Bakhtwar sits proudly in front of her small shop which she reopened with the support of Concern after the floods washed it away. Jamshoro District, Sindh. Photo: Emily Bradley

Driving through Southern Sindh province in Pakistan on a bright, sunny day in early December 2011, it is difficult to imagine the catastrophic scale of the destruction caused by the floods of 2010. Beyond the bounds of the irrigated sites, the land is now dry and dusty and the heat is immense. As I meet with Concern’s beneficiaries and partner organizations, it is all too clear however, that, although the flood waters have receded, their devastating legacy lingers.

In August and September 2010, villages across Jamshoro district were entirely submerged in water. We all recall the media images of the floods in Pakistan, but it is often difficult to fully comprehend the extent and reality of the devastating impact until you speak with those who were directly affected. Imagine losing everything you ever possessed; imagine fleeing your home with your children to save your lives; imagine watching as the mud walls and thatch roof of your home and business disintegrate in the floodwaters before your eyes.

Now try and imagine all of this as a severely disabled mother of eight.

Bakhtwar Parhar was born healthy, but, at six years old, she contracted polio, which left her severely disabled. She is no longer able to stand upright and can only walk in a squatted position using her hands to support and leverage herself. As the flood waters continued to rise, Bakhtwar was evacuated by boat to higher ground with her family, where they stayed in a makeshift camp for two months, while her village lay submerged in water.

When she returned, everything had been washed away: homes, small businesses, livestock. With great determination, Bakhtwar, with the help of her sons, began to rebuild their home and her convenience store, which had supported the family prior to the floods. With her husband elderly and unable to work, the family was entirely dependent on this income to get by.

Bakhtwar came in contact with Concern through our partner organization, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), who learned of her extreme poverty and particular vulnerability given her disability. She was subsequently selected to receive a cash grant that enabled her to re-establish her micro-enterprise and start earning a living again to support her family. Concern provided Bakhtwar with a grant of PKR 20,000 ($220), which she used to finalize the construction of the shop and purchase stock. She now earns approximately PKR 200 ($2.20) per day – an amount that covers their basic household expenses, plus a little on the side for transport to medical treatment in the nearest town, 40 km away.

Bakhtwar is one of those people you feel privileged to meet. She is full of determination and hope; she is resilient and energetic; she is inspirational. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of us would cope so remarkably at losing everything we owned and being forced to start re-building our lives with nothing.

She is one of more than two million people that Concern has supported in the aftermath of the floods.  Prior to the disaster, Concern had an emergency response plan in place with pre-selected and trained local partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like PFF. Consequently, Concern was able to provide immediate life-saving assistance through partners located in the affected areas and who have extensive knowledge of the local context. This helped make it possible for Concern Pakistan to deliver our largest emergency response ever. In the initial aftermath of the floods, Concern distributed temporary shelters and shelter kits, hygiene kits and basic domestic utensils and equipment and provided immediate access to clean water.

However, at 18 months on, the needs that remain are enormous, as the affected communities strive to re-establish their livelihoods. Concern is there, and remains fully committed to supporting these communities so that they can resume some sense of normality and independence in their lives.  Concern continues to work with the affected communities in restoring their livelihoods through agriculture and livestock, irrigation repair, trade-specific training and cash grants.

Concern has invested considerable time and effort in developing the capacity of our local partners, which was so important in enabling a speedy and effective emergency response to the floods in Pakistan’s four provinces. Our partners have emphasized the “culture of partnership” that exists with Concern and they are appreciative of Concern’s timely support in emergencies, building their emergency response capacity and supporting in developing systems, including those that strengthen their accountably and transparency.

In a recent evaluation of Concern’s emergency response to the floods, Concern was found by partners “to be respectful, collaborative and flexible” and referred to Concern as an organization that “allows a true partnership.” The evaluation also highlighted the cost-effectiveness of Concern’s response, which was largely attributed to our partnership approach. This is testament to the ethos of Concern and our commitment to helping those living in extreme poverty, like Bakhtwar and her family, to achieve major improvements in their lives in a sustainable way.

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

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.”

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.

