Concern Blogs

By Nicki Sugrue

September is the beginning of the school year in Burundi, but for many children it is just like any other month. Twelve years of civil conflict, which ended in 2005, left the country scarred. Reconstruction has been slow, significantly impacting the quality of education and the standard of schools available. Many families do not have the means to send their children to school and, even when they do attend, there is a high drop-out rate due to large class sizes and a lack of school materials and infrastructure.

In response to this, Concern Worldwide is working in Cibitoke Province, one of Burundi’s most impoverished areas, to rehabilitate schools and distribute supplies, like notebooks, pens and uniforms to the poorest and most marginalized children. Just last year alone, more than 8,300 children in 208 schools benefited from these supplies and were able to attend school.

At the end of September 2011, I had the opportunity to attend the distribution of supplies to students at Rugendo Primary School, which Concern renovated in 2010 with new classrooms, latrines and a water point.

Jean Kwizerimana, 15, is a sixth-year student at Rugendo Primary School who received a school uniform and supplies from Concern Worldwide. “The new classrooms mean that there is no longer a need to share the classroom between two classes, [with one coming in the morning and one coming in the afternoon],” he said. “Now students can come to school for the whole day. Because of this there is more success.”

Jean Kwizerimana, 15, is a sixth-year student at Rugendo Primary School in Burundi who received a school uniform and supplies from Concern Worldwide.

The success Jean referred to can be measured not only in the attendance rates, but also in the pass rates. “This year there were 65 students enrolled in fifth year and 45 students managed to complete the class and move on to sixth year,” Jean said. “Before, only around 20 students succeeded.”

In addition to the new classrooms and full school days, the supplies Concern provides also play a role in the students’ academic success, as they allow the poorest families to ensure that their children get the most out of their education.  “Before, my family only had three [notebooks] between five children,” Jean said. “With these new [notebooks], I will be able to complete all my classes for the year.”

However, these new resources and facilities are not enough to ensure every child in Burundi can attend and stay in school. One of the key barriers to education is the lack of awareness among parents of its value. As part of our efforts to increase enrollment, Concern works with the School Management Committees to impart the importance of education and find solutions to the barriers blocking children from attending school. 

On his own initiative, Jean has been sharing similar messages with his friends and their parents so that all of the children in his community will attend school. “Due to this, one of the children in the community was able to come to school and he is now in 2^nd year,” he said.

However, Jean would like to see a much broader outreach approach to encouraging children to attend school and would like to work with students, teachers, parents and local leaders within each community. “I would like students and teachers to visit families together so that they can explain the importance of going to school.”

Jean understands the power of education. He is determined to finish school and wants to pursue a university degree. “My biggest wish is to become a Minister in the government so that I can help other students go back to school,” he said. “If you had not studied, you would not be working with Concern and coming here to help us.”

Meeting Jean was truly inspirational and allowed me to see how our work on the ground is opening new doors for children so they can follow their dreams. Children like Jean are the types of future leaders that Burundi needs to make education a universal right and I am confident that, with the support that Concern is providing, they are one step closer to paving the way for a brighter future for themselves and Burundi.

Tabarre - Tabarre Issa. January 10, 2012

By Ed Kenney, Communications Officer

Ed was in Haiti on the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated the country’s capital and surrounding areas on January 12, 2010. A member of Concern Worldwide’s Emergency Response Team to Haiti, Ed reflects on what is different on the ground two years later.

Kethlyne St. Previl, 40, is beaming.  She is talking about her Concern-supported business selling food in a kiosk on the main access road into Tabarre Issa.  Her table is piled high with a bounty of Haitian street food – small fried pastries, plantains, meat patties, chicken, hot dogs.  “Business is very, very good,” she announces, smiling broadly.  Then she looks at some of the Concern team gathered around and adds, “And these are some of my best customers!”  Laughter all around. Read the rest of this entry »

By, Joseph Cahalan, President, Xerox Foundation

What started out as a trip to inspect the results of an investment the Xerox Foundation made in the Tanzanian operations of Concern Worldwide turned out to be an inspiring example of how similar people are the world over. The stated purpose of my trip to Ngara, Tanzania, miles from the Rwanda border, was to see the fruits of an innovation grant in a remote farming community where most people survive from harvest-to-harvest if not day-to-day. Concern workers there had a hunch that Lantana plants repelled mosquitoes that carry malaria which is the number one cause of death in these remote hills in northwest Tanzania. Based on their initial findings, they may just be on to a big idea. I learned all about their experiments and results, of course, but I learned so much more. Here is a recap. Read the rest of this entry »

by Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide US

In the past 24 months, Concern Worldwide has provided clean water and sanitation to 75,000 earthquake survivors in Haiti, and has provided emergency shelter to 98,877 people. IN the past year, we built longer-term housing for 7,420 people and relocated displaced families out of camps.

On the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, I feel it is important to reflect on the very significant progress that has been achieved in helping people recover from one of the world’s worst natural disasters on record, and to address some of the criticism about the efforts of international aid agencies.

