Day 1: Journey of contrasts
Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, is in Afghanistan to see the organisation’s work on the ground.
World Vision team house, provincial Afghanistan
My first day in Afghanistan - a long journey full of contrasts. From the loud buzz of military helicopters to the tranquil sounds of birdsong on the breeze and call to prayer from the local mosque. From the consumer glitz of Dubai airport to the stark barren mountains of Afghanistan. From the sparkling eyes and diverse faces of the Afghan people to the guns, fatigues, armoured cars and trappings of a large international and local military presence. It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m resting finally in the World Vision team house in this provincial town 24 hours since leaving Heathrow. Sunday is normally a regular day of work here, but fortunately for my colleague Chris and I, it’s a public holiday – as Afghanistan celebrates the anniversary of the fall of communism here. Locals say they have a long list of similar anniversaries to commemorate, including escaping dominance of the British empire nearly 100 years ago to the departure of the Soviets in 1979.
Dramatic scenery entering Kabul
Dramatic beauty
My first sight of Afghanistan was the dramatic beauty of descending over snow capped peaks into the valley of Kabul. We were met by our driver, a local World Vision staff member who guided us through the various security checkpoints to connect with our local flight. The air is cool, clear and crisp and you can sense the altitude under the bright glare of the sun. A small van, fully upholstered with Afghan carpets on top of the seats, takes us to the gates where we pass through razor wire and earthwork barricades to the tiny terminal to await our flight. The air’s filled with the hum of plane propellers and helicopters, coming and going.
The security instructions on my plane ticket are rather different from normal, “Weapons are allowed but must be unloaded. Small arms may be hand-carried on board, provided they have been cleared of any and all ammunition. No pyrotechnics, explosive devices, or grenades.” Then there’s the familiar “No liquids more than 100mls in your carry-on luggage” which seems somewhat ironic given the weapons!
Anyway, I’m here safe and well, security, culture and programme briefings all done and dusted and looking forward to the week ahead, learning about the people of this fascinating country and seeing World Vision’s work to save and protect children in one of the world’s hardest places.
Malaria and poverty combine to create misery for family
Although Malaria is a preventable and curable disease, one child in Africa still dies every minute from it as a result. In places like Burundi, it causes great suffering for children like Candide. Join us this World Malaria Day, April 25, as we work to eliminate this preventable disease worldwide.
Candide, 11, has had multiple bouts of malaria. The bed net she was using had a hole, rendering it ineffective. The leaky roof at her house creates puddles that become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Candide Nicitanga, 11 years, sleeps with her mother under the family's only mosquito net as she is seen as the most vulnerable child in the family. Her two sisters sleep without a net. Image by Michelle Siu.
As Candide lay sick in her bed, the 11-year-old knew she would not make it to school that day. She had an excruciating headache, a fever, and had become weak from vomiting.
Above her bed, damp clothes dangled from a makeshift clothesline. It was the rainy season in her rural village in central Burundi. As water dripped through the holes of the dilapidated roof, small puddles of stagnant water began to appear on the rugged mud floor — a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Her mother instinctively knew what was wrong: Candide was sick with malaria again. And her elder sister, Immaculate, was still recovering from a recent bout of the mosquito-borne disease.
But without the money to pay for medications, there was nothing their mother could do to help.
‘I’ve never been in peace’
“It’s always like this,” says Denise, a 55-year-old mother of five. “I’ve never been in peace. These children are too much for me because I’m alone.”
Candide, 11, with her mother Denise Simbandumwe and their only mosquito net. The net has a hole in it, rendering it ineffective. As a result, Candide has had multiple bouts of malaria. Image by Michelle Siu.
When Candide was just 3, her father abandoned the family. Since then, her mother has struggled to make ends meet. When work is available, she cultivates the fields of neighbouring landowners, which earns just enough to provide one meal a day to her children. But she can rarely afford anything else.
“I don’t have land. I can’t sell crops,” explains Denise, who grows small patches of beans and sweet potatoes behind her home. “The yield is too small to afford to pay for medicine.”
