Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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Mercy Corps turns crisis into opportunity in some of the world’s toughest places – places where intolerable conditions create an opening for profound transitions, and where hardworking families have the chance to build something new.
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Afghanistan March 3, 2009 4:49PM
Supporting Themselves Through Agriculture
Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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As Afghanistan struggles to recover from 30 years of conflict and the global food crisis, Mercy Corps – in continuous operation there since 1986 – is helping hardworking Afghans regain their ability to support their families with dignity.
Most families in Afghanistan cannot afford to buy toys for their children. This girl in Kunduz, like so many other Afghan children, was resourceful enough to make her own. Kite-flying is traditionally a sport for men and boys in Afghanistan, although young girls sometimes join in the fun. Photo: Photo: Cassandra Nelson/ Mercy Corps
Agriculture is a vital livelihood and the focus of dozens of Mercy Corps programmes aimed at boosting local economies and food supplies. We’re helping farmers increase productivity through improved water, pest and soil management; seed production; and planting and harvest techniques. We’re advancing toward long-term goals such as broadening community participation, creating jobs for men and women, and linking poor communities to sustainable markets.
Our programmes teach basic literacy and numeracy to help rural women gain a greater voice. We’re also teaching women how to earn extra income with poultry and household gardens.
To ensure that capital is locally available to sustain these enterprises, we’re improving access to agricultural credit via Ariana Financial Services, a microfinance institution started by Mercy Corps in 2002 and independent as of 2008. Most Ariana clients are women.
Mercy Corps operates two high-quality wheat seed centers to increase agricultural production. They are now mostly self-sustaining private enterprises, thus contributing to the nascent domestic seed industry. And, we have established a network of 23 veterinary field units that are helping farmers improve the health and productivity of their sheep and cattle. In a first for Afghanistan, these vet units have become fully self- sustaining – without need for Mercy Corps subsidies – since their transition to profit-making private enterprises.
Our work to revitalise the fruit and nut tree industry is providing farmers with licit cash crops by restoring orchards and nurseries damaged during decades of conflict. One lucrative source of income is traditional crops, such as grapes and pomegranates, cultivated for the profitable export market.
Young Afghans are discovering a productive future in agriculture thanks to Mercy Corps’ efforts to rebuild the country’s system of agricultural high schools. We’re also developing a nationwide high school curriculum in agriculture and a teacher training programme. Moreover, Mercy Corps is helping refugees rebuild agricultural livelihoods once they return home. Where returnees lack land or livelihood, we provide vocational skills training and direct market linkages to expand job opportunities.
Ancient means of support, like agriculture, can benefit from 21st-century technologies. We’re working with an Afghan telecommunications company to deliver information about prices, market opportunities and best practices via mobile phone text messages, so farmers can make more informed business decisions.
Pakistan March 4, 2009 11:38AM
Strengthening Local Health Systems
Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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Mercy Corps has achieved remarkable success in strengthening Pakistan’s public health systems to better fight the scourge of tuberculosis (TB). What started as small, local programmes are now having a tremendous positive effect nationwide, with stunning cure rates and a vastly improved ability to continue providing sustainable, long-term care to the Pakistani people.
After a devastating earthquake in 2005, Mercy Corps helped displaced people, including these children, get back on their feet. We distributed school supplies and built temporary classrooms so their education could continue. Photo: Jackie Lee/Mercy Corps
TB has become an intractable public health issue in many countries. Each year, two million people – 98 percent of them from the developing world – die from this very contagious, but curable, bacterial disease. Complicating the issue is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains, which arise when patients fail to complete treatment regimens.
Mercy Corps is building the capacity of Pakistan’s existing public health facilities to cure this grave disease. We work with community organisations, providing staff training and technical mentoring to help them design their own solutions and set their own goals for TB case detection and cure rates.
Our campaign follows the World Health Organisation’s directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS) protocol, in which community health workers observe treatment in patients’ homes to ensure the regimen is completed, slowing the spread of drug- resistant cases.
Collaborating closely with national and global TB entities, we ensure that our programmes contribute to larger efforts to address this devastating disease. By working alongside the people we serve, supporting and expanding local solutions, we are helping communities create the lasting change they wish to see.
