Prince of Peace
Episcopal Church

Alternative Christmas Faire
December 3 and 10, 2006
 

The Alternative Christmas Faire is Back!

For shoppers frustrated from trying to find that perfect gift for someone who has everything, the Alternative Christmas Faire being held at Prince of Peace Episcopal Church, 5700 Rudnick Avenue, Woodland Hills on December 3 and 10, 2006.

For a copy of the shopping list  Click Here

Do you want to know more about the causes that are available at our Alternative Christmas Faire?

If you have ever wondered what the different options were about, here are descriptions of many opportunities that are on our shopping list, plus a few more that you can add if you want to.

Habitat for Humanity

Since its founding in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller, Habitat for Humanity International has built and rehabilitated more than 150,000 houses with families in need, becoming a true world leader in addressing the issues of poverty housing.

Koinonia Farm and the Fund for Humanity

The concept that grew into Habitat for Humanity International was born at Koinonia Farm, a small, interracial, Christian farming community founded in 1942 outside of Americus, GA, by farmer and biblical scholar Clarence Jordan.  The Fullers first visited Koinonia in 1965, having recently left a successful business in Montgomery, AL, and all the trappings of an affluent lifestyle to begin a new life of Christian service.  At Koinonia, Jordan and Fuller developed the concept of “partnership housing” – where those in need of adequate shelter would work side by side with volunteers to build simple, decent houses.

The houses would be built with no profit added and no interest charged.  Building would be financed by a revolving Fund for Humanity.  The fund’s money would come from the new homeowners’ house payments, donations and no-interest loans provided by supporters and money earned by fund-raising activities.  The monies in the Fund for Humanity would be used to build more houses.

An open letter to the friends of Kiononia Farm told of the new future for Koinonia:

What the poor need is not charity but capital, not caseworkers but co-workers.  And what the rich need is a wise, honorable and just way of divesting themselves of their overabundance.  The fund for Humanity will meet both of these needs.  Money for the fund will come from shared gifts by those who feel they have more than they need and from non-interest bearing loans from those who cannot afford to make a gift but who do want to provide working capital for the disinherited…The fund will give away no money.  It is not a handout.

In 1968, Koinonia laid out 42 half-acre house sites with four acres reserved as a community park and recreational area.  Capital was donated from around the country to start the work.  Homes were built and sold to families in need at no profit and no interest.  The basic model of Habitat for Humanity was begun.

Zaire

In 1973, the Fullers decided to apply the Fund for Humanity concept in developing countries.  The Fuller family moved to Mbandaka, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).  The Fullers’ goal was to offer affordable yet adequate shelter to 2,000 people.  After three years of hard work to launch a successful house building program, the Fullers returned to the United States.

Habitat for Humanity International

In September 1976, Millard and Linda called together a group of supporters to discuss the future of their dream.  Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) as an organization was born at this meeting.  The eight years that followed, vividly described in Millard Fuller’s book, Love in the Mortar Joints, proved that the vision of a housing ministry was workable.  Faith, hard work and direction set HFHI on its successful course.

Phenomenal Growth

In 1984, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn took their first Habitat work trip, the Jimmy Carter Work Project, to New York City.  Their personal involvement in Habitat’s ministry brought the organization national visibility and sparked interest in Habitat’s work across the nation.  HFHI experienced a dramatic increase in the number of new affiliates around the country.

The Results

Through the work of Habitat, thousands of low-income families have found new hope in the form of affordable housing.  Churches, community groups and others have joined together to successfully tackle a significant social problem – decent housing for all.

Today, Habitat for Humanity has built more than 150,000 houses, sheltering more than 625,000 people in some 3,000 communities worldwide.

Heifer Project International

Heifer animals (and training in their care) offer hungry families around the world a way to feed themselves and become self-reliant.  Children receive nutritious milk or eggs; families earn income for school, health care and better housing; communities go beyond meeting immediate needs to fulfilling dreams.  Farmers learn sustainable, environmentally sound agricultural techniques.

How Heifer Began

In the 1930s, a civil war raged in Spain.  Dan West, a Midwestern farmer and Church of the Brethren youth worker, ladled out cups of milk to hungry children on both sides of the conflict.  It struck him that what these families needed was “not a cup, but a cow.”  He asked his friends back home to donate heifers, a young cow that has not born a calf, so hungry families could feed themselves.  In return, they could help another family to become self-reliant by passing on to them one of their gift animal’s female calves.

The idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for more than 50 years.  As a result, families in 115 countries have enjoyed better health, more income and the joy of helping others.

Working to End Hunger & Poverty

Over one billion people will go to bed hungry tonight.  With more than 50 years experience, Heifer has a proven approach to helping people obtain a sustainable source of food and income.

Success Stories

Families benefit through Heifer’s approach because they gain a means of producing a steady source of food and income.  Project families gain new skills and self esteem from the training and support they receive in caring for their animals.  Children have the chance to grow strong and healthy from better nutrition.  Many families use income from their animals to educate the children, offering hope for a better future for all.

Community

Heifer works with grassroots community groups, who determine their own needs, and train and prepare for their animals.  They also decide who will benefit first from the gift of livestock and how the animals will be passed on to other families.

Environment

To end hunger effectively, food production must be sustainable and kind to the environment.  Heifer trains farmers to manage grazing, plant trees and crops and use natural fertilizer in ways that improve the environment.

Women

Heifer funds more than 80 Women in Livestock Development projects, which provide women with food- and income-producing animals, as well as training in leadership, community development and environmentally sound farming.

