WEB India Rice fund 3 copy

The Cost of Fighting Hunger

by BlogBurundiCreative AccessHaiti
Two students being fed lunch at school in Haiti

 

Haiti
Half the population of Haiti is undernourished, earning less than $1 a day. ICCM provides  school lunches for about 20,000 children, both sponsored and unsponsored.

A meal for a child in Haiti is 25 cents.
A $10 gift will serve 40 children.

 

Dairy producing water buffalo

India
In India, 38% of children are stunted due to  chronic undernourishment. Gifts to the India Rice Fund supply essential nutrition to children living in residential care and to HIV/AIDS-impacted children in ICCM centers.

A meal for a child in India is 45 cents.
A $20 gift will serve 44 children.

 

Production of Busoma, a hearty grain produced in Burundi

Burundi
Donations bring relief to one of the world’s hungriest countries through the distribution of Busoma, a highly beneficial whole food cereal.

A meal of Busoma for a child is 11 cents a meal.
A $10 gift will serve 91 children.

This program receives financial assistance through other sources as well. Of the three food funds this fund is well supported.

 

Want to help eliminate hunger around the world? Click below to fight hunger.

meal at Parc Chretien

ICCM Haiti Projects

by AmericasBlogHaiti

 

We are extremely excited to premiere a new video about our #ICCMHaiti Food Fund 🇭🇹 and our partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects. Please share! 💚

Give to the Haiti Food Fund: http://bit.ly/ICCMHaitiFood
Give to Haiti Tree Projects: http://bit.ly/ICCMHaitiTrees
Give to Haiti Animal Projects: http://bit.ly/ICCMHaitiAnimals

Video: Nick Beardslee

Rex Bullock Craig Erickson Iccm-Haiti Sponsorship

Posted by International Child Care Ministries on Tuesday, December 11, 2018

 

The short-term, urgent need is for school lunches provided by the Haiti Food Fund. Just 25 cents feeds a child!

To invest in longer-term solutions, you can give to our Haiti Tree Projects, in which we’re planting tens of thousands of fruit trees and other plants in our schools and at the homes of sponsored children in partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects.

We now also have managed Animal Projects, which demonstrate new ways of raising goats and chickens to benefit the school children and their families, as well as the environment.

Click on the video, share it widely and help us raise critically needed funds to come alongside Haiti in its chronic food insecurity.

HA 1 child

Emigration from Haiti

by AmericasBlogHaiti

Mondale Perkins Oscar, National Coordinator ICCM-Haiti, reports, “We will never stop praying for our sponsors who are very precious to us. The sacrifice they make every day to contribute to the lives of so many little ones in Haiti is priceless. With eyes of faith, they know whenever they invest in the life of a child, they do it for the Kingdom of God.

“The degrading situation of the country forces many people to seek refuge in other countries. At first, it was Brazil with open doors. Even people who had a status – a good job and houses, left the country, to escape the bad management of our leaders. Now many are heading for Chile.

“ICCM pays the price. Many of our teachers who were recruited by ICCM, who participated in seminars ICCM organized, who worked in our schools, left without even a note of apology. So, we are always in a perpetual restart.

“Our secondary students are also among those leaving the country. They are young to decide. But, once they have their parents’ permission, they just leave.

“Men and women, young and adult, when they find an opportunity, they leave everything, they go.”

According to a Wall Street Journal article (Jan. 21, 2018) 105,000 Haitians entered Chile in 2017. About 49,000 Haitians entered Chile in 2016. They enter Chile on tourist visas. Then, if they get jobs they can apply for work visas and eventually residency.

Pray for the ICCM Haiti team, the church, and schools who are dealing with the loss of those who are leaving Haiti.

Facts about refugees:

  • More than 65 million people worldwide are now displaced from their homes.
  • More than half of the world’s refugees – 51% – are children.

Clean Water

Water filters are received with joy by communities in creative access countries!

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Restavek Freedom

by AmericasBlogHaiti

“Restavek” is a system of domestic servitude in Haiti. Long tolerated in the culture, it is finally being brought into the light and recognized as a form of child slavery.