Our programme was launched in 2004, with special outreach to youth and women. We employed health workers to meet with women one-on-one, teach them about TB, encourage them to seek early medical help and support them during treatment.
These efforts to control TB have been so successful that the government of Pakistan has declared Mercy Corps the lead agency for TB control in Balochistan and Sindh provinces. We work through 65 government diagnostic centers that are helping to detect more cases, reduce the prevalence of the disease and prevent further transmission.
This year, 229,243 patients received TB care from Mercy Corps-supported government facilities in Pakistan. Our success rate is an impressive 88 percent and the impact on the larger community is substantial: our TB programmes are enhancing the productivity and well-being of approximately 6.5 million men, women and children. In addition to fighting the disease, we believe that enabling people to remain healthy and productive helps prevent future potential causes of conflict and poverty.
Iraq March 4, 2009 11:54AM
Resolving Conflict Peacefully
Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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When violence tears a country apart, communication and compromise are often the first casualties. Mercy Corps believes that engaging adversaries in productive dialogue can lead to peaceful, lasting change for war-torn communities. Mercy Corps’ 2004 merger with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Conflict Management Group strengthened our ability to conduct conflict management programmes worldwide.
The war in Iraq has destroyed lives and livelihoods – and disrupted the education of thousands of children like Naji (front) and his friend, who peer through the window of a damaged school. Mercy Corps is helping Iraqi children like these boys continue their education. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps
Our peace-building programmes help communities identify the underlying causes of violence, which are often linked to a lack of resources such as land or jobs. We then equip people with the negotiation tools and skills they require to develop creative solutions to these complex issues.
Since 2004, we have been helping several communities in south-central Iraq deal with violence. Our team has trained more than 120 Iraqis – tribal sheikhs, religious clerics, academics, civil society leaders, community members, local government representatives and provincial council notables – in the fundamentals of negotiation and mediation.
Our approach is to supplement, not replace, a society’s traditional dispute resolution systems. We enter the arena with respect for local customs and practices, looking to augment them where possible with new tools and techniques. We recognize, as do our local partners, that today’s levels of violence can overwhelm problem-solving systems that evolved over hundreds of years.
Mercy Corps’ conflict management programme in Iraq has produced some truly remarkable results. Take, for instance, our work to protect livelihoods in Basra. Iraq’s Department of Agriculture had rented a piece of land to a group of sharecroppers who wanted to grow tomatoes, potatoes and onions.
However, the sharecroppers’ contract stipulated that if oil were found there, the land would be turned over to the Southern Oil Company and the contracts considered null and void. Southern Oil began exploring, found sizeable deposits, and requested that the contracts be cancelled and the sharecroppers expelled – just as their harvest was about to begin. Distraught at the idea of losing everything, the farmers threatened to kill any Southern Oil employees that came on the land.
A participant in Mercy Corps’ conflict management programme intervened to resolve the conflict. He convinced the oil company to wait until after the harvest before voiding the contracts. And, once the land was transferred, some of the sharecroppers found new jobs working for the oil company.
This story illustrates how our programmes help create powerful advocates for peace. Resolving today’s conflicts can forestall tomorrow’s violence, making life safer and the path ahead brighter for the people we serve.
China March 4, 2009 12:05PM
Helping Children Recover
Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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When the 7.9-magnitude earthquake rocked Sichuan Province in May, 2008 – causing at least 69,000 deaths and displacing up to 10 million people – Mercy Corps was there to help.
After the Sichuan earthquake, Mercy Corps helped children recover. These students at the Yunji Primary School enjoyed the games organised by a theater troupe and its play about the importance of hygiene. Photo: Norman Ng for Mercy Corps
The earthquake was especially shattering for thousands of children who suffer disproportionately during natural disasters because they are both physically and psychologically more vulnerable than adults. Tragically, the quake struck during school hours when students were gathered in classrooms. There, and after returning home, many children saw that their friends and relatives had been killed or injured, while the places they thought of as safe – home and school – were destroyed or damaged. Children then had to endure the stress of living in tents or crowded shelters. The earthquake shook their most basic sense of security and stability.