Anglican Christmas

These are projects that are supported throughout the year by the Outreach Committee of Prince of Peace.

Angel’s Way Maternity Home

Angel’s Way Maternity Home is a place of refuge for unmarried, pregnant women over the age of 18.  It is located nearby, in Canoga Park, and can house up to six women at a time. 

Typically the women to stay at Angel’s Way have no other support from family or friends.  While at Angel’s Way, the women learn to care for themselves and their babies, and to deal with life situations such as balancing a checkbook, budgeting, and planning menus.  They may also take classes leading to a GED certificate, or to gaining needed job skills.  Counseling is provided during this critical time in their lives, and as a result of counseling, the young woman may choose to keep her child, or to arrange for adoption, if that makes the most sense to her.  The women usually stay up to one or two months after their baby is born, but some leave shortly after giving birth.

The home is supported solely by benefactors who answer God’s call to serve Him in this way.  Because of the caring and kindness of these benefactors, the people who work at Angel’s Way are able to provide housing, guidance and direction to the young women who come to them.  Soon after coming to Angel’s Way, the women are able to see hope for themselves and their previous babies.

If you would like to add your support for Angel’s Way Maternity Home to ours, please make a check payable to Prince of Peace, and put “Angel’s Way Maternity Home” in the memo section.  Drop your check into the collection plate, send it to the office, or give it to the person at the Outreach/Scrip table after Sunday’s service.

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Our Little Roses Home

Our Little Roses is a ministry for homeless girls in Honduras, Central America.  It began in 1988 in a small rented house with 26 girls.  The ministry caught the interest of officials in San Pedro Sula, a city in the northwestern part of the country.  They gave land to Our Little Roses on which now live 70 girls and staff and in several buildings and many ministries including a school and chapel.  It began with a vision given to Doctor Diana Frade of hope with life-changing dimensions for physically and emotionally abused girls, as well as orphans.

There are no governmental social services or funds for Honduran children who become victims of violence, poverty, disease and oppression.  The need was desperate in 1988, and it is even more compelling today.  Children are often forced into the streets to fend for themselves when their families cannot or will not care for them.  Poverty produces abusive situations for many pre-adolescent girls who are deprived of an education by being kept home to take care of younger siblings, with no adult supervision or oversight.

At Our Little Roses Homes, every girl is given not only shelter but education and love.  Uniforms and school fees are provided, and a staff of teachers helps newly arrived girls catch up with their peers.  The sense of family at Our Little Roses sustains all the girls, who are active in church.  Many are members of the choir, youth fellowship leaders and acolytes.

Our Little Roses Home is one of the residences, this one for girls ages seven to graduation from high school.  When a girl comes to Our Little Roses, she is given love, attention and a Christian education.  The idea that she is able to do anything with her life is stressed throughout.  The girls of the Home are sent out into the community, to one of seven different schools so that they can receive an education that is tailor made to them and their academic strengths.

This home, the first one, was named in memory of Rosa Judith Cisneros (1936-1981), an Episcopalian who worked for social justice in El Salvador, especially as a champion for women’s and children’s rights.  She was martyred on the steps of government house in San Salvador.

Mark 10:14 Home is for infants and little girls to age six.  This home, named for the passage in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God,” offers a safe place and loving environment for abandoned or abused little girls.

Ginger Buice Transition House is named in honor of the daughter of the Rev. William Buice, who was tragically killed in an accident by a drunk driver just after her graduation from college.  This transitional home is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house 1-1/2 blocks from the Our Little Roses compound.  The goal of the transitional home is to help the girls who are graduating from high school acclimate themselves to the real world.  There is a great deal of interdependence among the girls, who live at the home.  The transitional home helps to teach the girls very important lessons about living on their own, although this process is made easier by the fact that the girls were never completely removed from the community attending outside schools and being regular members of church and church events.

The new building being constructed directly behind Ginger Buice will be a two-story apartment building containing 12 efficiency apartments.  And again here, just as in the Ginger Buice House, the girls will have to pay a nominal rent and their bills.  With these sides to our program, we are able to prepare the graduates of Our Little Roses to live in their community and to not only be able to survive but to flourish, to be the pillars of their communities, and the new leaders of Honduras.

Another adjuncts to Our Little Roses is Holy Family Medical Clinic, located a few blocks from the walled campus of Our Little Roses.  Two doctors and one nurse offer medical services six days a week at a very low price.  On Saturdays the clinic is free to those who cannot pay.  The doctors also organize and lead medical brigades that minister to the poorest of the poor, in the countryside of Honduras.  The Holy Family is not only a clinic, but a bilingual school, day care and chapel.

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A Pine Ridge Mission Trip, 2003 – a writeup by Debbie Decker, parishioner of Prince of Peace

Last summer, the pilgrims returned from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation filled with the Holy Spirit. They talked and talked about the work they’d done and the people they’d met, but mostly they talked about what they brought home with them.  No souvenirs. No feathered costumes and certainly no money.  It was something much bigger and much Holier.  Instead of ministering to the poorest of the poor in America, they were enriched by the love of a generous and kind people.  This is a place where everyone begins to look at himself or herself through the Gospel and in Jesus.  This is what pilgrimage is all about.  AND I’VE BEEN CALLED TO GO ON THIS YEAR’S TRIP!

