Children bear the brunt of all tragedies, whether they are the brutal shock of war, a cataclysmic natural disaster or the slow, grinding descent into poverty which relentlessly strips away possessions, shelter and finally dignity and humanity.
 Over 18 million children in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union States live in crisis |
In the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia & Middle East, the crisis and poverty have a different face, yet one that is nevertheless tenacious and menacing.
Look beneath the veneer of quasi-modern societies and democratic governments, high literacy rates and so-called religious freedom. Lift the veil from ancient civilisations, societies steeped in tradition and superstition and you will see a face that is utterly void of hope, a crisis of deep vulnerability, insecurity and trauma.
Over 18 million children in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union States live in crisis, 15 years after the fall of communism and introduction of market-led economies. Over ten years since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 35% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.
According to the UN World Food Programme, 1 million Iraqi children had been malnourished as a result of diarrhoea, before the US-led invasion. Collapse of the health infrastructure in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed to high under-five mortality rates with Afghanistan the 4th highest in the world.
Families are being forced to make critical choices impacting their children's yet unclaimed adult years; which child to send to school in Kosovo because of only one pair of shoes to go around, whether to buy a mosquito net in Afghanistan that could save a child from death by malaria. In Azerbaijan for the parents of 26,000 children it was the choice to institutionalise a child because a special needs child was more than an overburdened poor family could bear.
The very poor sell their few assets to make ends meet. For an alarming number of families in Eastern Europe that asset is a child sold into the child labour or sex trade, some girls as young as 13. Parents have also been known to sell their child's organs.
Children's futures are being mortgaged to enable their families to survive in the now. The assurance of this survival strategy is a dysfunctional adulthood. Marginalised, vulnerable and uneducated children will perpetuate the poverty cycle as they grow up without the care and protection of the family or the wider community.
High-risk behaviours will be passed on. A significant proportion of the next generation of nation builders will be most notable for their absence. An estimated 44% of young Albanians intend to live in another country as adults, preferably Europe or North America. Sixty-six percent of Bosnian youth would leave the country if they had the chance- not just for a vacation, they are saying, "we want out completely, we have no hope"!
A crisis is 'a time of acute difficulty', a 'decisive moment'- what is your response?
Child abandonment
While the birth of a child is supposed to be cause for celebration, for thousands of women across the region it is a social and economic dilemma- around 300 infants are abandoned every year in Georgia alone. In Romania, 15,000 children were kept from abandonment last year. These figures are impressive and alarming: what about the other children...?
Pregnancy outside of marriage is a shameful thing in traditional cultures. A special needs child can be the factor that stretches a poor family's meagre human and material resources to the breaking point. A residential institution, like an orphanage, too often looks like the only alternative. Services to intervene and keep mother and child together are rare.
Without a child's first line of protection, their parents, he/she is at significantly greater risk. This ranges from the trauma of separation from the primary caregiver and subsequent detrimental effects to vulnerability to trafficking and illegal adoption.
| Estimates of trafficked Albanian children range from 5,000 to 15,000, most of them ending up in Italy or Greece. |
The lack of individual attention, care and especially stimulation impact the child's development, even in the first weeks and months after birth. Abandoned infants are often not registered and become non-persons who can become lost in a vortex of exploitation and abuse.
Some desperate parents believe their children will be better off in a developed country even though they will worked in forced labour and prostitution. Estimates of trafficked Albanian children range from 5,000 to 15,000, most of them ending up in Italy or Greece.
Unintended pregnancies arise from lack of knowledge and effective and affordable family planning, high-risk behaviours, lack of contraception and sexual abuse, even in marriage.
Children in institutions
The right to grow up in a family is one of the United Nations' primary child rights, yet about 1 million children in the former Soviet Union States and Central and Eastern Europe live in public care institutions, usually in sub-standard conditions. Widespread poverty, the perception infants are better off in an institution than a poor home and the stigma surrounding children with disabilities contribute to this tragic predicament.
| About 1 million children in the former Soviet Union States and Central and Eastern Europe live in public care institutions |
Interestingly, children with disabilities or special needs constitute only an estimated 20 percent of all children in institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic States. Economic factors and abandonment are believed to play strongly in families' decisions to institutionalise children.