Although malaria is a preventable and curable disease, many families lack proper mosquito nets and the funds needed to access medications. Almost half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria, reports the World Health Organization. In Africa, a child dies every minute from the disease.
Inadequate protection, unaffordable care
To prevent malaria, Candide sleeps under a mosquito net at night. But her mother has trouble securing it properly, and a hole in the net has rendered it useless. Still, it’s the only line of defence for their family of six.
“I only have one mosquito net, and it can’t cover all the children,” Denise says, adding that she sleeps with Candide at night. “I’m using the mosquito net on Candide’s bed because she is the youngest and most vulnerable. I also want to protect myself so I can continue to take care of the children.”
From left: Candide and her sisters, Immaculate and Fides, have all been vulnerable to malaria because the family can't afford proper prevention or treatments. Image by Michelle Siu.
This past November, Candide became sick from malaria. Her mother borrowed enough money to take her to the health centre. The doctor treated Candide and prescribed malaria medications.
Since Denise couldn’t afford the full dosage, she only purchased a portion of the tablets before making the two-hour trek on foot back to their village. When they arrived home, Candide had to share the tablets with her sister.
“I have borrowed from all my friends. No one is left,” says Denise, who still owes debts from previous visits to the health centre. “I cannot pay them back because I do not have the money.”
Aware of her financial challenges, and fearing that her children will get sick again, Denise has devised a way to cope. “I save them,” Denise says of Candide’s malaria tablets. “So when she gets sick next time, I can give them to her.”
Malaria’s heavy toll
But without completing a full round of malaria medications, Denise’s children struggle to overcome the disease, and their symptoms often relapse. This year, Candide missed several days of school because of malaria. In October alone, she was absent from school six times.
“When I miss school, I miss some classes,” Candide says with concern. Attending school comes at a price for this girl. During the dry season, she works in the fields with her mother to earn enough money to pay for school supplies.
World Vision has begun work in the area of Burundi where this family lives. Through long-term development work, we plan to build the capacity of the community to manage and control malaria cases in the future. For the most vulnerable homes, World Vision also plans to partner with the local government and community leaders to make life-saving medications more accessible.
Niger: Emergency response efforts at Mangaize refugee camp
Conflict in Mali has made a chronic food crisis worse, with approximately 150,000 Malians displaced in the north of the country fleeing into neighbouring countries. In need of food, shelter, clean water and basic household items, those crossing the border are having to take refuge in communities already impoverished by the food crisis, such as Niger.
World Vision’s Emergency Response Team have been on the ground to help, distributing 500 kits of kitchen, hygiene and sanitation items at the Mangaize refugee camp on the border of Niger. Some 3,500 people – 2,400 refugees and 700 from the host community – are expected to benefit from the relief.
‘Everyone was very grateful for the distribution,’ said HEA Response Manager, WV Niger Boukary Gambo. ‘These items were badly needed by the families here. Families told us that it was the first time since arriving to the camp that they were involved in deciding what was needed the most.’
Up to 4,000 Malian refugees having been arriving at the camp since the beginning of the conflict on January 12th. There are more than 260 children under five amongst the refugees, with some women having given birth at the camp.
The images below provide a glimpse into a part of the ongoing food and refugee crisis in West Africa, one that desperately needs our attention and assistance.
From baby refugee to mother, wife, and World Vision staffer
Every woman has a story. And, like all stories, if you change one page, one paragraph, or even one word, you could change her story.
Former World Vision UK staff member tells her inspirational story of how a former child refugee grew up to become an Advocacy and Communications Specialist for one the largest relief and development organisations in the world.
At the age of 3 months, Cat-Dan was one of the youngest boat refugees to escape Vietnam. She now lives in the Seattle area with her husband, Tim, and son, Liran (both pictured above), and works on World Vision's advocacy team. (Photo: Thien Lai/Captus Photography)
This is my story.
I was born a girl into a culture that still prefers and elevates boys. I was born into a war-torn country whose new government had stripped its citizens of all their rights and freedoms.