The eating habits of Concern staff notwithstanding, Kethlyne is doing a steady business among her 2,650 neighbors living in 527 transitional shelters at Tabarre Issa.  The shelters are basic, but they are safe – resistant to hurricanes and earthquakes, and fireproof.  When we first met her in October 2011, Kethlyne had just moved into her new house, and had a few days earlier opened business just next to it.  She’s expanded, and moved into a higher traffic area.

“I am making it and I am getting my ideas together about continuing my business when I leave here,” she says.

Sanon Dominique - (l to r) Mercile Sanon, 74, Gerdriche Dominique, 44, and Valencia Louis Dominique, 22 in their new home near Camp Oscar. January 10, 2012

She is speaking to the fact that Tabarre Issa was constructed as a temporary settlement, designed to bridge the gap to more permanent housing.  Most residents, like Kethlyne, came here from Valle de Bourdon, a Port-au-Prince neighborhood where homes were built on steep ravine walls — it sustained an unbearably heavy toll in lives and homes on January 12, 2010.

It would be reductive and profoundly wrong to take the smiles and easy laughter shared with Kethlyne St. Previl as any sort of symbol of Haiti’s recovery.  The truth is that I can remember sharing easy laughter with Haitians in the first days after the earthquake.  Context, of course makes all the difference.  Perhaps then it was a defense mechanism based on the human instinct to reclaim normalcy in the face of a world turned upside down.  And maybe now it comes out of that same instinct, but in response to a growing sense of standing on safe, stable ground where hope can grow.

Where Kethlyne and her neighbors will go after Tabarre Issa, or where any of the Haitians living in temporary shelters will go, is the next big question facing the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here in Haiti.  The fact that the land on which Bourdon residents built their homes before the earthquake is not safe is just one of the myriad challenges complicating the process.

Such a complex problem requires a multi-pronged response, and Concern’s “Return to Neighborhoods Program” is that.  In 2011 the approach was piloted at Camp Oscar, a gravelly football pitch that became a tent camp immediately after the earthquake, with 192 families, close to 1,000 people living in unimaginably cramped quarters. Entering the camp in 2010 or early 2011 was like entering a maze, the narrow spaces between crudely constructed shelters allowing just one person to pass at a time.

Today Camp Oscar is no longer. The field is completely clear. You can find schoolchildren taking wide looping spins across the expanse on a shared bike during recess, and young men playing spirited matches there in the early evening.

St Previl - Kethlyne St Previl shows off her handiwork at her foodstand at Tabarre Issa. January 10, 2012

How did it happen?  Concern’s team got to know every family at Camp Oscar, each of whom had a different story.  Some homes had completely collapsed, some were damaged, some were still standing but landlords were not reachable or rental terms had changed.  In all cases, people had been out of work or out of business for over a year.  The team took all of these stories, all of the data and used them to formulate a recipe of options to be made available: assistance with home repair for damaged houses or provision of a one-year rental subsidy to help families get into homes once beyond their reach; training and cash transfers to help with small business start-up and income generation; and education vouchers to help children get back to school.

By the end of 2011, all 192 families had been resettled into homes, mostly in their original neigborhoods.

One such family is presided over by Mercile Sanon, 74, now living with her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson in a second floor apartment on a hill above Camp Oscar. Mercile opted for the rental subsidy which has enables them to pay their landlord as daughter Gerdriche Dominique,44, gets her business off the ground, selling drinks, snacks and phone credit at a kiosk along Delmas 16, the main street nearby.

They welcome us into their apartment, and the only way I can characterize the sensation upon entering is ‘home.’ Smiles and laughter come easily. Baby Woodney, a month old, sleeps peacefully on one bed.  We are welcomed to sit and talk on the edge of another.  When we ask them how it feels to be here instead of in the camp, Mercile says, “It feels safe. Before we never knew what could happen, what was in the future.  Now we can sleep.  It feels normal.”

Concern is now rolling out its “Return to Neighborhoods” approach at Place de La Paix, where 5,300 people will be assisted in the return home.  In all, the program intends to reach 14,000 people by the end of 2012, and it has been recognized as best practice by the government and partners.  In fact, many of the core elements of the approach have been incorporated into the national return strategy.

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.