An outcast group of 'social orphans' is growing up outside the embrace of families in countries like Georgia. There 85 to 90 percent of the 5,400 children in orphanages and other residential institutions have parents but parents who have decided they can't cope.
The sad situation is that outside of institutions there are often no social safety nets to help vulnerable families feed, clothe and educate their children. Studies by UNICEF and non-governmental organisations are clear; raising a child in an institutional environment cannot compare to the care and nurture of a healthy family environment.
Figures and statistics for the Middle East are scarce, but children with special needs or those that come from very poor families are also placed in institutions. Iraq's health system has suffered terribly in the midst of three wars and economic decline that stemmed from earlier sanctions. According to Unicef there are four children's institutions in Baghdad alone. The looted town of Nasiriya in southern Iraq has three orphanages, one specifically for abandoned infants. World Vision's Health Manager in Iraq comments, "We have noticed in the town where we work in western Iraq that there is no home care, no support for kids with disabilities, no special education. Families are left to cope by themselves".
An estimated 27,000 children with disabilities live in Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza. Around 1,000 of these boys and girls were left with disabilities as a result of conflict. The majority of children with physical disabilities are cared for in the home. Parents do have minimum access to training and coaching opportunities. It is a different story for children with Down Syndrome or mental disabilities who are generally shunned by their families and communities. These children will most likely spend their short lives isolated and unloved in an institution.
Children with special needs
"Romanian doctors have the attitude that children with disabilities are useless, that they have nothing to give and should be placed in institutions," says 31-year-old Georgeta Barbalau, a physical therapist and the coordinator of World Vision Romania's Early Intervention for Children With Disabilities Program in Bucharest. It is shocking reality when you hear the diagnosis of a child with special needs being coined as a 'professional disease'.
| Some women in Romania were advised not to have another child, lest they produce another 'illegitimate' baby. |
Under the communist system, an individual's worth was measured by ability to contribute to the State. People with disabilities could not contribute to production. They were considered sub-human and irrecoverable.
Even children with minor differences or learning difficulties were regarded as 'invalid'. Some women in Romania were advised not to have another child, lest they produce another 'illegitimate' baby. These attitudes have changed little since the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
The issue of children with disabilities or special needs in the Middle East is less documented, however the tendency to devalue and segregate children as a response to 'difference' is the same.
Today in Romania almost 60,000 children with disabilities are still considered 'irrecoverable' by society. Over 11,000 children with special needs or who come from poor homes live in institutions across Armenia.
Children are generally placed in hospitals or orphanages either from birth or when the disability is revealed. They will either spend their lives within the institution walls or be turned out onto the streets at age 18 lacking in any basic social skills or ability to care for themselves.
These facilities are typically over crowded, poorly equipped and understaffed by people lacking the time and skills to give children individual care, attention and stimulation or facilitate any integration into society through inclusive education.
Children ageing out of institutions
While children in institutions are extremely vulnerable, youth leaving institutions are even more so.
Official statistics in Romania reveal that of the 53,000 plus children that are languishing in institutions, around 62% of them are aged between 10 and 18.
At 18, youth in institutions, who are considered 'healthy' across the Caucasus and Romania are required to leave the only protection they have known. Youth with disabilities will likely live out their lives inside the orphanage walls.
'The institution graduates' as they are known, do not attend a ceremony with gown and certificate. They leave with no family to return to, no job prospects and little if any education. They lack life skills. They can't manage a budget, use public transport or prepare for a job interview. Limited social interaction and stimulation put youth at a huge disadvantage, as they set out on their own. With no skills to survive in "normal" society, girls are easily lured into prostitution and human trafficking and boys fall into a cycle of crime and drug use.
Coordinated transitional services in Romania are few and far between- the Caucasus countries are just now waking up to the fact that their youth 'graduates' desperately need vocational advice and protection, lest they fail to reach adulthood.
Rroma children
Rroma children in Romania are left on their own all day in toy-less, food-less, often unheated homes while desperately poor parents go to work, scavenging for scrap aluminium.
