How does one react when being told that the name of a new born child of refugee parents means “one who has lost everything and whose people are eternally persecuted”? What do you say when you meet an infant whose name means “homeless”?
PHILIPPINES Returning to normalcy after a harsh year
The smell of boiling bananas fills the air as Musu Sesay prepares banana cakes that she hopes her teenage daughter will be able sell for some desperately needed income. She worries about her daughter’s safety now that she has to sell the cakes to rowdy men in the neighborhood.
Adjoua Martine Konan had heard people in this cocoa-farming region of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) talk about the Ebola outbreak that was ravaging neighboring Liberia and Guinea. But Konan didn’t think the outbreak was real. “I thought it was just a rumor,” she said, “created by Westerners to stop us from eating bush meat.”
In a humanitarian crisis such as the one currently unfolding in South Sudan, it is food, water and safety that are usually considered the essentials for survival. Yet as the world marks World Toilet Day (19 November), CARE’s Tom Perry discovers that the humble toilet is also changing – and saving – lives in the world’s youngest nation.
The wind had really picked up and I started to shiver. The desert seemed to be hell-bent on showing its inhospitable face. “Already past 4:30, I don’t get it,” mumbled the old man into his steaming coffee. His neat uniform holds the emblem of a private security company.
While assessing the effects of Ebola on the lives of children in Moyamba district, Southern Sierra Leone, I met 17-year-old Josephine Ngagba. Her story broke my heart. But it also strengthened my resolve to fight this terrible, devastating disease.
Many Syrian refugees who were displaced to Lebanon fear the approaching winter, as they are living in unfinished buildings or awfully inadequate housing. Nadia is a Syrian mother of eight who fled Aleppo one year ago to Sibline in Mount Lebanon, where temperature in winter drops below zero degrees Celsius and snow storms are common.
„I went out to get bread because we were running out of food. My family stayed in the house where we had been hiding from the violence around us.“ Aziza’s 17-year-old face shows no sign of emotion at first when she recounts the day that changed her life in the most atrocious way imaginable. The young woman lived in the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui with her parents, sisters and brothers.
In FY2023, CARE worked around the world, contributing to saving lives, fighting poverty, and increasing social justice.