Innovation can spring up anywhere. We tend to associate innovation with universities, think tanks and laboratories, but the human race’s thirst for knowledge and drive to innovate knows no boundaries. Heartened by the malaria research, the Tanzanian team is on to another idea. It seems that the nut of the Moringa tree may be able to purify water. The nuts are ground into powder and placed in contaminated water. The pollutants (for reasons the researchers explained and I have forgotten) cling to the powder and sink to the bottom, leaving potable water on top. In an area where the tree grows abundantly and where most people walk miles each day for safe drinking water, this experiment holds great promise.

Teamwork and collaboration are at the heart of  innovation and creativity. Sit around with the key players in the Tanzanian research team and you get a lot of finger-pointing. Ask whose idea this was and they point at one another! Ask who should get the credit and you get the same result – more finger-pointing. It’s hard to figure out whether this is modesty or that they don’t know. Either way, the point is clear. Innovation usually comes from a team of people building on each other’s ideas and not competing for the credit. The group is more powerful than the individual.

Results from Concern's research show that the lantana camara plants used at window level outside homes have significantly reduced mosquito-prevalence rates.

The value proposition increases exponentially when individual offerings are integrated. James Davey, Concern Country Director, says it better than I can. “We are at our best,” he says, “when we deliver all our offerings to a community. That means improving health care by providing clean water and fighting malaria and educating people on good hygiene and nutrition. It means improving education and giving people the tools they need to feel empowered to help themselves. It means upgrading livelihood skills like new framing techniques or even introducing new high-yield crops. It means helping build communities that are better equipped to deal with the next disaster that is just around the corner whether it’s a drought or political disruption. When we can do it all, we’re at our best.”

Staying the course builds trust. When Concern arrives somewhere, usually to help in a disaster situation, they pledge to stay as long as they are needed and as long as they have the resources. Ngara is a perfect case in point. At the height of the genocide in Rwanda that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border seeking refuge in Tanzania, there were eight NGOs here all operating refugee camps. That crisis has passed. Only one NGO still has a significant presence on the ground. You guessed it – Concern Worldwide. 

Focusing on the mission produces results. Concern people know what they are all about and don’t stray far from their core objectives They are helping the poorest of the poor – the people we rarely see and too often forget – get a foothold on a better life. At the risk of stretching a metaphor, they are in the business of helping the poor get ready for their real business – improving the quality of the lives of their families and communities Its a noble mission, but so too is ours – helping organizations around the world do what they do best. And that makes the world a better place.

Over the holidays, I received a Christmas card from Concern. It had a request: “Tell your colleagues at Xerox how much we appreciate their support, both moral and financial. Tell them we will continue to try to make things better one life at a time. Tell them thank you from all of us to all of you.”

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.

Unprecedented scale of destruction in urban context

Coping with the effects of the earthquake on top of Haiti’s long-standing poverty issues and lack of basic social services and infrastructure was a colossal challenge, not only for the families and communities directly affected, but also for the government and the international and local aid community. It was the unprecedented level of destruction in a densely populated urban context that set the Haiti crisis apart from other natural disasters. We all know the massive death toll, an unthinkable 230,000 people. The other facts regarding the scale of destruction have also been reported over and over around the world:  250,000 homes destroyed and 1.5 million people displaced.

It has been somewhat puzzling, then, that several news reports in the past few weeks have focused solely on what they perceive to be the slow pace of Haiti’s recovery. It is vital to put the Haiti disaster in context in order to estimate a reasonable timeline for recovery. The 7.2-magnitude earthquake Kobe, Japan in 1995 has been described by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “costliest natural disaster to befall any one country.” It claimed more than 6,000 lives, left an estimated 300,000 homeless, destroyed highways and more than 100,000 buildings and caused more than $100 billion in damage and a major decline in the Japanese Stock Markets.  It took more than seven years for the region’s income levels and industrial sector to recover to pre-earthquake levels.

What is disheartening to me, as the CEO of an aid organization that prides itself on the close partnerships it has forged with local communities to bring about great changes in Haiti, is that there has been so little recognition of the tangible improvements on the ground in Haiti since the earthquake.

Progress in Haiti since the earthquake

Let’s look at some facts: the number of displaced people living in camps in Port-au-Prince has decreased from 1.5 million to about 550,000; half of the 10 million cubic meters of rubble has been removed; 75 percent of children living in camps are going to school; and almost 100,000 transitional shelters have been built. There is evidence of progress in the areas of job creation and infrastructure development—including 267 miles of new roads in a country with notoriously poor access to markets for its agricultural production. In fact, agricultural production itself increased in 2010, and again in 2011, and new agricultural credit facilities and microloans are reaching tens of thousands of rural Haitians.