Significantly, I was born to parents who were determined to not let these dismal factors prevent their daughter from experiencing the very best that life could offer — even if that meant risking their lives, leaving their friends and family, and fleeing from the only home they had ever known.
Thus, at the age of 3 months, I became one of the youngest boat refugees to escape Vietnam.
Change her story…
My mother didn’t just change her story when she decided to escape. She also changed my future the day she refused to listen to her parents, who desperately persuaded her to leave me behind.
They had insisted that it would be safer to send for me when I was older, and after — no one dared to think “if” — she and my father had successfully made the perilous journey.
Despite the logic behind their arguments, she couldn’t do it. I was the reason they were escaping in the first place, so I had to come along.
This courageous conviction sustained her as she held my malnourished body throughout the 10 days we were at sea. We were trapped below in the hold of a tiny fishing vessel with 195 other refugees while my dad, who was a national swimming athlete, assisted the captain on the deck. Hope burned on, despite the terrors of a tropical monsoon, illness from seasickness, starvation, and dehydration, and even a lost anchor.
And this hope was rewarded when the tenth day revealed the sight of land and the shores of Hong Kong. After waiting an entire day to be granted asylum by the governor, we were processed and detained in one of the Kowloon refugee camps.
Everyone had survived the journey, including me.
Change history…
But my story certainly didn’t end there. In fact, this was when stories like mine and thousands of other boat refugees surged through the media and came alive via televisions around the world. The plight of the Vietnamese became heart-wrenching, Technicolor realities that created an incredible ripple effect around the globe.
Many countries had started pushing us refugees away by closing their shores or their borders by capping asylum quotas. World leaders, however, were forced to take notice when thousands of citizens in countries across the globe began to cry out on behalf of refugees like me. Together, they petitioned their governments to take in more boat refugees, and they privately sponsored those whom their government could not aid.
In the end, nearly 3 million people left Vietnam and the surrounding countries of Laos and Cambodia. The United States alone has resettled 1.4 million of these refugees, 900,000 of whom were from Vietnam.
Imagine that: Some 1.4 million stories were changed during this pivotal time in the United States alone — and this, in turn, changed world history.
Create inspiring futures
My story continued to change after my parents and I were sponsored by some amazing Christians from a small-town church in Sarnia, Ontario (about three hours southwest of Toronto).
Like many immigrant families, my parents prioritized education. My mother especially wanted me to pursue higher education. As a woman who grew up in an Asian culture, she kept reminding me that a woman’s key to her future and her independence would be a solid education.
So, I decided to study political science and to pursue a career in international development. I wanted to learn all I could to help change policies and systems that would ensure inspiring futures for other girls like me.
It has been nearly four years since I started working for World Vision. Each day reminds me of the honor that I continually feel to be working here alongside others for an organization that also saved the lives of hundreds of Vietnamese boat people through its Operation Seasweep initiative during the late 1970s.
Not only is it the very same organization that helped hundreds of my own people; it is still full of caring people who are offering their time and skills to continue changing lives, three decades later.
As a former child refugee, I humbly offer my gratitude, together with every child whom World Vision has helped. I also urge you to discover your role in helping to change others’ stories. By doing so, you can use your voice and change lives at the same time.
You can help continue to change the lives of girls and children like Cat-Dan through Child Sponsorship. Visit World Vision’s website to see how you can get involved.
World Vision has some exciting news – in May this year we have our first garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
We’re working with two up-and-coming designers, John Warland and Sim Flemons, of FlemonsWarlandDesign, who also created World Vision’s gold medal winning garden at last year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, so we know we’re in good hands!
This Chelsea garden will tell the story of World Vision’s ripple effect – how working with children, also have a positive impact on their families, communities and, ultimately, entire countries.
The garden’s been designed to reflect this, with a pulsing ripple pool in the centre, and tall trees and walls around the outside showing how World Vision protects the world’s most vulnerable children.