This summer’s pilgrimage to Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota is scheduled for June 27.  The Rev. Robert Two Bulls, Program Officer for Native American Ministries and Michael Cunningham, Missioner for Administration and Mission Congregations, will once again lead this pilgrimage, which is a sponsored youth activity of the Office of Youth Ministry in the Diocese of Los Angeles.  This will be the third pilgrimage they have led together.

The work began as the Red Shirt Project when Fr. Robert Two Bulls was the Associate Rector at St. George's in La Canada.  Parishioners at St. George's continue their work to this day, and will be at Pine Ridge the week before the diocesan group doing ongoing work in the village of Red Shirt that they began four years ago. 

Red Shirt Table is the village where Robert's family is from...Pine Ridge is the home of his nation, his history and his people.  His father is also a priest of the church; his sister Twyla is the Lay Reader at Christ Church, which is the local Episcopal Church at Red Shirt Table.  Pine Ridge is also the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1892. 

Pine Ridge is, according to the Federal Government statistics, the poorest place in America.  Average life expectancy for adult males is 49.  The highest adult onset diabetes numbers in the nation.  Highest infant mortality rate in the nation… highest unemployment figures...highest alcoholism figures...all the ills of poverty visited among a population of appx. 38,000 gathered in eight villages along the banks of the Cheyenne River and the Wounded Knee River in and amongst the Badlands.  It is also a place where the Episcopal Church has always been...since before it was a reservation, there was the church.  Every village has an Episcopal Church.  There are very few resident clergy...like two. The need is great, the people are incredibly generous and loving...and it is our poverty that is revealed amongst the people, not theirs. 

There are 25 of us going (with a few more maybes on the list). We intend to build a skate board park, paint the church, install new windows in the church, build a couple of new outhouses, do a Vacation Bible School, pray every day, worship every day, hold community gatherings with the village, and host a Writer's Workshop at the Pow Wow Arbor the group built last summer.

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St. Vincent Meals on Wheels. 

This organization began in 1977, and has since become the largest privately funded meals program in the country.  In 1977, Sister Alice Marie Quinn, a Daughter of Charity and Registered Dietitian at St. Vincent Medical Center, saw some seniors’ health decline after being released from the hospital.  After identifying a need for senior nutrition services in the Westlake neighborhood surrounding the hospital, Sister Alice Marie began preparing meals for neighborhood seniors in the parish hall of Precious Blood Catholic Church.

By 1987 St. Vincent Meals on Wheels had expanded to serve homebound seniors and adults with serious illnesses throughout Los Angeles, from downtown to West Hollywood.  In 1989, to serve clients who prefer to receive a week’s worth of meals at one time, St. Vincent began a frozen meal program.  In 1993 a Breakfast Program was added for 200 seniors who had no other way of getting food, and in 1999 St. Vincent Meals on Wheels was certified by the Meals on Wheels Association of America for meeting national standards of excellence.

In 2003, a new state-of-the-art facility opened that has increased their capacity to 5,000 meals per day.  In a related project, scheduled for completion this year, a residence will be built, providing 114 apartments for homebound individuals from the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels program who live alone without support from family or other sources.

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Episcopal Relief and Development

Episcopal Relief and Development is a compassionate response of the Episcopal Church to human suffering in the world.  Hearing God’s call to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to respect the dignity of every human being, Episcopal Relief and Development served to bring together the generosity of Episcopalians and others with the needs of the world.

Episcopal Relief and Development faithfully administers the funds that are received from the Church and raised from other sources.  It provides relief in times of disaster and promotes sustainable development by identifying and addressing the root cause of suffering.

Episcopal Relief and Development cherishes its partnerships within the Anglican Communion, with ecumenical bodies and with others who share a common vision for justice and peace among all people.

The organization was established in 1940 by the Episcopal Church in the United States as the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief.  Our mission was to assist refugees fleeing Europe during World War II.

Over the years, its focus has expanded.  In 2000, its name was changed to Episcopal Relief and Development to emphasize its ongoing emergency relief work and its growing focus on long-term development and rehabilitation programs.

For more than sixty years, Episcopal Relief and Development has served the needs of the poor and oppressed at home and in over 100 countries abroad.

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Neighborhood Youth Association

Founded in 1906, the Neighborhood Youth Association (NYA) has been a non-sectarian non-profit, serving low-income, troubled youth and families.  Having worked with high-risk youth in past years, NYA has redirected its program to address education as the key to an individual’s success.

As we step into the 21^st century, NYA’s educational enhancement program, PERSONAL BEST, reflects of the agency’s past accomplishments and new direction.  This program is designed to help each child become the best that he or she can bee.  They work extensively with youth from low-income families in Venice and Mar Vista, California.  Through a comprehensive set of components, PERSONAL BEST serves children and youth from ages two through eighteen, and offers classes and activities for parents.

NYA’s facility, located in Mar Vista, offers after-school enrichment activities for elementary, middle and high school students.  Its’s Venice site, Las Doradas Children’s Center, provides preschool and after-school care.

The top priority is academics throughout the year, with homework first during the school year and educational enrichment in summer.  NYA has designed PERSONAL BEST to ensure that every young person will earn a high school diploma and go on to post-secondary education or training.

PERSONAL BEST incorporates four main components:

ACE (Academic/Curriculum Enhancement)

ACE compliments a student’s school curriculum.  Activities include academic skills building, computer skills training, tutoring and homework assistance.

PALS (Personal and Living Skills)

This component helps children and youth develop problem solving skills, self-esteem, social and communication skills.

Career Planning

This program exposes youth to a variety of careers, possible employment and post-secondary education opportunities, while emphasizing concrete job readiness skills and preparation.

