You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2009.
By Emmanual Ofumbi
ofumbiz@gmail.com
“Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:8, 9
As the Children are Our Future……..…we are their Present and Future
At Papoli Community Development Foundation-PACODEF, we understand the joy of giving generously. Through the generosity of friends like you, we are able to provide gifts that fulfill the most basic of human needs. Where hunger reigns in a small village of Papoli in Uganda-Africa, where children go to school without breakfast, having gone to bed on half stomach. We provide porridge to preschool and primary school kids, white corn mixed with soya beans is ground to flour.
Benefits realized from the porridge for Papoli project:
O Providing a meal at school is a simple but concrete way to give poor children a chance to learn and thrive, school feeding helps keep children in school, they report to school in time, there is minimal absenteeism; teachers have noticed a dramatic improvement in student performance.
O The daily meals given at the school motivate parents to enroll their children, there has been great rise in numbers of kids in lower primary as children who were just staying at home in villages or going to hunt or scare monkeys, baboons and birds in plantain and grain fields have come to school. The lower classes instead of the optimum class number of 60 students have gone out of the way and enrolled 130-160- students since the porridge feeding started.
O The benefits are also felt by poor households that are now relieved of having to scratch for food. When kids get home, they no longer press their mothers for food, it is also reported that some children often take part of their porridge to share with siblings back at home or even sick parents who are bed ridden.
O The mothers who are customarily the bread winners and providers for households now don’t have to worry about leaving their field work and rushing back home to scratch around for lunch for the kids. They have more time for their own work and less worries about finding money and food for their breakfast and lunch.
O In addition to boosting student nutrition and providing peasant farmers with a local market, the initiative is improving the economic welfare of local community members. Some have jobs processing and cooking food for the students.
O The students bring fire wood in class turns, wash utensils and assist the cooks in serving porridge.
FACTS:
Over 40,000 children die every day from:
• Malnutrition
• Starvation
• Hunger-related diseases
“More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished – 799 million of them are from the developing world. More than 153 million of them are under the age of five. 6 million children under the age of 5 die every year as a result of hunger.” from the Bread for the World Institute website
“As simple as it sounds, food is essential in the global fight against HIV and AIDS. Nutritious food can prolong the lives of people suffering with HIV and AIDS. Food and good nutrition can also allow them to continue to earn income and feed their families.” from the United Nations World Food Program website
Porridge in Papoli Project:
For $33 a day 1200 children in the schools of this small community can be fed. For $660 a month all of these children can be fed.
Whatever gift you choose to give, we thank you for generously loving the children we serve.
Village Council members:
1. Emmanuel Ofumbi.
2. Difas Yoga.
3. Charles Obbo Opendi.
4. Engineer Geoffrey Okoth
COVENANT HOSPITAL NETWORK
Spring 2009
Greetings in Our Risen Lord to all of you who have been a part of the labor of Jesus Christ for the people of rural Haiti at Covenant Hospital in Mombin Crochu.
This newsletter is a report about the hospital and the mission, as well as an update on the organization and function of the Covenant Hospital Network (CHN). Because mission committees and interest groups change membership, it may be that this letter should be shared with others at this time, and that we need updated names and e-mail addresses. We ask that you please help us to get this information where it needs to go in your church, and request that we receive notice of new addresses so that we can maintain an accurate database. Many thanks.
HOSPITAL WORK CONTINUES
Covenant Hospital continues to provide first-line health care for the 40,000 people in the Mombin Crochu region. We received a recent report from the Medical Director, Dr. Fred-Shero Cenadin, who grew up in Mombin Crochu and whose mother is a long-time employee of the hospital which we have helped to support. He tells us that he has three Haitian physicians on staff now, and a full workforce of nurses. The patient care volume has risen in the past few months, apparently in part due to an increased amount of malnutrition in the region as hard economic times affect Haiti even more forcefully than other places in the world. Poverty is greatly worsened in the poorer regions, and so there is less money for food, more illness in weakened and poorly-fed people, and increased need for the hospital, for medicine, and for treatment of illness. The people of rural Mombin Crochu continue to need our prayer and our assistance.
NETWORK FINDS NEW HOME
We are pleased to report that Covenant Hospital Network has changed its center of organization. Formerly part of Medical Benevolence Foundation, CHN and Covenant Hospital Mombin Crochu is now an official project of Village Partners International, an energetic and involved non-profit mission foundation with full 501c(3) status. It is important to understand that all contributions previously made for Covenant Hospital have been transferred to “VPI/CHN Haiti Project”, the new designation for tax-deductible contributions to Covenant Hospital Mombin Crochu. We are now receiving new and much-needed contributions from churches and individuals who wish to assist with Christ’s work in health care in rural Haiti. Checks can be made and contributions sent to: VPI/CHN Haiti Project; Village Partners International; 217 S. Matanzas Ave.; Tampa, FL 33609. This is a separate account administered by the Covenant Hospital Network. Be sure to check out the web information at www.villagepartnersinternational.org and click on Our Projects.
MISSION FOCUS
Since operational authority for Covenant Hospital now rests with the Haitian people and the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP), the CHN is in the unique and favorable position of being able to help the Haitian people strengthen their own systems of preventive medicine and health care delivery to the very poor and needy region of Mombin Crochu. Working with the regional MSPP director, we have identified the areas in which we may provide the most direct and effective healthcare support to Covenant Hospital: 1. Treatment of illness. We will help maintain an adequate stock of medicines in the hospital pharmacy so that doctors and nurses can properly provide for both clinic and hospital patients in the community. 2. Maintain the hospital and guesthouse buildings and the hospital supply vehicles. Work teams will focus on repairs and training of local people. 3. Provide nutrition assistance. Since malnutrition is so critical at this time, we plan to respond by re-starting a former program called Food for Healing, which provides one nourishing meal daily to aid in the healing of sick and hospitalized patients. VPI/CHN Haiti Project will direct our donated financial and mission team resources to these efforts in the coming months. We have worked hard to establish and will maintain proper accountability methods for efficient and direct use of all resources.
Many thanks to those congregations who have generously and faithfully pledged to the work of Jesus Christ at Covenant Hospital for 2009. We pray that many others will join in this mission of Christ’s hope and healing for the people of Haiti.
Covenant Hospital Network Advisory Council
Paul McLain, MD
Sylvia Campbell, MD
Allen Atz
Alice Patterson
Rev. John DeBevoise
David
sylcamp
Recent Comments