"The Rroma don't want to work," say some. "The Rroma don't properly care for their children," say others. In one family, a twelve-year-old girl has dropped out of school to look after her younger sister while the parents work. This girl has TB, an endemic disease of the poor and overcrowded, but is having difficulty keeping up with the treatment. (David Ward)
Rroma, also known as tsiganes, gypsies, gitanos, bohemians, and travellers, face discrimination due to their 'cultural affiliation' and many Rroma in the region live in extreme poverty.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that some 8 million Rroma live in Europe, with the largest single population of 2.5 million in Romania.
UNDP statistics for Rroma in Romania are grim and indicate that Rroma endure living conditions "closer to those of sub-Saharan Africa than (of) Europe."
- 60% of Rroma are in constant hunger
- 30% of children in Rroma families have constant nutrition problems
- 65% of Rroma households in Romania do not have access to running water or adequate sanitation
Factors that contribute to high poverty levels amongst Rroma children include unavailability of employment opportunities for their primary caregivers, unequal access to education and subsequent employment opportunities or choices, and lack of participation in government and decision-making at the community level as adults.
Discrimination, a lack of personal security, freedom of movement, poverty and powerlessness also directly impact access to quality education for Rroma children.
Street children
You see them sitting in the undergrounds, standing at intersections and waiting outside popular restaurants...street children, as young as 3 carry babies on their backs and follow you up the street begging. Their eyes reveal the lonely, hard and sad life they live. They don't think about education, playing or new toys- their focus is on survival.
| Street children are easy picking for 'business people' who profit from trade in boys and girls for labour in sweatshops or prostitution. |
Street children are easy picking for 'business people' who profit from trade in boys and girls for labour in sweatshops or prostitution, especially because they live with perpetual hunger, fear of abuse and a steel determination to survive the day.
In Romania's capital Bucharest, numbers of street kids are put between 3,000-6,000. On average they are aged between 9-18 years and have lived on the streets for between 3-8 years. They include young Roma children who use the streets for begging to support their families, older children who have lost contact with their families and survive on the streets by whatever means possible and youth aged 16 upwards who are completely homeless.
Street children generally come from broken homes or where violence, sexual abuse and substance abuse are part and parcel of everyday life. Some children are desperate for respite and they leave, others have no choice and are abandoned to the mercy of the street and whichever gang happens to rule it. The majority of street children and youth come from ethnic minority groups, like Roma. Not surprisingly then, approximately 70-80 per cent of children at risk of trafficking in Albania are members of ethnic minority groups.
Children in conflict
We are rarely told in the media how many children die or sustain life-long injuries as a result of conflict, or of the trauma that robs children of their innocence, peace and joy.
How was it to be a ten-year-old Kharbya Mohammed, 10, living in Geattlee village, Nineveh governorate in Iraq, when the bombing started and 11 of her Arab neighbours were killed? Or, a ten-year-old called Said who stepped into the path of an exploding mine in northern Afghanistan and lost his two eyes?
In Afghanistan, children continue to fall victim to ongoing conflict, and the deadly legacy of landmines and unexploded munitions left behind from the previous Afghan wars. An estimated 75-150 children are killed or maimed by landmines every month in Afghanistan. It is believed that around 10,000,000 landmines have been buried throughout the country since 1979, which means that there are around 50 mines per square kilometre. The threat to inquisitive, innocent children is overwhelming.
| An estimated 75-150 children are killed or maimed by landmines every month in Afghanistan. |
The injuries and scars also run deeper. Research has indicated that traumatic events 'rupture' the development of children and adolescents and can have lasting effects if left unaddressed.
Children in the Balkans; Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo witnessed the brutal torture and murder of their parents and loved ones. Ethnic hatreds on both sides still erupt today, putting an even greater strain on the healing process.