Cultural Recreation

This component introduces children to a wide variety of arts and recreation through classes, sports, trips to museums, performances and events.

NYA believes that every child deserves a chance to create his or her successful future.

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Wycliffe Bible Translators

Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA, is part of an international association of Wycliffe organizations comprising over 5,000 active members from 46 countries.  Within the USA, their role is to provide links for churches here to help build the church around the world and give others access to the words of life.

Wycliffe was founded in 1942 by William Cameron Townsend.  A missionary to the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala, Townseld caught the vision for translation after Cakchiquel-speaking men expressed their concern and surprise that God did not speak their language.

Townsend resolved that every man, woman and child should be able to read God’s word in their own language.  Borrowing the name of the Reformation hero, John Wycliffe, who first translated the Bible into English, Townsend founded “Camp Wycliffe” in 1934 as a linguistics training school.  By 1942, “Camp Wycliffe” had grown into two sister organizations, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Today, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Wycliffe Bible Translators work together to translate Scripture, train field personnel in linguistics, and to provide help in translation

Already Wycliffe workers have helped to complete 611 translations, making God’s word available to more than 76 million people.  This has always been done hand-in-hand with local communities. 

More than 380 million people worldwide still God’s Word in their language.  At the past rate of translation, they would have to wait for another 100 to 150 years.   Wycliffe’s mission is to assist the church in making disciples of all nations through Bible translation.  Their vision is to have a translation in progress among every language group that needs it by 2025, and they are working to make that happen.

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St. Francis Academy

The Mission Statement of St. Francis Academy is to be an instrument of healing for children, youth and families, in spirit, mind, and body, so they live responsibly and productively with purpose and hope.

In 1945 the Rt. Rev. Robert H. “Father Bob” Mize, Jr. founded the St. Francis Boys’ Home based on the philosophy of Therapy in Christ.  God blesses this humble beginning in Ellsworth, Kansas.  Today, St. Francis serves over 700 clients each day through numerous programs in seven states.

The national headquarters was established in Salina, KS, in 1959, where the previously established second residential treatment center was located.  Equestrian therapy was offered at both sites.

Another residential treatment center was located in Lake Placid, New York in 1965, and wilderness therapy programs for boys and girls was established in Salina.

Another residential treatment centers was located in Atchison, KS in 1991, which included a secure treatment for runaways.

In 1992, St. Michael’s Campus in Picayune, Mississippi, opened which included a therapeutic group home for dually diagnosed, developmentally disabled/conduct disordered children.

A community outreach program in Salina, established in 1994, involved partial hospitalization, a day program, and outpatient counseling.

A community-based residential treatment facility for girls was opened in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, in 1995.  The same year a facility was opened in Espanola, New Mexico, providing case management, outpatient therapy for individuals, families and groups, and intensive home-based services.

An on-campus school was established in Salina in 1996, and another organization in Hayes, Kansas, worked with intensive in-home therapy for juveniles.  A family foster care facility was opened in 1997, along with other facilities in Hamilton and Dayton, OH.

The Bacot Home for Children was established in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and other facilities were provided in Philadelaphia, in 1998, and the next year construction of three assisted living complexes for developmentally disabled/conduct disorded adults were begun in Picayune, Mississippi.  In the following years additional programs were added in Texas, New Mexico and California.

Other organizations and work supported by Outreach include:

St. Barnabas Senior Center, Los Angeles

Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Diocesan AIDS Project

Episcopal Church Missionary Community

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children

Episcopal Church in Navajoland

Pacific Lodge Boys’ Home, Woodland Hills, CA

Episcopal Chaplaincy Program, Los Angeles Hospitals and Prisons

Uganda Missions

Alternative Gifts International

History

In 1980 Harriet Prichard, then director of Children’s Ministries at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church in California, wanted to model for the church’s children a new, noncommercial way to give authentic gifts at Christmas.  She organized a market in which children and many adults sold relief and self-development goods and animals for persons in need in the Third World as alternative gifts.  Cards were inscribed with the gifts purchased and sent to friends and relatives to inform them than an alternative gift was given in their honor.  This project was to motivating that other churches soon wanted to conduct alternative markets.  In 1981 five churches in the Pasadena area held markets and each year the idea spread to many other churches, schools and community organizations.  By 2000 there were 312 markets in that year held in 43 U.S. states.  Alternative Gift Markets have also been organized in England, Holland, Japan and Korea.  In the course of 16 seasons over fourteen million dollars has been raised for homeless-sick-hungry people and the environment and sent to people in crisis around the world.

Mission

The global mission of Alternative Gifts International is to send authentic, life-giving gifts to a needy wold – gifts that build a partnership with oppressed people in crisis and that protect and preserve the earth’s endangered environment – to nourish and sustain a more equitable and peaceful global community.

A Non-Profit Corporation

AGI is a non-profit, interfaith agency.  It raises funds each year for global gifts in its “Alternative Gift Markets” held nationwide and from individual donors.  Designated grants then are sent to the established international projects of several reputable non-profit agencies for relief and development.  In July, 1986, because of the fast growth of the project, Alternative Gift Markets, Inc. was organized as a 501©3 nonprofit, tax exempt corporation. 

Policy on Designated Gifts

It is the policy of AGI that ninety percent of the monies received by AGI for the alternative gifts will be granted to cooperating agencies who in turn guarantee that the funds received will be used only as designated in their established projects.  AGI retains ten percent of these funds to pay for its administrative costs.