Challenges that have slowed the pace of recovery

We must also be frank about the fact that the recovery effort has involved serious challenges. For all of these advances, the aid community has experienced setbacks and obstacles. The lack of a functioning government for five months of 2011, including the absence of a government policy on building new housing during the first year after the earthquake, seriously hampered efforts to take action to restore people’s assets and rebuild communities. Land tenure issues, including disputes among several parties often claiming ownership of the same land, coupled with threats of eviction, further exacerbated the problems of relocating displaced populations from camps to long-term housing. When building could get underway, lengthy customs delays postponed supplies and heavy equipment reaching contractors. In addition, the local market was overwhelmed by the demand for goods needed for the massive reconstruction effort. The challenge of delivering an emergency response in a densely populated city of 2.7 million people is no small task, particularly when poverty remains the single biggest issue facing the population.

Long-term housing for Haiti’s displaced families

We acknowledge that the challenges we face are massive, but the formation of a new government in October 2011 has meant that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like Concern can resume working with the ministries responsible for Haiti’s long-term recovery and development. Already, we are seeing the potential of partnerships with the newly elected government. Our “Return to Neighborhoods” program, a holistic model of resettlement for displaced families, was singled out by the government of Haiti as an example of best practice in recovery initiatives, and our intervention model was considered in the development of the national strategy to move displaced populations out of camps. Concern’s initiative offers the poorest displaced families financial support, small business training and education vouchers to help parents pay school fees for their children and set up sustainable sources of income. Since the earthquake, Concern has reached more than 237,000 people through its emergency and recovery programs.

A huge amount of hard work still lies ahead. Nearly half of Haiti’s population has no access to clean water, and 80 percent of the population lacks access to basic sanitation. To address these challenges, we are working closely with Haiti’s national water authority to implement a user-fee approach to water. We will continue to work ever more closely with local partners and increasingly with government ministries to implement planned, phased programs that will reduce the reliance of communities on our assistance. But rebuilding infrastructure and services to benefit 10 million Haitians will take time. The process must be led by Haiti’s elected government, in consultation with the people and with support from the international community and the private sector.

The role of partnerships in Haiti’s recovery

For this level of coordination to succeed, a structural shift in the way that funding is distributed is required. Current short-term funding does not allow for comprehensive programming that addresses the root causes of poverty. Launching long-term development programs that will improve agriculture and significantly rebuild infrastructure requires multi-year development funding, particularly now that emergency spending is being phased out and aid organizations are leaving due to lack of funds and donor fatigue.

Now is not the time to scale back— international governments that have pledged money to Haiti must honor their promises and stay the course. Public-private partnerships have a huge role to play, as do partnerships with non-profits and community groups. In 2012, the Irish non-governmental organization Haven will support Concern’s “Return to Neighborhoods” project to repair homes damaged in the earthquake. Concern has also worked with Digicel to distribute emergency cash transfers to earthquake survivors via mobile phone technology. Going forward, we will continue to explore new opportunities with the private sector. Partnerships with farmers associations, community groups and other civil society organizations will all play a role in Haiti’s recovery.

The Haitian people have demonstrated extraordinary resilience. Ultimately, it is they who will chart the course for their country’s future. In the meantime, humanitarian and development organizations like Concern Worldwide must continue to work closely with communities, local and national NGOs, the United Nations and government partners to restore and build the skills, resources and capacity required for Haiti’s phased recovery. We all share a responsibility to the Haitian people, a responsibility to match their vision of a future with solutions that will bring about sustainable change. There is strong evidence that by working in close collaboration with the government, local communities and partners on the ground we can achieve that, but we cannot succeed without the continued political and financial commitments of the international community.

For more detailed information on Concern’s emergency and recovery response in Haiti click here.

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.

First stop:  the local Concern nursery where lemongrass and Mexican marigolds are grown. Both are thought to be repellents of mosquitoes. Both have been tested.  And both have produced only marginal results.  My heart sinks when I see the rows upon rows of Lantana. That Lantana!