Experts believe that providing psychosocial support to children soon after a disaster can prevent symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from escalating into a lifelong condition.
That’s why, even as we rushed emergency supplies to the area, Mercy Corps began working with two local partners – the Sichuan Youth Federation (a subsidiary of the All China Youth Federation) and the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation – to help children cope. We launched two programmes, Comfort for Kids and Moving Forward, to train area mental health professionals to support children after the quake.
These became our largest-ever China initiatives. As always, we’re building local capacity through our programmes, teaching caregivers so they in turn can train their peers.
Comfort for Kids provides caregivers with basic trauma training and a customized workbook so they can lead workshops that help children express their feelings in a safe environment. For the Sichuan earthquake, Mercy Corps collaborated with senior- level psychologists, such as the Chinese American Psychoanalytic Alliance, and dedicated volunteers to adapt, translate and print 60,000 copies of this valuable therapeutic tool.
Moving Forward trains caregivers to lead organised recreational activities for children that provide them with a safe, structured environment, create a sense of normalcy, alleviate stress and build resiliency. While adults focus on rebuilding their homes and livelihoods, children participating in Moving Forward activities can rebuild their self-esteem, practice teamwork and regain trust – all crucial to healing.
Again with an eye to capacity building, we provide Moving Forward programme leaders with a toolkit that includes detailed instructions, an activity guide and a variety of play equipment. We teach them to identify youth trauma and apply core psychosocial themes through interactive sports and games. In Sichuan, we trained more than 500 caregivers to help 30,000 Chinese children.
Somalia March 4, 2009 12:14PM
Building Safe Water Facilities
Bija Gutoff
Senior Writer/Editor
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Ask a community in crisis what it needs to rebuild, and clean water will be at the top of the list. Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are the very foundations of human health and community development. Mercy Corps emphasizes all three in our relief and recovery initiatives. What’s distinct about our approach is that we hire local residents to construct the water facilities they require.
This Somali woman and her family are benefiting from a Mercy Corps project that hires local workers to build levees. The project protects her village from flooding, allows crops to reach maturity – and puts much-needed wages in the hands of the most vulnerable households so they can buy food, clothes and other necessities. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps
We work with communities to identify their priorities. We then supply the daily wages that enable people to support their families with dignity and gain a stake in their own futures while building vital infrastructure such as wells and latrines. Our cash-for-work approach creates jobs and infuses badly needed currency into local economies.
Mercy Corps projects are bringing life-giving water and healthier sanitation to communities in Guatemala, Sudan, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe – and Somalia, an extremely poor “failed state” where tremendous numbers of people have been displaced by violence. In helping Somalis build potable water and sanitation facilities, Mercy Corps is enabling people to survive, reducing the water-access issues that represent sources of conflict, and freeing communities to take the next steps in rebuilding their lives.
We are working in five districts of southern Somalia. Through our large cash-for-work programme, we have employed area workers to build 34 wells and 1,300 family and 350 communal latrines. We also conduct hygiene education campaigns to prevent diarrhoea (which kills more than 1.4 million children worldwide each year) and other preventable waterborne illnesses. We have taught safe hygiene and sanitation practices to 8,000 households. In places that lack government support, we also teach communities how to set priorities, make plans and implement projects. All together, these projects will serve 170,400 people, of whom 42,000 live in camps for those who were forced by violence to flee their homes.
In northern Somalia, our Bossaso project brings clean water and appropriate sanitation, and teaches safe hygiene practices, to people living in camps. We first gained the cooperation of those who own the land where the camps are located, because they must approve any construction. Our team successfully negotiated with the landowners to allow the camp community to access the new water and sanitation facilities.
We then hired local people to build and maintain five beerkads – 10,000 liter concrete-lined water-holding tanks with taps – and 50 family or communal latrines. We established five waste disposal sites and, after developing and translating educational materials into the local language, taught safe hygiene and sanitation practices to 4,000 households. These projects will ultimately serve 20,000 people living in camps.