Break The Chains of Injustice

This is the kind of fast I’m after;

   to break the chains of injustice,

   get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
   free the oppressed,
   cancel debts.

What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
   sharing your food with the hungry
   inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
   putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
   being available to your own families.
Do this and the light will turn on,
   and your lives will turn about at once.

Your righteousness will pave your way,

   the god of glory will secure your passage.

Then when you pray, God will answer,

   you’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

 

(Based on Isaiah 58)

This is what severe malnutrition looks like: a compelling photograph by World Vision (US) photographer Jon Warren has become the picture of the Horn of Africa response.

Mr Warren visited Puntland - an area in Somalia that has not received much coverage in the news but one where hungry people are flowing. In this picture, he captured a moment that is reflective of both great need and great hope. The image shows Layla Mohamed, 23, holding her severely malnourished one year old son, Zam Zam. Layla fled the Mogadishu conflict with her husband and children to Puntland in the north, but now finds herself fighting to save her baby.

If you think you can spare some money to help, why not go to World Vision Australia's Horn of Africa Drought Appeal web page and make a difference.

Somebody to Wish Them Well

Many people are hungry not for bread only,

    but they are hungry for love.

Many people are not only naked for want of a piece of cloth,

    but they are naked for human dignity…

Homelessness is not only not having a home made of bricks,

    but homelessness is being rejected, unwanted, unloved, uncared for.

People have forgotten what the human touch is, what it is to smile,

    for somebody to smile at them, somebody to recognize them, somebody to wish them well.

Mother Teresa

Small Steps Towards Healthier Mums & Bubs in Afghanistan

Laila: BORN

One of the projects I have the privilege of being involved in is located in Afghanistan. This is Laila's story...

When Laila was born in Jan 2009 in the Herat maternity hospital she weighed just 800 grams and her chances of survival were smaller than her tiny arms. Nargis, a midwife trained through World Vision’s midwifery programme played a large role in saving her life. Nargis quickly applied an intravenous drip, kept Laila warm and watched her slow progress. “I spoke with the relative who informed me that the baby's mother had been trying to get pregnant for 10 years, and this baby was her last hope”, recalls Nargis.

Laila: 2 Years

The tiny baby who weighed just 800 grams is now a bright-eyed two-year-old that weighs a very healthy 15 kilograms. She is testament to the importance of midwifery and nursing training and the critical services that the neonatal unit provides in Herat, Afghanistan. Her healthy, shining face also instills hope for the thousands of children born every year in Afghanistan where the odds are sadly still against them.

Read the details of the story inbetween from World Vision Afghanistan here.



That's My Dream - Haiti

James Tabuteau has been living in a ramshackle tent camp in Haiti's capital since last year's catastrophic earthquake wrecked his home, struggling to find enough unskilled temporary work to feed his young family.

But as one of the first graduates of a free vocational training program set up by Haitian-American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti foundation, Tabuteau is now a newly minted carpenter with hopes of rebuilding his life and his nation.

"The day of my graduation there was an engineer that was attending the ceremony who told me he was interested in hiring me. So I am now talking to them and I am confident I'll find the job. And they also know I was one of the best students," said Tabuteau, a 25-year-old newlywed with a baby son.

"Now I can have a stable job and you never know, I could soon have my own shop. That is my dream."

Yele Haiti has teamed up with several other organizations to help expand the skilled workforce that Haiti needs in order to recover from the massive January 2010 quake that killed up to 300,000 people and made hundreds of thousands homeless.

A class of 106 trainees graduated on July 29 in construction crafts such as carpentry, masonry and plumbing.

"Now, as a plumber I see my future differently," said 29-year-old Jean Luckson Louis-Jeune, a graduate who said he had never held a job before.

"I finished high school, but I did not have the means to enter a university. But one does not have to be an engineer, agronomist or doctor to be useful, the country also needs the professional I have become today," Louis-Jeune said.

Phorgotten Philatelics

The things we forget.

I received an email this morning that reminded me of another life. "In a land of myth, and a time of magic", 13 years ago, I joined with Nihal Hettiararchchi, and Subasinghe (Salvation Army Officers) to design a stamp. One of the more unusual things I have done.

And this morning I am informed that there is a Salvation Army Historical & Philatelic web presence that records this moment in history. Sri Lanka Stamp

The things we do!