To help bring the story of the World Vision Garden to life, Chris Mosler, author of the Thinly Spread blog, is following the build from start to finish showing what goes in to creating a garden fit for the Queen:
In her first post, Chris says:
“My role in all of this is to raise awareness of the work World Vision does and if you think that they are the people who send spectacles to developing countries then you are not alone! World Vision have a fantastic child sponsorship programme working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice in almost 100 countries worldwide. Sponsoring a child is like dropping a pebble into a pond as it enables World Vision to work to improve things for a whole community.”
You can read the rest of Chris’ blog, Thinly Spread, and learn more about the World Vision Garden here.
We’ll keep you updated over the next couple of months, with all the news from World Vision’s road to Chelsea. There’s plenty to talk about, including our gardener’s sponsored child Ronald and a rare plant that helps child nutrition in Bolivia and is now making its way to Main Avenue!
We look forward to sharing the Chelsea journey with you over the next couple of months – stay tuned!
What Lent means to me
I am quite new to Lent, not the idea of Lent but the practice of it. This is the first year I have given up anything for Lent and so I decided to make up for lost years of sacrifice and give up food containing refined sugars. So that’s no biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolate, jam and so on. I am finding it a little hard, not because I can’t do without the sugar but because I am in the habit of picking up a biscuit or chocolate whenever I see one. I graze, rather than eat. I have had a few slips and have had to quickly bin a number of half eaten biscuits.
On a more serious note, I’ve learnt that the practice of Lent can be traced back as far as the apostles it seems and was certainly regularised after the legalisation of Christianity in A.D.313. It has always been a 40 day period of fasting but the intensity of the fast has differed. In Jerusalem people fasted from Monday to Friday but not over weekends and therefore fasted for 8 weeks in all. In Rome they fasted from Monday to Saturday for 6 weeks. As that became the more accepted pattern the days from Ash Wednesday were added in to bring the total number of fasted days to 40 in all. Most fasted from meat and anything else that came from an animal such as dairy and eggs and ate only one meal a day in the late afternoon or early evening. It amazes me that people have kept this practice for about 2000 years!
Over the years our lent practices have become simpler and easier. Lent is still 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, excluding all the Sundays in between. People give up “something” for Lent. And the focus of Lent is still the same; to deny ourselves, to renew our faith and to prepare to celebrate fully the mysteries of our salvation through the cross and resurrection.
As I prepared the content of our Lent Calendar I was struck by how fortunate we are here in the UK to have the luxury of being in a position to “give up something” for Lent. So many have so little. I feel I have come to know the children in the photos and my heart has been touched by their lives. My personal Lent sacrifice is a very small thing but I have chosen this year to add it to the sacrifice that others are making, so that together we can make a difference to the lives of children across the world. This small sacrifice is nothing compared to what the children of Mozambique are sacrificing on a daily basis.
Read more from children like Carla, featured in today’s story (26th March), suffering from severe malnutrition .
The Hunger Games: book, movie or reality?
Niger and other West African countries are in the midst of a food crisis. © Chris Sisarich for World Vision
The best-selling book series and newly-released movie The Hunger Games highlights a fictional world where many live lives of luxury and wealth, pushing others into hunger and poverty to enjoy their lavish lifestyles. Sadly, however, this is not merely a fictional dystopia but a harsh reality for the world’s millions. However with your help, we can do something to combat world hunger together.
This weekend, movie-goers will flock to theatres across the nation for the much-anticipated Hunger Games motion picture release.
Fiction or reality?
The Hunger Games movie, based on the young adult trilogy by Suzanne Collins, reflects the fictional fantasy of a world where those from the poor districts are hungry. While the story is fiction, in reality, more than 850 million people are going to bed hungry tonight.
In a world where nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day, one in seven people do not get enough food to be healthy, and most of these are women and children.
Poor nutrition is the single biggest underlying cause of ill health and death among pregnant women and for children in their first two years of life, underlying one-third of preventable deaths of children under age 5 — more than 6,500 children a day.
