Mercy Corps’ Moving Forward mentors “are instilling good values in us,” says Herma Pierre, 13. Photo: Ben Depp for Mercy Corps

Herma Pierre, 13, is beating the odds. She survived the earthquake. And she’s growing up in Port-au-Prince’s toughest slum. Six years ago, Cité Soleil was a war zone. Violence has subsided in recent years, but for girls like Herma, guns and gangs still pose a serious threat.

Today, Herma is on the field of the Pax Christi Haiti youth organisation, participating in Mercy Corps’ Moving Forward sports programme. “I love everything we do here,” she says. “The mentors treat us great!” She grins at Frantz Francois, the programme’s local Mercy Corps-trained mentor.

For both Herma and Frantz, Moving Forward does more than give kids a chance to play — it helps them develop as individuals. Games teach skills in constructive communication and teamwork. Playing builds resilience and self-esteem. The goal is to equip young people to overcome incredible obstacles — natural disaster, conflict or, in Herma’s case, both.

“The kids have developed a belonging to this programme,” says mentor Frantz Francois. “It’s a safe place where they are happy.” Photo: Ben Depp for Mercy Corps

“After the earthquake, I was very discouraged,” says Herma, who connects her experiences and Moving Forward with surprising insight. “There’s this game where you fall down but you have to get right back up,” she says. “That’s a life lesson! They’re showing us a lot about life here, including never losing hope.”

Frantz, who grew up in Cité Soleil, notices the way Moving Forward has helped transform the neighborhood. “Cité Soleil has always been this infamously dangerous place,” he says. “But look now.” He gestures at the kids happily playing. “These activities have changed these kids.”

Moving Forward changes adults, too. “Mercy Corps gave me more [profes- sional] training,” Frantz says. “I want to say a big thank you to Mercy Corps, because this programme invests in people, in children, in who they are.”

He points to a banner strung up next to a goal post. “That’s part of the positive message we’re showing them.” It says: Haitian children are Haiti.

Read more ▸

Photo: Norman Ng for Mercy Corps

So much depends on children. They're the pride and joy of their families, as well as eternal hope for a better future. There's perhaps no place in the world where this rings more true than China.

China's longstanding one-child policy makes children that much more precious to parents. And that made May 12, 2008 especially unbearable for so many.

On that day, the Wenchuan earthquake devastated wide swaths of Sichuan Province, toppling entire cities and killing nearly 70,000 people. Some of the most heart-wrenching tragedies occurred at schools when classrooms collapsed. In the aftermath, there was destruction, displacement and disbelief.

Mercy Corps responded immediately, sending staff to affected areas within hours of the disaster — and the generous donations of our supporters helped us in so many ways. We delivered truckloads of critical supplies such as water, noodles, milk and shelter items to survivors. We put together kits containing much-needed hygiene and household goods and distributed them to displaced families.

But our most important work was helping young survivors move past the tragedy and shock of loss. Within days of the earthquake, we launched two youth psychosocial programmes — Comfort for Kids and Moving Forward — that have helped support and counsell traumatized children. These two programmes trained more than 1,600 caregivers, such as teachers and psychologists, who continue serving the needs of thousands of young survivors.

We also provided educational support for these children at a time when they equated classrooms with fear of what had happened. We delivered school supplies to more than 9,000 children, as well as giving teachers the tools they needed and equipping new classrooms with essential items. This helped ease their return to learning.

Thank you for supporting this life-changing work.

Read more ▸

It's not the classroom, or the doctor's office, or some other site where you might expect to find traumatized children receiving supportive services. Mercy Corps believes that athletic fields and playgrounds can be the place where emotional recovery takes place.

A boy emerges from the dust of the rubble caused by last year's earthquake in Peru cradling a white dove, a symbol of hope and new beginnings. Photo: Esteban Huaman for Mercy Corps

The Moving Forward initiative, a collaborative endeavor between Mercy Corps, NIKE and CARE aims to help youth emerge from the physical and emotional rubble of emergencies by stepping onto the football pitches, volleyball courts and dance halls of their recovering communities. The approach capitalizes on the capacity of coaches and teachers to use sport- and game-based methodologies to help youth recover from the trauma they experience during and after disasters.

As part of a pilot project initiated by Mercy Corps in response to the coastal earthquake in Peru last August, two dozen coaches and teachers were trained as mentors to work with kids in the most affected areas. Using sports like football, volleyball and dance, these mentors helped more than 300 kids cope with the psychosocial stress that follows losing homes and schools and living in crowded shelters.

Twice a week, youth joined their mentors in community play areas to take part in football and volleyball matches and dance instruction to build their self-esteem, trust in others, teamwork and resiliency. Each mentor was equipped with a NIKE-outfitted sport bag containing all the tools of the sport-mentor trade: football balls, volleyballs, practice vests, cones, rope and so on.

The experience and tools developed will help the Moving Forward initiative develop a one-of-a-kind toolkit to help child-service professionals engage youth in sports and games after natural and manmade disasters strike. The toolkit will be refined by all of the partners as we learn more about how to best use sports and games to promote kids' psychosocial recovery.

Food, water and shelter are essential to disaster recovery. But the power of sports can't be overlooked in helping youth recover their optimism and hope.

Read more ▸