To understand the scale of the catastrophe two years ago, it is important to remember the unique nature of the Haitian context. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake was a massive blow to a deeply impoverished country: 75 percent of Haitians earned less than $2 a day, only half of the country’s children were in primary school, and the majority of the population had no access to electricity. Read the rest of this entry »

By, Joseph Cahalan, President, Xerox Foundation

After another long travel day that includes a ferry across Lake Victoria, one of the major sources of the Nile, and six hours of hard driving, much of it on jaw-jarring, pot-holed dirt roads, we arrive at Ngara by early afternoon.  I keep telling myself that innovation requires risk; that we shouldn’t expect too much: that, after all, this was a long shot to begin with.  But I am not fooling myself.  I want this experiment to bear fruit for Xerox, for the people of Concern and, mostly, for the heroic people they serve. Read the rest of this entry »

The winner! Ester Jerome (left) receiving a sculpture from Sophia Simba, Minister of Community Development, Gender, & Children. Photo: Isla Gilmore, Concern Worldwide

By Isla Gilmore, Communications and Advocacy Officer, Tanzania

On World Food Day last month, Concern Tanzania took part in a major national event to honor the winner of the ‘Female Food Hero’ prize. Ester Jerome was selected out of 7,000 country-wide entries based on her use of innovative methods of farming, animal husbandry, and food processing; and her work to be a leader of change in the community helping others to tackle the challenges facing small scale producers.

Members of the public voted for their favorite candidates out of 20 selected by the judges and 11 finalists made it to a training camp to learn about improved farming practices, gender, and health issues.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jenn Weiss, Health Advisor, Concern US

Concern’s Community Animators review counseling cards that we will use to teach mothers healthy behaviors. Photo: Niger, Concern Worldwide

This summer, I traveled from the Concern US office in New York City to Tahoua, Niger, leaving the heat of the city behind and arriving to much hotter weather (130 degrees!) on the dusty and barren edge of the Sahel.  In the Tahoua region, which is about 400 kilometers north of Niamey, Niger’s capital, Concern is in the second year of its child survival programs.

Over the last decade, these programs, funded by USAID have been recognized for their impact, improving maternal and child health in Bangladesh, Rwanda, Burundi and Haiti through low-cost, community-based solutions.

Concern Niger’s Lahiya Yara (‘Life of a Child’) program aims to reach approximately 300,000 mothers and children under five years old with proven life-saving interventions to address diarrheal disease, malaria, pneumonia, and malnutrition by strengthening the health system, and by investing in intensive community-level activities to promote sustained behavior change. Read the rest of this entry »

Mzee Barosha on his farm with curious children, many of whom are his grand children, Kasulu. Photo: Isla Gilmore, Tanzania

By Isla Gilmore, Communications and Advocacy Officer, Tanzania

I have a soft spot for elderly people, so I was delighted to meet Mzee Bakari Barosha, a gentle 70-year-old farmer in Kasulu District, West Tanzania. We met him at the back of his little mud-brick house in Kigembe village, where he was tending to two baby goats that were born that day.

Mzee Barosha has never had much money. His 70 years have been spent cultivating crops to use for food for his family. He has always cultivated a small amount of beans that he would sell in order to buy essential items but he has never made much out of it. Because of this, it was impossible for his eight children to go any further than primary school.   Read the rest of this entry »

Jamaldin aged 77, from the village of Sodhari Masjid, outside Hyderabad, in Sindh Province, Pakistan. Photo: Concern Worldwide

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, US

Jamaldin aged 77, and a grandfather with nine children of his own, now lives in a house with 17 of his extended family. His home is located in the small village of Sodhari Masjid, a two-hour drive from the town of Hyderabad, in Sindh Province, Pakistan. Jamaldin has two acres of land to call his own and he cultivates it with his family to support the household. They are among the lucky ones.

The majority of families in the village work as share croppers. They keep holdings of up to four acres for various different landlords that take one-third of the profit of all harvests. When asked if this is the norm, Pervez Iqbal, an agriculturalist working with Root Work Foundation (RWF), a close partner of Concern’s in Sindh says, “Not all five fingers are the same,” meaning that there are some land owners that treat their laborers well. Read the rest of this entry »

Beneficiaries of Concern’s emergency livelihoods program in northern Kenya. Photo: Kirk Prichard, Concern Worldwide

By Kirk Prichard, Advocacy Officer for Concern Worldwide US currently based in Nairobi

You see a lot of heartbreaking events unfold working in an emergency: malnourished children lying in “stabilization clinics”; once-proud pastoralists newly dependent on food assistance for their survival; scores of cattle carcasses littering the parched plains of northern Kenya; camels who have survived the harshest desert conditions for millennia uncharacteristically dying.

And though these images continue to upset us, it is the stories of success that move us the most. Stories like those that have emerged from the district of Moyale where Concern launched an early intervention in 2010 in response to the impending crisis it had been tracking for months. Read the rest of this entry »