A child in Niger, West Africa suffering from malnutrition at a World Vision supported health clinic. © Chris Sisarich for World Vision
Respond to global hunger
Together, with some of the biggest fans of the book, we can take action.
Raw Hope, by World Vision, aims to provide a chance of survival for children under threat and offer hope for their continued protection. The places that Raw Hope provides relief are some of the most treacherous places on earth, referred to as ‘fragile contexts’ – where a government cannot or will not act on its responsibility to protect the rights of its population. Children face a variety of excruciating issues in these areas, including malnutrition and extreme hunger, along with disease, exploitation and limited access to water. Because of these factors, the areas focused on by Raw Hope experience unacceptably high child and maternal mortality rates.
If you are inspired to do something to help fight world hunger, please choose to donate to Raw Hope today.
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Meeting Kony
James Odong - abducted by Kony's rebel group
The name ‘Joseph Kony’ – leader of Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA) – is known across the globe, following the ‘Kony2012’ campaign which has seen nearly 85million hits on YouTube.
James Odong from Uganda – now a senior World Vision staff member –was captured by Kony’s army at the age of 19 and came face-to-face with the rebel leader himself.
After escaping his captors in 1989, James worked to set up a Children of War Centre which has helped more than ten thousand former child soldiers. Here, James tells his story for the first time.
I only met Kony once; but I knew immediately it was him. He visited the rebel camp in the bush where we were held as prisoners. I was paraded in front of him by a rebel soldier who told Kony I was a “traitor”.
Kony looked me in the eye. Gesturing to me and five other prisoners, he told the soldier: “Understand them, and deal with them.” Several of my fellow prisoners were later murdered.
Life changed forever
This happened a week after I was taken prisoner – a day I still remember well. I was 19 years old, and the year was 1989. It was a Friday morning and I was riding my bicycle through Gulu, my town in northern Uganda, when I fell off and broke a bone in my hand. I went to a hospital 3km outside town to get treatment.
While the doctor was putting my hand in plaster, there was a commotion outside. He rushed out to see what was going on – and never returned.
Children continue to be affected by armed conflict in eastern DRC and Uganda
When I went outside, there was a scene of chaos as rebel soldiers looted the hospital for drugs. I fled across the courtyard into a basement – but, at that moment, a group of soldiers came back out of the basement and grabbed me.
That’s the moment I was abducted – and my life changed forever.
Facing certain death
They removed my shirt and shoes, and forced me and other prisoners to walk for three days into the bush. They were convinced I was a government spy and that my hand was in plaster because I had been shot – not because I had fallen off my bicycle.
The rebel soldiers told me I had a simple choice: either accept I was a spy, and start fighting for the LRA on the front line – or be killed.
Both scenarios meant certain death. Even if they didn’t kill me, with no military training I would be sure to die on the front line.
Children receive counselling at the WV Children of War Centre, northern Uganda
Abuse “that you can’t imagine”
Six of us were imprisoned together in a makeshift camp in the bush. One of them, a man my age, had his head cut open with a machete by one of the soldiers. They left him for dead. Miraculously, he survived and is now a university lecturer. We still stay in touch.
Anyone who tried to escape was brought back to the camp and killed in front of us. We were forced to sit in a circle and watch. I was held there for 47 days.
Every day, children were killed in front of me with a machete. Some of them were as young as nine.
Gulu, northern Uganda
I saw all kinds of abuse. Intimidation and sexual abuse that you can’t imagine. If a child cried because their feet were swollen and they couldn’t keep walking, they were killed with a machete. I saw all this.
It was my broken hand that saved me. They knew I couldn’t fight until it had healed, so I was spared being sent to the front line. A school friend, who was conscripted by the LRA, hatched a plan to help me escape.
Looking to the future
Out of every terrible situation comes good. In the years after my experience, I met scores of children who had witnessed the same. Their stories were more than just words to me; I understood how they felt and the devastation it wrought on their lives day after day.
