Archive for the ‘poverty’ Category
Freeing people from poverty
Over at Kingdom Communities, Jeff Palmer is blogging about how poverty results from broken relationships. He’s got a fascinating take on the types of poverty created by four different broken relationships.
If we truly want to see people freed from poverty, we’ve got to come to terms with the broken relationships underlying poverty – and focus on solutions that address those broken relationships, not just the superficial symptoms.
Catch what Jeff is saying at Kingdom Communities about The Four Failed Relationships of Poverty!
Sewing class gives women a chance at new life
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.
Life improving for destitute Bengali women
KOLKATA, India – A dozen widows and abandoned women in India’s West Bengal state are now better able to care for their families, thanks to a Southern Baptist development project that drew on $22,000 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.
The project focused on women in two villages who were living in desperate poverty, some with small children who were suffering from malnutrition. Because they were members of a minority religious group, many of their neighbors looked down on them and would not help.