Palestinian children in Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza are the innocent victims of Israeli gunfire and Israeli children, the innocent victims of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Children & health
| If you ask an Afghan woman in a remote village how many children she has, her reply may be: "You mean still living?" |
All parents in the world worry about the welfare of their children. But imagine having worries like these: when your child has a cold, you worry that it's tuberculosis; when your child has a skin infection, you worry that it's measles; when your child plays in the fields, you worry he'll lose a leg to a landmine. In rural Afghanistan, these are not irrational fears, this is everyday life. If you ask an Afghan woman in a remote village how many children she has, her reply may be: "You mean still living?" (Geno Teofilo, World Vision)
Afghanistan has the highest child death rate outside of Africa, the fourth highest in the world.
Between 8,000-12,000 Afghan children die every month from easily preventable and treatable diseases. In remote Afghan villages where there is neither transportation nor medical care, many children never make it to a hospital, and die at home.
Collapsed economies and infrastructure, as well as falling incomes means families often have to choose between putting food on the table, or meeting their children's health needs.
Minimal public expenditure on the health sector, such as in countries like Georgia, where US$7-8.00 per capita is allocated, also means implementing even the basic health services for women and children is nearly impossible.
Introduction
A crisis demands decisive action. World Vision strongly advocates for the right's of children across the region and acknowledges that every girl and boy is equal and has God-given potential.
Our programmes aim to equip families with the tools they need to keep children in the home and better provide for their children, from their own hands.
Through child sponsorship by private donors and government funding, World Vision implements micro enterprise development and income generation activities, provides social services, training, counsel and support as well as better access to quality health and education.
Our vision for life in all its fullness for every child means instilling a sense of hope and dignity across the region and affording care, protection and opportunities for every boy and girl.
Prevention of infant/child abandonment
When thirty-year-old Lali, an internally displaced person from Abkhazia, gave birth to Giorgi in a Tbilisi Maternity house, she had no idea what her next steps would be. One thing is for certain, if project social workers had not intervened and referred her to the mother and infant shelter, Giorgi would have been dropped off at Tbilisi's infant house, in desperation, destined to spend his childhood in one of Georgia's 50 children's institutions.
World Vision's priority is to keep families together, specifically mother and child. In Georgia, World Vision runs a project that aims to save 'one infant per week' from abandonment and placement in an institution. Social services like Tbilisi's mother and infant shelter offer a safe place for destitute mothers, access to counselling and family planning advice, as well as the chance to be reconciled to the father and larger family. Social workers offer vocational training opportunities, with the view of making mothers more employable, as well as provide the opportunity of taking small group loans to establish or expand a business. Equipped with new skills, access to capital and sound counsel, mothers like Lali are in a better position to provide and care for their infants.
Similar projects in Romania and Armenia provide support to single mothers so that they can cope with the social and financial pressures that force them to abandon their infants. Family-based alternatives such as foster care are also offered, in place of the institution.
World Vision also works with local partners to improve accessibility and affordability of family planning so that women can make their own fertility choices and couples can choose the number, timing and spacing of their children. This way, they can ensure there are enough resources for each family member to prosper and thrive. Reproductive health education is also vital for the prevention and further spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Income generation activities, job creation programmes and micro-lending for entrepreneurs- primarily women, aim to boost self-reliance and provide a sustainable source of income. By offering positive opportunities, families are more likely to keep children and youth in the home.
Deinstitutionalisation & preparing youth ageing out of institutions
Little Sebastian was abandoned by his young mother, near Cluj in Romania, as she did not have the means to care for him. Lucia and Petru had been trained as foster parents and took Sebastian into their home. "At first, we were so afraid to take Sebi in our arms. He was so little and thin, so fragile … now we are all used to each other and I cannot imagine my life, our lives without our son", Lucia said.
Hundreds of children's institutions across the region are in a terrible state of disrepair, however World Vision's focus is not on making them a better place to live- but on taking children out of institutions and placing them back into families (their natural family or foster family), where they belong.
This process takes time and collaboration with government bodies, local partners and the institutions themselves. Social services need to be put in places that prevent children from reaching institutions in the first place. Alternatives such as foster care need to be offered to vulnerable families. Parents without the means to support their child or children need support in order to receive the child back into the home.