26-year-old Justine, a former child soldier receiving support at the WV Children of War Centre
There was no support, and little understanding of what they were going through so I helped to set up World Vision’s Children of War Centre in northern Uganda, to address the needs of children traumatised by war. We have helped rehabilitate more than ten thousand children from Uganda and neighbouring DR Congo.
I’m now Associate Director for Peacebuilding at World Vision International. We work with all people involved to help them overcome the horrors of war, become reunited with their families, and to lead as normal a life as possible.
This is just one part of Africa. Children continue to be affected by conflict right across the globe, across generations. We have a responsibility to support children affected by the horrors of armed conflict – and to shield them from seeing things that no child ever should.
James Odong is Associate Director for Peacebuilding at World Vision International. He has been speaking at a World Vision UK summit, with representatives from nine governments, the UN and the ICC – on how to protect children from armed conflict.
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World Water Day: Why water makes a difference
Water is one of our most precious natural resources. However, with nearly 900 million people in today’s world—one in eight—collecting water from a contaminated source, its effect on the developing world is staggering.
Twelve-year-old Maria Oumarou used to risk her life to collect water. Living in Niger, she needed to cross the border into Nigeria every single day, a journey taking her from 6am to noon.
“It was about five kilometres away,” Maria says. “I was not at ease knowing that I had to enter another country to get water.”
To make matters worse, Maria was bullied by the local villagers when she arrived.
“The people there mocked us, saying that we came begging for their water. It was sad to hear, but what could we do? It was their country, and we needed their water.”
While having to cross the border for water is an unusual situation, young women and children taking dangerous and lengthy journeys to collect it is not. Many children are pulled out of school by their families to help with the daily chores. In Maria’s class of 41 students, only four of the 13 girls will continue their education beyond year six.
“I feared that if I missed another morning in school, I’d soon be unable to catch up with my class,” Maria says.
However all of this has changed for Maria since World Vision built a water pump in her village. Rather than trekking the six hour walk across the border, it takes her mere moments.
“Now that we have a well with the water pump – even if I have to fetch water in the morning – it’s just few minutes away from home. I’m never late for school,” she says.
“The water tastes much better. It is clean and we’re never sick after drinking it. I have all the reasons to be happy for the new pump – now that I have more time, I can study more or help my parents with house chores.”
Perhaps more significantly, Maria can go to school. “I want to be educated so people will respect me. I see that women, who are teachers or nurses, have a stable income and can support their parents. I want to be like them one day.”
Now, with time left for her education, that may be possible.
…
World Vision has been working continuously in West Africa to help increase access to safe water and sanitation. Currently, through the West African WASH project, World Vision aims to improve the lives of 1.5 million people by increasing their access to safe water by 2016.
If you would like to personally help a child gain access to clean water and sanitation, please sponsor a child in Niger today.
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Mother’s Day: Inspirational mothers from around the world
In honour of Mother’s Day, we are featuring four inspirational stories of motherhood from around the globe. From a Sudanese woman risking her life to feed her children, to a dedicated health worker who has been on call 24/7 for the last decade in Niger, World Vision finds out that wherever the mother, whatever the circumstance, the same feelings of hope, love and sacrifice exist between mother and child.
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Mamie Jiah, 29 – Sierra Leone
Pregnancy in Sierra Leone is a dangerous time, as 29-year-old Mamie Jiah knows all too well. Without access to qualified midwives, scanners or even pain relief, there is a terrifying one-in-eight chance of dying in childbirth. One in five children do not make it to their fifth birthday.
In December 2010 when World Vision first met Mamie, she was due to give birth again, after already experiencing the loss of five of her seven children dying before the age of three. “People used to think some bad spirit had a hold over me,” she said.
This was the first of Mamie’s pregnancies during which she regularly attended a health centre, as free healthcare had been introduced in Sierra Leone the previous April. Before then, Mamie often couldn’t afford the 2,000 leones (30p) for an appointment. She explained that if you turned up with no money, the health workers would simply refuse to see you.
For each of her other pregnancies, Mamie visited her village’s traditional birth attendant. This woman, with no health training, offered Mamie advice and assisted her births in a dark dusty hut without the use of any sterile or surgical equipment.