Opportunities for gifts through AGI, and shown on the Prince of Peace Shopping List, are:

Women’s Support Centers / Russia

Provide pre- and postnatal care for impoverished women in Siberia and support their infants as well.

Russia today seeks to recover from nationwide social breakdown that leaves women alone and helpless in time of need.  Eastern Russion (Siberia) has the highest unemployment rate in the country, where 80 percent of marriages end in divorce within four years of the wedding.  A hospital birth can cost as much as a month’s wages.  Without assistance, many Siberian women struggle in terrible circumstances during a pregnancy.

More about Russia

• Eastern Russia is the poorest part of the country and should be considered Russia’s Appalachia
• Unemployment is high and women are encouraged to have only one child
• One in ten pregnant women will suffer a miscarriage
• The government pays 300 rubles ($10) one time to assist those who seek treatment at medical facilities in early pregnancy
• The government pays 70 rubles $2) a month as aid to children of low income families
• Russia’s population growth rate is -0.37 percent.  In the past decade, one million more died than were born, creating a demographic crisis
• The birth rate is 9.5 births per thousand, the death rate is 14.65 deaths per thousand
• The infant mortality rate is 15.13 deaths per thousand
• Russia, the largest country in the world in terms of area, is nearly twice as large as the United States and has a population of 143 million (The US population is 300 million)
• It borders the Arctic Ocean, Europe and the North Pacific
• Siberia is included in Eastern Russia, which is 56 percent of the entire country
• The weather is sub arctic with frigid winters and cool summers.  This area lacks proper soils and the climate for agriculture and the perma frost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development.

Located in the poorest and coldest region of a vast nation, the Women’s Support Centers managed by Caritas Siberia in eastern Russia provide essential help to pregnant women.  The women, many of whom are unemployed, are given prenatal care, counseling and assistance during pregnancy, including tests and ultrasounds.  Also, hospital care, vitamins, baby clothes and formula for the baby are provided.  Caritas Siberia is linked to Catholic Charities USA, one of the nation’s largest social service networks providing vital social services to people in need, regardless of their religious, social, or economic backbrounds.

The Centers serve nearly 6,000 women a year, sometimes providing more than the usual assistance.  Irina, a young Russian woman, learned that she was pregnant while her boyfriend was at sea.  Irina worried about his reaction.  The Women’s Center staff got a message to him on his ship and learned that he was trilled with the news.  Irina’s mental health improved immediately and the Center helped her with her physical needs.  She and Arthur are now the proud parents of a son.

$47 pays for one delivery including mediations, sutures and care

$36 provides nutritional supplements during a pregnancy

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Literacy for Survival / Haiti

Empower Haitians with basic reading skills so they can help themselves.  Their very existence and future depend on it.

Illiteracy, poverty and poor health are inextricably linked together in Haiti.  In the crowded slums of Port-au-Prince, more then 47% of adults cannot read or write and illiteracy rates are even higher in the rural sections of northern Haiti.  Illiteracy entrenches men and women in destitution because it denies them the opportunity to earn a living wage, to afford safe, clean homes and purchase decent clothing and daily food.  Without these basics their children cannot remain healthy, and their inability to read becomes a life-or-death issue

Increasingly, out of desperation, illiterate Haitians choose to make the risky crossing into the neighboring Dominican Republic (DR) to look for work.  In addition to the burden of poverty, these migrants often bear another heavy load: highly contagious diseases like tuberculosis and HIV, which continue to spread throughout the population with alarming speed and virulence.

More about the Project

The major Port-au-Prince hospital will offer classes in both Creole and French in 12 shantytowns and 9 rural communities twice each year.  Classes will include hygiene and health education which is vital to reversing the increase of contagious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.  Better health will also prepare the “graduates” to find jobs in their own country. 

More about Haiti

• The literacy rate of Haitians (defined: age 15 and over can read and write) is 52.9 percent
• The French colony, based on forestry and sugar-related industries, became one of the wealthiest in the Caribbean, but only through the heavy importation of African slaves and considerable environmental degradation.
• Haiti has been plagued by political violence for most of its history since then, and it is now one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
• Haiti was once a lush tropical island, replete with pines and broad leaf trees; however by 1988 only about 2 percent of the country had tree cover.  The most direct effect of deforestation was soil erosion which eventually increased the pressure on the remaining land and trees.
• About 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.  Nearly 70 percent of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, which consists mainly of small-scale subsistence farming and employs about two-thirds of the economically active work force.

International Child Care (ICC) and its major hospital in Port-au-Prince have been seeking innovative ways to address the root causes of Haiti’s suffering.  ICC’s adult literacy program helps Haitian men and women learn to read and write, but the class content goes far beyond the basic ABC’s.  The literacy curriculum includes lessons on disease prevention, sanitation, and the importance of a healthy lifestyle.  Adult literacy courses also help stem the tide of migrants into the DR by helping Haitians get jobs or run their own businesses in Haiti, rather than migrating to provide for their families.  ICC offers two adult literacy classes, both in Creole and French, in 13 shantytowns and 9 rural communities twice each year.

$39 provides a one-month teacher’s stipend for literacy training

$10 pays for one Haitian adult to attend a 6-month literacy/health course

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Homes for the Homeless / USA

Bring an end to chronic hemelessness by funding shelters working to move people into permanent housing.

Chronic homelessness is defined as “the protracted need for housing assistance during one year or longer.”  Community groups and faith based organizations are working together across the United States to help people avoid the crisis of homelessness and to help the homeless find real homes.