World Vision is working across the region to establish day care centres, kindergartens, employment centres and other services to support parents and the eventual dismantling of the institution system.
| World Vision's focus is not on making them a better place to live- but on taking children out of institutions and placing them back into families |
Projects targeting youth (14-20) ageing out of institutions aim to improve their economic prospects and social integration. Community Youth Centers (CYC) provide life skills, employment and training services (including access to small group loans). They also serve as a social, educational, and outreach centre where vulnerable youth are prepared to become productive participants of society. Small group homes for youth deprived of parental care are a better social and financial alternative to large institutions.
Inclusive education
| My daughter's health and our relationship as a mother and daughter have improved immensely since she started to attend these (inclusive education) classes. |
"A special needs child's biggest problem is getting to socialise with other children. At parks mothers won't let their 'normal' children play with a special needs child. I have heard mothers tell their children not to touch a special needs child because they will catch something," said a World Vision physical therapist.
To combat the trend of segregation of children with special needs, World Vision operates inclusive education projects in countries like Armenia.
"My daughter's health and our relationship as a mother and daughter have improved immensely since she started to attend these (inclusive education) classes. Before we could not talk to each other. There was always a conflict," says Alla, mother of six-year-old Margarita, who has cerebral palsy and Strumpell's disease - an arthritic condition that affects the spine and causes immense pain.
"Counseling has been perhaps the best thing I have gotten from World Vision but really it has helped in so many ways. There is training in physical therapy methods and emotional support and something as simple as the Christmas party, says Dana (36) mother of four-year-old Daria, who has cerebral palsy.
Activities and campaigns aim to educate societies on the fact that children with disabilities
or special needs have an equal value to children without special needs and that as equal members of society they have the right to live among others and can in fact contribute to society, albeit in different ways.
World Vision introduces the philosophy of inclusion and values of inclusive education to policy makers, teachers, special educators, and parents. A special curriculum is distributed for mainstreaming preschoolers with special needs and World Vision oversees the actual integration of over preschool age special needs children into preschools, as well as establish kindergarten-based inclusive support services.
Art therapy is another approach that World Vision adopts to assist children's social, educational, emotional, psychological and physical development. This creative approach has already shown positive results in socialising children with special needs.
Care & integration programmes for children with special needs
Children with special needs in the Romanian village of Boju lived a bleak existence, confined to their home and isolated from other children while their parents worked-until they began to attend World Vision's day care centre.
Maria Calugar, 41, Principal of the school that houses the centre has seen a huge change in the ten children who attend the centre, especially in the way they play together. "When they first came, they would grab toys and go off in a corner alone. Now they share, they trust and they enjoy each other."
Diana, 8 was introverted and isolated because other children mocked her paralysed left arm, the result of a botched vaccination. Under the tutelage of her beloved teacher she is now at the top of her first grade class and has learned to relate to other children. "She found interests, started to enjoy living. She reads everything she can get her hands on now," says her mother, Ioana (31).
Training for primary caregivers, usually the parent is also an important part of integrating children into community life. Support centres provide on-going training of staff in assessing children's individual needs and offer modern methods of occupational therapy, so that families of children with special needs are able to remain in their communities, and are not forced to move to a city or send their children to an institution.
In Azerbaijan, World Vision plans to create a mobile unit, consisting of a psychologist, physiotherapist, neurologist, and paediatrician that would travel daily from a support centre to an isolated village in order to work with families of special needs children.
| When they first came, they would grab toys and go off in a corner alone. Now they share, they trust and they enjoy each other. |
In Romania, World Vision supports children living with HIV/AIDS, their families and children within these communities through Kids Clubs and other activities that help them to take a more active role in the community, whilst advocating for their rights. Health education seminars and campaigns also aim to change the negative perception of HIV/AIDS sufferers and therefore promote their integration into mainstream society. Where possible, World Vision also involves children from institutions in these activities.
World Vision's health team in northern Iraq sources basic aids like wheelchairs and crutches, and is currently supplying 6 centres for children with disabilities.
"Now with this wheelchair, it will make it so much easier for me to take Salim (10) to different places, and his three brothers can take turns wheeling him around," said Khalfa, Salim's mother from northern Iraq.
