Baptist Global Response

By Kate Taylor

In a war-ravaged city in Central Asia, 40 impoverished women are receiving training that will help them provide for their families and move out of the refugee camps they live in – thanks to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.

Women who participate in the six-month course will learn the art of sewing and attend daily literacy classes. The training will give them marketable skills and a chance to earn a stable income in an area where annual per capita income averages less than $100.

The project will provide each student with a monthly food supplement while enrolled in the course. Each student also will receive a sewing machine after successfully completing the program.

A single sewing machine can change the life of a female refugee, who may use it to create an in-home business or to find work through a local tailoring shop, said the local project director, who is a field partner of Baptist Global Response. The impact of the course is potentially multiplied by the number of family members in each of the 40 households, directly affecting approximately 240 people.

Both the sewing and literacy classes are taught by two female teachers, nationals who have led the program successfully since 2003. Over the course of six months, the teachers are able to help their students learn how to have a full and meaningful life that inspires them to raise their families in confidence, build their communities with dignity and share that life with others.

“This has been one of our most successful projects,” said the project director. “That is a testimony to the two women who, at great risk, do what no Westerner can do.”

The project director asked believers to pray for the safety of the teachers because their homeland is such a dangerous place.

“Projects like this enable families to move toward breaking the poverty cycle that entraps millions of people. This project gives these ladies a skill that long outlives any materials goods that could be given.” says Francis Horton, area director for Central and South Asia. “Generations will benefit from this project.”

Total funding for this project – $12, 575 – was provided by Southern Baptists who care about people in need and donate generously to the World Hunger Fund. For information about giving to the World Hunger Fund, please visit our Giving page.

Southern Baptists are helping a group of 600 families in Central Asia who have returned home after many years in refugee camps in neighboring countries. They have come back to nothing and are having to start rebuilding their lives in the midst of winter.

Field partners are using Southern Baptist relief and hunger funds to meet critical needs for food, shelter, and heating during January. Food parcels containing flour, peas, rice, cooking oil, beans, and sugar are being distributed. Coal, blankets, and a tent have been given to each family.

A prayer request from the field partner: “Ask God to bless these families who are ‘going home’ after such a long time. Pray that these material things will help them realize how much God loves them and cares about their lives.”

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Contributions to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund make projects like this possible. For information about the World Hunger Fund, please visit the Baptist Global Response website.