More about Homelessness in America

(The following facts are from NationalHomeless.org:

• Homelessness results from a complex set of circumstances which require people to choose between food, shelter, and other basic needs.  Only a concerted effort to ensure jobs that pay a living wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, affordable housing, and access to health care will bring and end to homelessness.
• More than 14 million Americans have critical housing needs.
• Children make up approximately 39% of the homeless population
• The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 37 percent of all women who sought care in hospital emergency rooms for violence-related injuries were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.
• Eighty-five percent of the chronically homeless are challenged by one or more of these conditions:  disability due to health, substance abuse or psychiatric illness; difficulty engaging in treatment and support systems; unemployment, low paying jobs, reentry from the prison system and domestic violence.  All of these human factors exacerbate the homeless problem.

A broad range of services is required to respond.  More than just a bed for the night is needed: food, clothing, medical treatment, rehabilitation services, job counseling, etc.  Communities are discovering, however, that access to and assistance with attaining permanent, affordable shelter (i.e. actual homes) are the real answer to the problem.  Alternative Gifts International will fund ten homeless shelters focused on moving people into permanent housing that is save and secure, providing them with a home of their own.

$60 assists one family with home search and counseling

$40 assists one individual

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New Life for Polio Victims / Democratic Republic of the Congo

Give children affected by polio orthopedic equipment that allows them to walk – and even to run – with self confidence.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many children never received a polio vaccination.  Instead, polio has left many children and young people there with fully or partially paralyzed legs.  They may bend awkwardly or use sticks to keep a leg straight.  They walk on one leg, leaning on a strong stick, or they only crawl on the ground. 

This is a medical problem that has a clear, relatively inexpensive remedy.  Leg braces, sometimes preceded by surgery, can dramatically change lives.  Then, young people with polio can walk, dance, and even play soccer.  They can attend neighborhood schools and live with hope for the future, integrated into their own community.

More about the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

• The special needs of disabled children are a problem in all developing countries but the situation in the DRC is among the worst.
• For three decades only minimal polio vaccination has been available
• DRC was one of the last places where the poliovirus could be found and although there has been no detection since 2001, the virus has been detected in the bordering countries of Sudan and Angola
• Poverty compounds the problem.  Sick children are taken to the most inexpensive care providers to treat malaria, the biggest killer in the Congo.
• Life expectancy: 48.93 years
• Many of the providers give a child a quinine injection to the hip, a technique with high risk for producing permanent leg paralysis virtually identical to that of polio
• The people of the DRC remain misinformed about the origins of disabilities and society still marginalizes and even ostracizes the disabled.
• DRC has a population of approximately 56 million, in a geographical area one quarter that the United States
• As a result of the recently ended multi-year war, the country’s economy has been nearly destroyed
• Unemployment in the formal sector has reached 90 percent; incomes have been reduced by half since 1990

The International Polio Victims Response Committee (IPVRC) works to enhance the mobility and dignity of children who have been disabled by polio by providing orthopedic equipment (leg braces), rehabilitation and surgery as needed.  IPVRC also pays tuition fees that provide a child with the opportunity to be mainstreamed in regular schools and develop his or her individual talents, giving polio victims a second chance.

$220 provides one full-length leg brace for a child affected by polio

$20 provides one share of surgery and rehabilitation

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Vaccines for Orphans / Vietnam

Protect children from preventable diseases with simple inoculations and basic hygiene education.

Two simple immunizations for Vietnamese orphans could save their lives and prevent permanent physical damage – but because of government funding shortages, these inoculations are not available to children living in orphanages.  The risk of disease is high for encephalitis, a viral or autoimmune disease affecting the brain, likely to damage nerve cells.  Rubella, commonly a mild childhood disease, is a root cause of deafness, blindness and mental retardation when it strikes a pregnant mother during the first trimester.  Extremely contagious, rubella strikes in seasonal patterns but can be eradicated by a series of immunizations.

In Vietnam these orphans can be shielded and their quality of life improved, with the gift of these inoculations.  They are children whose parents have died and whose relatives have abandoned them, as well as those who have a mother or father who are too ill to care for their children.  A conservative estimate is that there are 150,000 orphans in Vietnam, a number that increases by 300-500 per year.

One of the best ways to give hope to the children of Nepal is to provide a quality education.  Nationwide, only 45 percent of students are literate.  This figure is much lower in rural areas and among girls, who often work at home instead of going to school.  Rural public schools have few resources, with poorly trained teachers who often emphasize only rote memorization.  Expensive private schools are not an option.  Empower Nepal Foundation (ENF) has a better solution:  cooperatively managed community schools.  ENF has worked in Nepal since 1997 and now works with the Center for Community Development and Research (CCODER) to provide a high-quality, low-cost education for rural children.  The Center involves the entire community in the education of its youth.  This results in highly effective schools with a more rigorous curriculum, smaller class sizes and higher teacher salaries than public schools – ensuring that good teachres will stay to provide hope for years to come.

More about Vietnam

• More than 150,000 children in Vietnam are orphans or have parents who are too ill to care for the children.  A number of government operated orphanages care for these children
• Vietnam is about the size of New Mexico
• The population is about 83 million
• Approximately 37 percent live below the poverty level
• Eighty percent live in rural areas and depend on a weak agricultural sector to survive.  Mountains and hills make up three quarters of Vietnam
• The people of Vietnam live with a high degree of risk from major infectious diseases, including those carried by insects

More about Immunizations

• Immunizations have protected millions of children from potentially deadly diseases and saved thousands of lives.
• Most diseases that can be prevented by vaccines still exist in the world, even in the United States.  Other diseases are carried by insects and can also be prevented by immunizations.  Vaccinations play a crucial role in keeping children healthy.
• Encephalitis and rubella vaccines are provided for the majority of the children of Vietnam as a part of a national immunization program to prevent viral infections
• Children in government run orphanages do not receive these vaccines and are at high risk of infection.