Civil society & peace education programmes
March 2004 saw some of the worst fighting between Albanian and Serbs in Kosovo since NATO and the UN assumed control in 1999. But another group- members of World Vision's Kids for Peace Clubs, led by 14-year-old Fatmira reacted very differently. Albanian and Serb children, hand-in-hand, marched for peace.
"I love to talk about peace. It's so important. We can accomplish so much. Four years ago I didn't know what peace was until I met a World Vision worker (World Vision's former Peace Building Manager) says Fatmira.
Kids for Peace Clubs, Community Initiative Groups and Parent Teacher Associations are just some of the vehicles through which World Vision implements civil society education and peace education programmes. World Vision also supports churches in their educational activities.
In Bosnia & Herzegovina around 1,280 children with war-traumas benefit from 'Child Friendly Spaces' that aim to provide informal education, a means of positive and fun interaction and demonstrate ways of coping with trauma.
More than 600 women who visit Grozny's 'Women's Dignity' rehabilitation centre in Chechnya can testify to the positive, even lifesaving impact it has had upon their lives and that of their children.
Mobile health teams, and psychosocial counseling services in Chechnya and Ingushetia are also bringing both physical and emotional relief to thousands of children and their families that have been impacted by years of conflict and violence.
An emergency telephone service in Romania called the 'Blue Line' is supporting vulnerable youth by providing a listening and understanding ear, as well as advice on issues ranging from substance abuse to reproductive health. A photo and art exhibition on Roma children in Romania is designed to raise awareness about the needs of Roma people and aims to assist Roma children to be able to access regular education.
Health care
A new health clinic in Pada, northwest Afghanistan built by World Vision is changing the terrible odds that are stacked against women in rural Afghanistan, where around 1,600 of 100,000 women die before or during childbirth and one in four children does not make it past the age of five. The clinic is teaching women and men about family planning, nutrition, antenatal care, protection against Malaria and midwifery skills.
"Now women can give birth to their children in the clinic. That will reduce the risks enormously," explains Nasima, a young midwife from Herat working for World Vision.
World Vision's programmes to improve child health, reproductive health and access to mother and child care, involve building health clinics, providing medicine, supporting vaccination campaigns, providing access to clean water and training health workers and midwives, especially in places such as Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
In northern Iraq, World Vision is conducting health care training courses for health professionals, teachers and mosque leaders. The first course focuses on traditional birth attendant practices and will be followed by courses on nutrition, breastfeeding, family planning, school health education and immunisation.
World Vision's health team in Iraq is also providing emergency supplies to hospitals desperately lacking the basics, such as gauze and sutures, to meet the urgent needs of children in northern Iraq.
Mobile health teams provide basic services and psychosocial support to thousands of internally displaced children and their families in Chechnya and Ingushetia of the Russian Federation.
Programmes also aim to educate parents, specifically mothers on the need for preventative health care, including nutrition education, and disease prevention so that mothers themselves can better meet the needs of their infants and older children.
Food distribution, food for work activities and agricultural programmes are implemented alongside health projects to meet the nutritional needs of children and their communities.
Other activities serving children and their environment
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Area Development Programmes
"My dad was a completely different person when he was unemployed. Before he got his construction job in the World Vision project, we were always lacking food and clothes. I never dared to ask for new books or pens, because I knew we did not have the money. My father was always depressed and sad. He got angry lots of times because he could not give me and my brothers and sisters what we needed. I can say that this has changed when he found work. Although the job with World Vision was short term, at home we felt the difference. Dad was happy, Mom was delighted and we had our old Dad back," says nine-year-old sponsored Bilal al Hujuj from East Hebron Area Development Program.
World Vision works with communities across the region to identify areas of need and mobilises the population to address a range of issues that impact the community and which directly and indirectly affect the quality of life for children.
In Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza, Romania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, World Vision implements 'Area Development Programmes' (ADPs) to address issues such infrastructure, housing, employment, resettlement of returnees/internally displaced persons, food, water and sanitation, health care, education, agriculture, community mobilisation and small business development. In tackling these issues, World Vision focuses on children, who are not only the most vulnerable but are also the most important agents for hope and change.