However, this pregnancy was different. Mamie gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Kelvin, who is now 15 months old.
We asked Mamie recently what her favourite moment has been as a mother. “I remember his first smile, he was two months old,” she replied. “I felt so happy to see my baby boy smile for the very first time.”
Mariam Ibrahim, 33 – Sudan
Life has become a struggle for Mariam, a mother of three in the Al Salam Internally Displaced Persons camp. Forced to flee her rural village with her husband Mohammad and their children, they had to leave their birth place with no plan and nowhere to go.
“The whole village turned to ashes, properties looted and villagers were killed by unknown armed groups riding on camels,” Mariam says.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are victims of the current food crisis. More than three million Sudanese are at risk of starvation unless immediate food aid is provided. 
Since the family arrived at the camp, two more children have been added to Mariam’s care. While the family receives food assistance there, it is only enough for the initial five family members who arrived at the camp. “The food ration provided for one month lasts 10 days time. My children have grown, and their demand is high. I feed them always porridge,” she says.
Last year, Mariam’s husband abandoned the family. Now, with not enough food and as the sole carer for her children, Mariam must collect firewood to sell to create an income.
“It is risky to go far and collect firewood because of security problem in the area, but I do not have another option. Still, I do not earn enough. But it’s important to meet some of the gaps in our diet, like buying cereals, sugar, oil and grains,” she says.
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Connie Smith, 53 – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Think about the gridlock traffic during your daily commute from work. The cars are back-to-back, crawling as you sip your coffee. Now imagine – living thousands of miles from home in the Democratic Republic of Congo – you’re driving that same drive from work down a potholed road, you’re surrounded by an angry mob. You wonder if your fluent Swahili is enough to calm them…
This is the story of Connie Smith, a World Vision Health Specialist originally from Canada and now living in the DRC. Married to a Congolese widower, she became the step-mother of his ten children and four grandchildren. They live together, along with her sister-in-law and nephew, in their family home in Goma.
“By Congolese standards, our house isn’t even crowded,” Connie says. 
“My husband Sylvain and I never really considered settling in Canada. Although he liked the high-quality roads and good communications, he missed the buzz of Congo. Now, I actually know what he means. We had to discuss what would happen if things went from bad to worse living here – we made a conscious decision that “if the boat goes down, we will be in it”.
One of the issues of daily life for Connie is security. In 2008, soon after Connie started working for World Vision, staff were evacuated over the border into Rwanda. “I was trying to drive out of town and my car was surrounded by a mob. I wound down the window and spoke Swahili, hoping this would calm things down – it didn’t. They grabbed my phone and I managed to escape… when I was over the border my emotions broke down and I realised how serious it was.”
However, adjusting to life here hasn’t been nearly as difficult for Connie as people initially feared.
“I’ve spent six years immersed in this culture. Our children are wonderful and welcomed me as their new mother,” she says. “I consider myself very lucky.”
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Zalika, 57 – Niger
Zalika is what’s called a ‘femme relais’ in World Vision. She’s a health worker in her local community in Niger whom other women know and trust. For the past 10 years she’s travelled from house to house, in and out of the clinic, available 24 hours of the day, 365 days of the year. 
The secret to Zalika’s work is that she is armed with World Vision training. In a country where nearly half of all children are underweight and 25% do not live to see their fifth birthday, it is her skills and expertise that can make all the difference.
Zalika helps women give birth, gives them tips once the baby is born, and weighs the children once they are older to check for malnutrition. After the first week, she will even go home with the new mother to teach them the basics – from washing to feeding, to protect that tiny new life.
“I notice two things,” she says. “One, the child will avoid many of the common sicknesses, and two, the child grows much bigger than those who aren’t fed breast milk exclusively.”
In a village of 19,000 people, it sounds exhausting. When asked if Zalika likes her work, the answer is her huge smile across her face and a resounding ‘yes.’ She knows what she is doing is actually making a difference in her community.
