lives saved if:

• -all children slept under insecticide-treated nets: 7% (672,000)
• -all children received antibiotics for pneumonia: 6% (576,000)
• -all children received antimalarials: 5% (480,000)
• -all children received nevirapine and replacement feeding: 2% 192,000
• -all children were vaccinated for measles: 1% (96,000)

• -all mothers washed their hands wish soap: 17% (1,600,000)
• -all children were given ORS when they had diarrhea: 15% (1,400,000)
• -all women breastfed properly (1st hour, exclusive, continued, etc): 13% (1,250,000)
• -all mothers gave the right foods to children when they turned 6m old: 6% (576,000)
• -all mothers dried and warmed newborns: 2% (192,000)

As you can see, the list on the top requires something being physically given, usually items of relatively high cost. If all these where put into place 21% of the children that die each year could be prevented. On the other hand, the bottom list is primarily based on behaviors. While there are a few items needed (soap, ORS formula) they are readily available and at a very low cost. If this list was put into place it could prevent the deaths of roughly 53% of children, nearly 2 1/2 times more than the list above.

Really what this means is we need to change the way we think about helping the poor. It’s not that we need to throw everything that has been done in the past out the window, but there need to be some adjustments and additions to how future development is carried out.

Food

I have stayed pretty well fed to this point. My favorite dish has been the goat brachets (sp?), with a little peelie-peelie sauce which tastes like a habenaro pepper oil, it is pretty good. For lunch the meals are typically potato wedges, noodles, rice, cabbage, beans and sometimes a bit of meat. A huge plate of this will run you about $1.25 u.s.

Water Project

I also went down to the water project  that Nate, another intern with FH, is currently working on. Through this filtration center water is dispersed to hundreds of thousands of people at a very low cost. This allows FH to sustain the project based on the earnings while providing benefits to the surrounding population. It is also a partner project with the Rwandan government, something that hadn’t been done prior.

Closing

I will be here until Friday at which point I’ll take a bus back to Kigali. I will be there probably for the weekend then I will be traveling east. This really is a beautiful area. I hope to be able to explore a bit before I leave (time and rain permitting.

Thank you all for you continued prayer and support. My hope is that God would bless you each in your generosity. Here are a few of the pictures I took in the last few days.

Outside FH Gitarama Office

Center of Gitarama, Taxi pick-up area

Outside of the water treatment plant

Child; rural Gitarama

Kids in town

*From FH training. Further from Jones G, Steketee R, Bhutta Z, Morris S. and the Bellagio Child Survival Study Group. “How many child deaths can we prevent this year?” Lancet 2003; 362: 65-71. and Rhee V. et al. 2008. “Maternal and Birth Attendant Hand Washing and Neonatal Mortality in Southern Nepal.” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Vol. 162 (No. 7), pp 603-608. July 2008

The US economy is nearly three times the size of Japan’s (the next largest world economy), but doesn’t rank in the top 20 in foreign aid.

There is a myth that the U.S. government spends what some would consider to be an exorbitant amount of money on foreign aid. Here is what you might not know. While it is true our government gives billions of dollars in foreign aid (27.5 billion in 2005), that number only accounts for .07 percent of the national budget. That is less than a tenth of a tenth of a percentage. On top of that only a small percentage goes towards aiding those in poverty. A large portion goes towards supporting strategic political allies (Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan), as well as fighting drugs. This measurement of giving (percentage) doesn’t even put the US in the top 20 countries of those who are most generous in giving.

“The Skeptic’s Guide to Global Poverty,” Dale Hanson Bourke. Authentic Publishing. 2006.