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Micro Enterprise Development
Another vehicle by which World Vision seeks to promote sustainable development and create a sense of self-reliance among communities is micro enterprise for poor entrepreneurs who cannot access credit via traditional institutions. "Microcredit and other financial services for poor people are important instruments for poverty reduction and for empowerment", says United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Most of World Vision's Micro Enterprise Development (MED) clients are women, as studies have shown that women put more funds into the family and hence directly meet the needs of children.
Azimova, mother of four sons in Azerbaijan says, "There were six of us, all in one room. It was our bedroom, dining room, living room and place to receive guests, all with no water and no sewage. My heart was telling me I want us to live in a better situation but my brain was telling me this is our reality. We are displaced. It doesn't get better." But it did. Azimova received a $300 loan in 1997 to go into business trading shoes and clothing. Now she has two flourishing stands, has adequate accommodation and is giving her four sons solid educations.
World Vision's MED programme makes credit available, accessible and affordable for entrepreneurs from a range of backgrounds and who have a variety of skills and abilities. The loans are repaid with interest, creating a renewable and larger loan fund that is made available to more entrepreneurs.
| The loan to set up a cafe gave my wife back her will to live! |
World Vision in Bosnia & Herzegovina has given out 39,000 loans to small business entrepreneurs since 1996. Forty-four year-old Mujaga a proud citizen of a remote mountain village called Zepa and father of eight children says,
"The loan to set up a cafe gave my wife back her will to live! "With God's help I will pay this loan and then come to ask for another. With that I can start a business that employs probably two people. I had no source of income after the war. This loan helped put us all to work making money to buy food, etc. I'm thinking about extending the business.
Forty-five year old Violeta Biba, mother of five in Elbasan, Albania says "Thanks to World Vision our family has a better future and we learn about doing business. This has been a good year".
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Emergency response
| Six-year-old Amir approached his uncle and asked if his parents and sister who he'd been told were in the hospital had actually gone to be with God. His uncle quietly said yes. |
The Bam earthquake of 26 December 2003 in southeast Iran claimed over 26,000 lives, according to the latest Iranian government statistics. Six-year-old Amir approached his uncle and asked if his parents and sister who he'd been told were in the hospital had actually gone to be with God. His uncle quietly said yes.
Thousands of children like Amir lost one or both parents to the quake.
It only took a few seconds to destroy 80% of the town's infrastructure-homes, hospitals, schools-flattened or rendered uninhabitable. Though the UN predicts it will take two years to rebuild Bam, no one can say how long it will take to reconstruct people's spirits, confidence and calm.
World Vision initially responded by providing blankets, tarpaulins, water carriers, hygiene kits and other essentials to approximately 50,000 individuals or 10,000 families throughout Bam, who had on average lost 2 family members.
The cleanup underway, distraught and disoriented parents began to establish some sort of routine, recover any of their belongings and reconnect with friends and relatives. Children were generally left unsupervised to play amongst the rubble and debris of the family home.
World Vision recognised that these children were extremely vulnerable, not only physically, but also psychologically. Together with local partners, World Vision established 14 basic, but colourful child friendly spaces in ten locations. These 'safe-havens' enabled around 1,500 children to play in a safe space with their friends and return to familiar routines, something that restores a sense of security and allows healing.
World Vision also assisted in the 'back to school' process, by providing tents, stationery and school bags to encourage the children to return.
| These 'safe-havens' enabled around 1,500 children to play in a safe space with their friends and return to familiar routines, something that restores a sense of security and allows healing. |
Today, homes are being rebuilt and health clinics repaired or reconstructed. World Vision is helping farming families to get back on their feet by assisting in the repair and cleaning of ghanats- water canals that give precious life to the town's nearby date palm plantations.
School holidays have rolled around all too soon and children are again at risk of being left with too much empty time on their hands. World Vision plans to conduct summer activity programmes to help occupy their time and to improve their coping skills. It will also be a relief to their parents over this long period when they must focus on rebuilding homes, their families and their communities.
A team of 30 staff members will continue to assist Bam's population to fully restore health services and schooling, and to ensure that children receive the care and protection they need.
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