The same plant I use in my own garden back in Connecticut?  Did I come half way around the world hoping for the possibility of finding a breakthrough in the prevention of malaria only to find a garden variety plant I use at home?

I tell myself to slow down while I am introduced to Jaka Magoma, a man who grew up in Tanzania, became an engineer, is working on a graduate degree in business and leads Concern’s work in northwest Tanzania.  He is accompanied by Frank Mng’ong’o, another  Tanzanian engineer working for Concern and a Ph.D. candidate at the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, arguably the best of its kind in the world.

They are jewels — two individuals who worked hard to get good educations, could have gone anywhere to work, but elected to come to this remote area to “help the poorest of the poor”. To be in their presence is to witness human decency.

As they begin their presentations, they tell me that malaria is the number one cause of death in this area and that it attacks infants, the elderly and everyone in between with equal aggressiveness.  There are two major ways to fight it — with nets to keep mosquitoes out of homes and beds and with spraying.

Concern is researching the impact of using the plant lantana camara outside homes at window level to naturally repel mosquitoes and possibly lower rates of malaria among young children.

But there are problems with each method.  They both cost money that the people in this community do not have.  They both are short-lived.  The nets wear out and have to be replaced and the spraying has to be done twice a year.  Funding is not dependable.  Governments and donors are subject to the strains of the economy and other pressures.

The Lantana plants, if effective, would not have these same problems.  They are inexpensive, grow fast, require very little maintenance and are attractive.  And, in this community, they have another advantage.  This solution comes from nature.  It’s comfortable and familiar and has a better chance of acceptance.

Frank begins to discuss the approach to the research.  Two hundred families had the Lantanas planted around the perimeters of their homes.  A control group of one hundred homes did not. Traps collected the mosquitoes on a regular and consistent basis and they were sent to labs for testing to see if they were carriers.

Frank presents me with a paper published in a scholarly journal and authored by him, some of his research assistants, and a Ph.D. who is volunteering her time.  The approach and the science are very encouraging.

So, too, are the results.  Two types of mosquitoes.  In one type, the number of Lantana homes has 56 percent less of these mosquitoes.  In the other type of mosquito, the Lantana houses have 83 percent less.  These results are not just significant; they are striking.

Frank and Jaka are quick to point out that much more work needs to be done.  We know that the population of mosquitoes is down, but clinical trials are needed to see if a corresponding incidence of malaria itself is down.  Two types of mosquitoes were found to be capable of infecting humans with malaria.  The Lantana grows very aggressively and could threaten crops so a “sterile” version must be created.  And a lot of field work must take place to encourage families to support the program.

One strategy to accomplish the latter is to enlist people who are benefiting from the pilot to become advocates. I asked one such woman if she would help. “Of course” she said, “Concern is helping me.  If they asked me for help I would want to do that.”

Judging by what I have seen and the progress that has been made, a long shot experiment has become a good bet.  I’m betting on Concern’s team in Tanzania, led by their very talented and determined Country Director, James Davey, to deliver.  As we parted ways at the airport in Dar Es Salaam, he said: ”Tell your colleagues at Xerox we appreciate their support and that we will do whatever is humanly possible to make an impact and save lives.”  There’s no going back now.

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.

Many of the 11 finalists on stage with Mary Rwegasira, Equality Advisor, Concern Tanzania. Photo: Isla Gilmore, Tanzania

The oldest finalist was 80 years old, and the youngest was 23. Six were from Concern Tanzania’s program villages, and three of them Concern has worked with directly– a significant acknowledgement of our 33 years of programming in livelihoods and health.

The selection of the final three winners was based on their performance during the training camp, and their ability to go back to their communities to share skills and encourage other women. The final three won high level prizes to support their communities in agriculture.

The status of women in Tanzania

At Concern Tanzania we pay special attention to the inclusion of women in our livelihoods, water and health programs, because we understand the link between female exclusion from decision-making and resource ownership and poverty and hunger. Half of the 42 million people in Tanzania are female. These females contribute 65 percent to all farming production and processing in Tanzania and 25 percent are heads of households According to Tanzania’s Integrated Labor Force Survey, women work between nine and 15 hours per day; paid and unpaid. They reap few rewards for their contribution to the economy, and they are most likely to be poor.