$34 provides vaccinations, health education and personal hygiene training for one orphan

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Rescue for Children at Risk / China

Give new life to children who are abandoned or affected by AIDS, lost in the largest population in the world.

The state-run orphanages of China are full of newborn infants.  Thousands of these children are abandoned by their parents, mostly because of poverty but also because of China’s one child policy – and parents want a healthy boy as their only child.  Orphaned from infancy, a multitude of children (mostly little girls and boys with disabilities) live out their lives in an institution – unless, of course, they are adopted.  Only a few have that good fortune. 

More about Chinese Orphans

• The Chinese government estimates that 260,000 children may be orphaned by 2010, although these numbers are disputed.  Some estimated top over 1 million AIDS affected children in one province alone.
• “The originally stated one-child policy has been seen as draconian by some in its attempt to limit the burgeoning population in China.  The other side of this, however, is that by limiting population growth, fewer people are now dying of starvation in a country that still must feed its growing 1.3 billion population on only seven percent of the world’s arable land.” – China Connection

More about China

• About one out of every six people in the world is Chinese.
• China’s landmass is nearly the same size as that of the United States.  However, China has four and one-half times the population.
• The fertility rate of Chinese women is 1.7 children per woman.  The global fertility rate is 2.65.
• Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people in the world than any other language.  It is the native language of 14.37 percent of the world’s people, compared to Hindi (6.02 percent), English (5.61 percent), and Spanish (5.59 percent).
• The life expectancy of the average Chinese person is 71 years.
• Human rights protection was enshrined for the first time in China’s constitution on March 8, 2004.

China Connection and its partner The Amity Foundation give special aid to these institutionalized children and support a work of compassion for orphans in 63 orphanages in 12 provinces.  The infants receive “Grannie love,” extra blankets and food.  Older orphans are given physical therapy, school fees and sometimes needed surgery.

But yet another scourge threatens Chinese children.  Too many young children are losing their parents to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in China.  Left alone in the world, these children languish on the street, stigmatized by discrimination.  If a grandparent agrees to care for her parentless grandchild she, too, faces isolation in a fearful society.  Hold International Children’s Services believes that every child deserves a loving home.  Their work in China seeks to bring caregivers together with children at risk, and supports both the child who needs security and the caregiver who fills the gap.  Both need financial help, medicine and food.  The child needs to go to school, an extra expense for the caregiver.  For grandparents not expecting this extra burden the load is heaby indeed.

Funds raised for this project will be divided evenly between the two agencies listed above.

$365 supports one orphan child at risk, and a caregiver, for one year

$30 for one month, $7 for one week, $1 for one day

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A Club for Children Living with AIDS / Uganda

Open your heart to kids, affected by or infected with a deadly disease, and give them what they need to live live abundantly.

Beyond the faces of the 13,000 impoverished HIV?AIDS patients seeking help at the Mengo Hospital in Kampala are the futures of at least 60 children.  These children either have the disease or they are alone in the world without parents who died of AIDS.  Some have found a caregiver, and others have no home at all.

More about Uganda

• The official national language is English – it is taught in all schools and used in the justice system.  However, native languages such as Ganda or Luganda are widely spoken.
• Prevailing religions in Uganda are Roman Catholic (practiced by 33 percent of the population), Protestant (33 percent), Muslim (16 percent), indigenous beliefs (18 percent).
• The Christmas season is the most important holiday of the year in Uganda and is very festive.  The celebration of Christmas combines ancient tribal traditions with the Christian traditions of the season.  Dancing is an integral part of the Christmas celebration in Ugandan homes.
• Uganda has a deep-rooted kinship system in many parts of the country, extending to aunts, uncles and grandparents.  This system is breaking down from the increasing numbers of AIDS orphans, too many for poor families to care for.
• One in Twenty-four adults in Uganda live with HIV/AIDS.  In 2001, 214 people a day died of AIDS.  Currently the HIV clinic registers 1,500 new clients annually and has 13,000 patients in its registry.
• Uganda has been affected by war, famine and disease, resulting in one of the highest orphan rates in the world.  One of every six children has lost one or both parents.  Most of them are orphans because of the AIDS pandemic.  Twenty-five percent of all households look after at least one orphaned child.
• Uganda is slightly smaller than Oregon with a population of approximately 27 milliion.
• It is tropical in climate, generally rainy, with two dry seasons.
• Major economic activity is agriculture
• The life expectancy in Uganda is 51.59 years.
• The median age is 14.97.
• Thirty-five percent of the population lives below poverty level.

More about HIV/AIDS

• It is projected that by 2010 there will be 20 million AIDS orphans worldwide.
• There are over 12 million orphans in Africa due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
• In the hardest hit African nations, between one-third and two-thirds of all 15-year-olds today are expected to die of AIDS.

The Mengo Hospital, sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a life-line of hope for thse kids.  The Children’s Club welcomes them twice a month on Saturday and invites them to play, sing, hear a Bible story, and eat a good lunch.  The children are given medical treatments they need as well as immunizations.  Once a year at the Club’s Christmas party, every child is given a school uniform and shoes and three times each year they receive school supplies and partial school fees.  The medical staff provides invaluable counseling as children ask questions about their illness.  Because of this special care, their self-confidence grows, their health is improved and the future is brighter.

