Concern Blogs

Children in class in the Future Kids School in Mathare slum, Nairobi. Photo: Kenya, Concern Worldwide

By Sylvia Wong, Education Officer, Concern Worldwide US

Last month, I was in Kenya visiting Concern’s education and nutrition programs with high school students and teachers. The drought crisis in the Horn of Africa still hadn’t hit the headlines, but one week after we left the US that changed and news spread around the globe that “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” was upon us. The most severe drought in 60 years along with record highs in food and fuel costs meant that over 12 million people were facing extreme hunger and potential starvation in East Africa. Read the rest of this entry »

Anne a mother of four and guardian of seven came to Nairobi as a teenager in search of economic opportunity. Photo: Kenya, Concern Worldwide

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

World Humanitarian Day recognizes the sacrifices and contributions of those who give others help and hope. This year, it is a celebration of people helping people. In Nairobi, where I have been deployed on short notice to support Concern’s emergency response in the Horn of Africa, I see evidence of people helping people every day. And though international staff like myself are called on to contribute to the relief effort, it is almost entirely powered by Kenyans.

Concern’s Kenya team works in partnership with local organizations that are Kenyan-run, Kenyan-staffed, and crucially, implement Kenya-appropriate programs. It is through these partners that so-called humanitarians and aid workers—too often mistaken as solely western—are enabled to reach the poorest of the poor. Concern’s role is to monitor and assess programs, to provide technical expertise when and where it is needed, and to build the capacity of these local partners. We have been in Kenya since 2002, and we will be here for as long as that role is necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

Maria Otero, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs speaking on June 13 during the morning session of the 1,000 days event in Washington, DC. Photo: Washington, Concern Worldwide

By Tom Arnold, CEO, Concern Worldwide and David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World

Today we join more than 350 high-level government officials, leaders of civil society organizations, and activists from all over the world to galvanize political momentum to scale up nutrition initiatives that will help save the lives of at least 1 million children annually.

During “1,000 Days to Scale Up Nutrition for Mothers & Children: Building Political Commitment,” we’ll discuss the critical importance of proper nutrition, particularly during the 1,000 days from pregnancy to 2 years old. Conclusive evidence points to the devastating impact of malnutrition on infant and child mortality, and its irreversible, long-term effects on health and cognitive and physical development. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul O’Brien is Overseas Director
for Concern Worldwide

Members of a shea butter collective that Concern works with in Gore, Chad. Photo: Chad, Concern Worldwide

I arrived in Chad last week to meet with our country team, and to assess our programs and the ongoing humanitarian needs in our program areas. Chad is one of the world’s seven least developed countries: it ranks at 163 out of 169 countries on the 20

10 United Nations Human Development Index. The goal of our programs here is to target the poorest communities in the poorest parts of Chad—and I was curious to see how successfully we were doing that. Read the rest of this entry »

Ensuring proper nutrition for pregnant women and for the first two years of life ends the cycle of malnutrition. Photo: Concern Worldwide

By Tom Arnold – Concern Chief Executive Officer

After seven straight months of growth, global food prices are now at their highest levels since records began.

The UN Food and Agriculture Association (FAO) Food Price Index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket which includes cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar was higher in January than the last previous high in June 2008.  That peak sparked riots across the world, as people who lived on the margin and relied on the market to purchase food were plunged further into poverty.

In 2009, as a result of this, the number of people in the world suffering from hunger topped one billion for the first time in history.

The signs now are ominous for us all with the FAO expecting the price of agricultural commodities to rise further throughout this year. This will put enormous pressure on the world’s poorest who have had to cope relentlessly with the consequences of higher prices for the past two years. The World Bank has estimated that 44 million people have been pushed into poverty since last summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Young mother with her child in Sindh Province, where Concern is supporting thousands of Internally Displaced People to rebuild their lives after the devastating flooding of 2010. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

By Mubashir Ahmed, Concern Assistant Country Director in Pakistan

Last summer’s massive floods swept through and destroyed lives, houses, crop lands and road infrastructure, causing enormous suffering and damages across an area the size of Italy. The disaster has drawn a significant emergency and recovery response on the part of numerous International NGOs, taking them to often remote areas where any kind of aid had been sparse for many years.
Read the rest of this entry »

Children in Grand Bassa with school curriculum materials provided with support from Concern. Photo: Ester Havens, Liberia

By Jenny Hobbs, Education Coordinator, Liberia

When a girl starts school in Liberia, she arrives full of enthusiasm and hope. Squeezing onto a bench with children her age—under a corrugated roof, in a make-shift building—she looks to her teacher ready to learn. But, without books to read from, a desk to lean on or a pencil to hold, progress is slow. Her teacher is an untrained, unqualified, unpaid volunteer. He struggles to control the overcrowded class and yearns for a curriculum to follow, textbooks to use or a decent blackboard to write on.

Concern Liberia is working to address these issues in 30 remote schools in Grand Bassa County. Constructing classrooms, separate toilets for boys and girls and providing furniture is just the start. Textbooks and other essential learning items like blackboards, pencils and copybooks are also being distributed. Read the rest of this entry »

Concern conducts a hygiene session in Abas Khan with program participants. Photo: Joop Koopman, Concern Worldwide

By Joop Koopman, Press Officer, Concern Worldwide US

Seen from the air, the greenness and neat outlines of the farm fields of Punjab stand in sharp contrast with Sindh Province, its much poorer and more desert-like neighbor to the south.

My colleague Susan Finucane and I are flying from Karachi on Pakistan’s southern coast into the Punjabi city of Multan, an historically significant garrison town in the heart of the country that is today a well-kept, clean-swept bustling city. The relative privilege of the place and the orderliness of local traffic are a far cry from the chaos of urban streets we have just left behind in Sindh.

The ordered lushness observed from altitude makes sense. Punjab is literally the ‘land of five rivers’, fertile, relatively affluent and crucial to Pakistan as a grower of wheat and other crops. A kind of cognitive dissonance takes hold.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Joop Koopman, Press Officer, Concern Worldwide US

Their homes destroyed, villagers in Sindh rely on tarpaulin and bamboo frames for shelter. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

Susan Finucane, program officer at Concern Worldwide US, and I have come to Pakistan to report on the progress of Concern’s large-scale emergency program in response to the megadisaster caused by summer’s unprecedented heavy rains and massive flooding that left an area the size of Italy underwater.

Upon our arrival, Dorothy Blane, Concern Worldwide Country Director in Pakistan, briefs us on Concern’s immediate priorities and our approach to this particular disaster, which is informed by a long track record in both long-term development and emergencies in Pakistan. Read the rest of this entry »

Parents of children attending the Duguna Deddo Primary School at work on a new library that more than 2,000 children will access to borrow books. Photo: Ethiopia, Concern Worldwide

By Joan Bolger, Communications Officer, Concern US

Though she lives just a short walk from the local school, Maza Matthews, 14, rises before dawn every morning to help take care of her younger siblings so that she can be at her school desk for 8:00 am.  Like all pupils in this remote rural village of Duguna Fango, in Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), Maza’s parents have determined with the school which shift suits their family best.

Double-shift schooling was adopted in Ethiopia as a solution to the overcrowding that ensued after 2002 when the government introduced free primary education for all. In practice it serves many purposes by reducing large class numbers, doubling the number of seats available in a day; and allowing schools to operate on lower budgets. Read the rest of this entry »