The results of female exclusion are inevitable, women find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty, characterized by low farming production and cash, lack of access to credit to initiate businesses, low education, poor health, abuse, and high fertility rates adding half a million girl babies alone to the population each year.

Networking to recognize women

Concern Tanzania collaborates with other organizations in gender advocacy and is dedicated to social and economic justice for women in Tanzania. Our work with these networks is increasing; 2011 has already seen three national level events as well as a number of local events to promote and educate the population on gender issues. In 2012 we will aim even higher.

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.

Behavior change is one of the key strategies of Concern’s child survival programs.  In simple terms, it means helping people make simple, yet life-saving actions part of their daily routines.   It’s a sustainable, low-cost methodology to ensure that mothers are equipped with the knowledge and skills to improve their child’s health.

Some of the specific behaviors the Lahiya Yara Project is trying to promote include washing hands before eating, seeking care for a fever within 24 hours, and giving sick children as much or more food and liquid than usual.  These may seem like obvious behaviors that we all practice in the U.S, but in Tahoua, a lack of basic necessities such as clean water, soap, and food, and long distances from the health center are barriers that mothers encounter on a daily basis.

The purpose of my trip to Tahoua was to work with the Lahiya Yara team to develop behavior change messages that will teach mothers how to realistically implement healthy behaviors.  In order to make sure our messages would be relevant and accepted, we first asked mothers why they weren’t able to implement the healthy behaviors we recommend.  Based on their answers, we designed tailor-made messages that take into account the formidable barriers mothers face.

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

For example, Concern will be encouraging mothers to provide their children with clean drinking water.  One of the barriers women cited as a barrier to providing clean water to their children is that they don’t have the money to purchase a water filter.  Concern will therefore focus on teaching women that boiling is also an effective way to treat water.

This is an easy, low-cost solution that could save the lives of many children by preventing diarrheal diseases.  It may seem simple, almost intuitive to us, but we have been inculcated with these types of messages through health education in schools and the mass media, benefits not available to most Nigeriens.

Another behavior that Concern is promoting is exclusive breastfeeding until the child is six months old.   When Concern asked why some mothers do not feed their babies with breast milk only, many replied that they believed it wasn’t possible or healthy for a mother to breastfeed when she is sick.

Sick mothers  would instead feed their babies water or other liquids.  Concern will therefore focus its messages on teaching women that most illnesses do not affect breastmilk and that it is healthy and safe to breastfeed even when the mother is sick.

Now that we have our behavior change messages finalized, we will begin to spread messages urging mothers to adapt these specific behaviors through a variety of channels: one-on-one counseling with Health Officers and Community Health Workers, radio messages, and even text messages.  By reaching women through multiple channels with consistent, tailor-made messages; Concern’s behavior change activities will equip mothers with the knowledge and skills they need to improve the lives of their children.

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.  

Mzee Barosha is a member of a farmer field school set up by Concern Tanzania’s partner in his village just one year ago. He’s learning new practices to benefit his yields; and, somewhat unusual for a man of his age, he’s picking them up rather quickly and applying them to his own small plot.

All around his house is green and lush with tall maize plants well spaced and intercropped with spinach, and a vegetable garden sprouting fresh green cabbage. Kigoma receives a lot of rain therefore with the right skills vulnerable farmers can cultivate nutritious food and stay healthy.

For elderly people like Mzee Barosha, this is Concern Tanzania’s main aim. Some others are not strong enough to farm like he can; therefore the participants of the farmer field school are encouraged to help them.

“I’ve learned about proper seed spacing, and I can tell the difference already as my crops are bigger. The vegetable garden is new, and we’ve already benefitted from this. I’ve added sunflower this year; we were given a small amount of seeds at the farmer field school to get us started. If the plants produce high quality seeds once they’ve been tested, then I will keep them to replant, and if not I will sell them to make oil. It’s the first time in my life to grow a cash crop.”

Mzee Barosha can’t remember exactly, but he thinks he has over 20 grand children; so the extra money is going to come in handy.

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.