When I first began as Director of ICCM in 2008, I learned about the restavek arrangement, whereby extremely poor parents, usually from the countryside, send their children to work for a family in a town or city. They expect the child will receive food and housing in exchange for their work. But hundreds of thousands of these children live in dire poverty with no hope of an education and in grave risk of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. They have no way to leave and no advocate to whom they can report abuse. In reality, they are slaves.

Missionary Jeannie Acheson-Munos was an advocate for these children until her death in the 2010 Haiti earthquake. A young girl named Fanya had stolen Jeannie’s heart. Jeannie did everything in her power to set Fanya free from her owners, without success. In 2007, Fanya burned to death while tending a charcoal fire. She was only one child living in restavek, but her death compelled Jeannie to help others in restavek. ICCM’s anti-trafficking project for 2017 is to partner with “Restavek Freedom,” a Haitian organization aiming to end restavek in our lifetime.

Funds from Freedom Sunday will spreadRestavek Freedom’s message throughout all 130 Free Methodist churches and schools in Haiti by several means.

All school directors and pastors will be trained in a 12-week Justice Curriculum, and then lead small groups of church members and teachers through this course. Pastors will have access to a 12-week sermon series on biblical justice.

Restavek Freedom also produces an immensely popular radio drama that educates people about the reality of the restavek system. Additionally, they organize a singing competition in which Haitian writers perform songs of freedom. Our new partnership will bring the children and teachers in our schools into the influence of these powerful communication tools.

Restavek Freedom also supports caseworkers who work to ensure children living in restavek get enrolled in school. In the worst instances of abuse, they intervene to remove a child from the situation.

Jesus came to set the captives free. Hundreds of thousands of those captives are children in Haiti. Let freedom ring!

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Alleviating Poverty through Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Reforestation

by AmericasBlogHaiti

For over 50 years, ICCM has supported children and families in Haiti through education. Tens of thousands of children have discovered the joy of learning, hope for living and the love of Jesus through our persistent efforts.

Sponsoring children’s education, providing uniforms, books, and lunches, and employing teachers and others who oversee 59 schools — these are no small accomplishments! Children’s education through the Free Methodist Church is our core mission.

Yet we know that for Haiti’s long-term economic survival, and even to keep up with the ever-increasing cost of feeding our students and working toward paying a living wage to our teachers, we also need to work on sustainable initiatives. In 2013 we began partnering with Eden Reforestation Projects in Haiti, casting a vision for Creation Care through our schools and getting children involved with “hands in the dirt” projects. Now we are taking this partnership to a whole new level, and it’s exciting!

Eden and ICCM are now partnering with Agrinotech, a successful Haitian-led agricultural group, and Harvest Craft, a small NGO, to tackle poverty and deforestation on several fronts:

  • Teaching the most effective ways of planting trees and transplanting saplings; 60% of these will be fruit trees, and others will provide materials for fencing, building, and burning. As thousands of trees are established, they form a canopy that lends shade and nutrients for ground-based crops.
  • Teaching best practices for chicken and egg projects that are now being implemented by Agrinotech and Harvest Craft.
  • Establishing nurseries at ICCM schools, training adults and upper grade students in all phases of farming.
  • Working with Haiti Providence University to create an Agricultural Extension Center where small farmers can come to learn better methods, purchase vaccines and other necessary items for raising goats, chickens and other small animals.

How do these initiatives fit with our long-term goals in Haiti? Just as extreme poverty forms the breeding ground for child labor in the restavek system, many other seemingly insurmountable problems in the lives of our friends in Haiti are caused by the poverty arising from the country’s 98% deforestation. For instance, the absence of trees degrades soil and makes subsistence farming less and less viable. Crop failures and decreasing yield undermine food security for families and the country as a whole.

Fund for Peace rates Haiti as the 10th most fragile nation in the world. Our graduates will only have a chance at a job and an improved future if the extreme poverty is addressed. Although our impact may seem small, as we partner with others and combine our resources and personnel, we can work holistically for the Kingdom of God and the betterment of Haiti.