Pervez Iqbal an agriculturalist working with Root Work Foundation (RWF), a close partner of Concern’s in Sindh. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

For the majority, however, ploughing the fields, sowing the seed or making improvements to the land, or the irrigation canals that feed them, are the responsibility of the tenants.  The  superfloods of 2010 completely submerged the land and prevented its cultivation. When the water  finally dissipated, the heat of the sun and the lack of moisture in the soil created terrain as tough as rock, making manual labor next to impossible. RWF stepped in with seeds, tools, fertilizer and a tractor, to help get families back on their feet.

“We only want what is necessary to get our crops back,” says Jamaldin. “If you can give us just 15 or 20 more days of tractor hours, this will give us a head start. The rest we can do ourselves. We don’t want to rely any longer on handouts. But we do need help to get our land back. The planting and harvesting will be our responsibility.”

Land is infertile here, compared with Punjab to the north, and sharecroppers who are paid by the yield have been keen to learn about new ways of increasing it. After the floods, community meetings were held with the displaced and those with the greatest needs identified. A team of agriculturalists, Pervez among them, worked alongside the farmers to drain the land of water, rehabilitate the drainage system, and improve the way farmers had been growing rice, even though they had been doing it for centuries.

“Farmers knew that they had to use Dye Ammonia Phosphate (DAP) on the land but the problem was that they were over using it and using it at the wrong times, which was costing them extra money,” Pervez explained. “They weren’t educated about the various pests that had been giving them huge problems for years, so we taught them how to minimize damage. We have showed them better ways,” he added.

The villagers of Sodhari Masjid are the poorest of the poor living hand-to-mouth with virtually no safety nets. In order to leave their villages when the super floods of 2010 arrived, families sold their belongings to raise the transport costs. Villagers tell Concern that valuables like pots, pans, kitchen utensils and clothes were all they had to trade after they’d been cut off from the land. The floods came just as the rice crop was due to be harvested. When the crops were flattened, they simply lost everything.

Concern's local partner in Sindh, Root Work Foundation, has been supporting villagers to cultivate their land by offering 'tractor hours' as part of its livelihood activities. Photo: Pakistan, Concern Worldwide

Estranged from their homes and living in camps in Hyderabad for three months, families began to barter their valuables for food and for medicine. “We were desperate to get back to see what was left of our homes. But when we got here, everything was gone. It was all soaked in 20 feet of water.”

“Even the corrugated tin roofs from the houses had been washed away,” said Shahnawaz a local brick maker, lamenting the loss of a particularly valuable item to a community that deals with frequent, heavy rains.

“Without RWF,” recalls Shahnawaz, “we would not have been able to come back.”  With Concern funds, RWF were able to purchase  the material required to build new homes and launched cash-for-work opportunities so that villagers could get back on their feet. Shahnawaz said that he and another man made 2,500 mud bricks per day by hand on the cash for work scheme. That equates to one-fifth of the total number of bricks required to build just one house, commonly sized at 15 x 18 feet. “Ten people,” he said, working on a cash-for-work basis “were responsible for the entire rebuild of this village.”

Between them, villagers made the bricks from clay, laid foundations, thatched roofs, and installed windows and doors with support from RWF’s engineering staff. But shelter wasn’t the villagers’ only need. Without access to the land, people’s livelihoods and food supplies were at stake.

This part of the country’s vast, flat plains in the south is considered the rice belt of Pakistan and provides an estimated 40 percent of the country’s needs. Rice is a staple earner for the farmers here that eclipses all others, particularly the much-sought after Russian kernel and basmati varieties which grow well here and fetch high prices at market. But others traditional crops like maize, sorghum and wheat while easy to grow, store and transport don’t offer adequate nutrition.

RWF recognized the lack of diversity in the diet of villagers and with funds from Concern got to work establishing kitchen gardens that women could easily cultivate to feed their families. The families will still be able to rely on wheat and rice for their earnings, but at least now they can grow vegetables from the garden to feed their children. “Now we have okra and eggplant for our families,” says Zakina, a mother of three, who shares the plot with eight families just outside the village walls.  Zakina and the women of the village work in the fields for a labor wage, earning about 60 rupees per day, equivalent to 60 cents to cover their basic needs. “The vegetables we keep for ourselves to feed our families. We can cook everything that we grow in the garden. This is just for us,” she says.

Concern’s emergency program in Pakistan implemented through a network of local partners has so far reached 2,345,245 million flood survivors with lifesaving interventions in shelter, food distributions, health and nutrition, and water and sanitation services.