$57 provides school supplies and partial tuition fees for one year for one child

$20 gives a school uniform and a pair of shoes to one child

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Wealth of the Rainforest / Panama & Nicaragua

Help poor farmers prosper by exporting cash crops such as coffee and cacao.  Restore ecological stability on exploited lands.

Tropical rainforests in Central America maintain the global climate and are home to over half of the world’s species.  These forests are being lost at an alarming rate – Central America has lost more than half of its forest cover since 1947.  There, slash-and-burn farming is the main form of cultivation.  It is also one of the leading causes of deforestation.  Impoverished farmers, with few resources, know of no other methoc.

More about Panama

• Panama is slightly smaller than South Carolina with a population of about 3 million people.
• Its climate is tropical with a prolonged rainy season (May to January) and a short dry season (January to May)
• The interior of the land is mostly steep with rugged mountains and dissected, upland plains.  The coastal areas are largely plains and rolling hills
• About 7 percent of the land is arable
• It faces environmental issues like deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution from agricultural runoff threatening fishery resources.

More about Nicaragua

• Nicaragua is slightly smaller than the state of New York
• It contains the largest freshwater body and is the biggest country in Central America
• Its climate is tropical in the lowlands and cooler in the highlands.  The Atlantic coastal plains rise to central interior mountains and the narrow Pacific coastal plain is interrupted by volcanoes.
• About 16 percent of the land is arable.
• Natural hazards are destructive earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and it is also extremely susceptible to hurricanes
• It faces environmental issues like deforestation, soil erosion and water pollution.

Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), a pioneering agency that has planted more than one million trees, works with local populations who are losing their way of life with every acre destroyed.  Extensionists teach low cost hand-use techniques that can be maintained by participating communities long after SHI’s assistance ends.

To date, participants in this program have converted hundreds of acres of slash-and-burn or degraded cattle pastures, to sustainable agriculture plots.  Participants learn how to sustainably feed their families using one piece of land, preserving existing forests and increasing productivity.  They use agroforstry practices such as alley-cropping (planting fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing trees between food crops), which increases yields by more than 50 percent.  Multistory cropping mimics the interdependency of the natural rainforest; valuable hardwood trees (like mahogany) make up the overstory, which shades a story of fast-growing trees that fertilize the soil and provide a renewable source of firewood.  The understory consists of plants like cacao, coffee shrubs or bananas.  These techniques improve the families’ nutrition and income by working with, instead of fighting the natural environment.

$55 saves 12.5 acres of rainforest by converting one slash-and burn acre to sustainable uses.

$5 saves one acre of rainforest

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Young Peace Builders / USA & Global

Inspire American young people to make peace in the world.  AGI will help to sponsor their building projects.

Peace is the prerequisite for all happiness and human development.  It is a blessed time, indeed, when people live together in unity.  The old camp song speaks a grand truth; “The more we gt together, the happier we’ll be”.  Alternative Gifts International believes that there are scores of American youth who ar, right now, building peace in our society and around the world.  They may be a church youth group on a mission, college students who travel to the Gulf Coast on their Spring break, or a single child who writes poetry.  These young people deserve support and the nation’s honor.

The idea of building a fund for young peace builders came to AGI from a letter from the youth minister at St. Francis Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas.  She writes, “The project we are working on was established in response to a tragedy that struck the village of Lucio Blanco, Mexico.  A tanker truck trying to outrun a train was hit and [the explosion] almost destroyed the entire town.  Some local churches have gone and helped rebuild the homes and businesses.  However their grant money is almost out and there is still a lot to do.  This is where my church comes in.  We want to build a playground.  I know this may not sound like much, but for the kids who get this playground, it will be nothing short of a miracle.”  Is this peace building?  You bet!

More about this project

• Read Mattie Stepanek and President Jimmy Carter’s book, JUST PEACE.  Mattie, a yount boy with muscular dystrophy, lived only until he passed his 12^th birthday.  His friendship with Jimmy Carter and their conversation together about peace-making is excellent reading for those young people who want to make a difference in the world.  Read some of Mattie’s poetry and his emails to Jimmy Carter.
• YOUTH CHANGE THE WORLD.  Do you know of a single youth or a group of young people in your church, school, or family who have a dream about improving the world?  Tell AGI about these special people.  What is their dream?  Do they have a strategic plan?  What materials, funds do they need to initiate their plan?  Or is their plan already activated?
• Anne Frank, while she was hiding with her family in an attic room to escape the Gestapo, during the German occupation of Amsterdam, wrote in her diary, “How wonderful it is that nobody has to wait a single moment before starting the improve the world.”  Her writings have inspired the world with her courage and insight about peace making.
• SOMETIMES IT TAKES A GROUP.  Margaret Meade wrote these wise words, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed persons can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
• Ask children and youth (to age 18) to write down on a large board in your market place, their dreams for a better world.  If their dream is a single word, like PEACE, help them to talk about some special action they will take to help their dream come true.
• Father Chacour, the principal of a special school in Palestine/Israel, helps students become active peace-makers in the middle of a conflict zone.  His translation of the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes from the original Aramaic text uses action verbs:  Instead of “Blessed are the Peacemakers”. This verse reads, “Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you peacemakers, for you shall be called Children of God.”

In a trial run, AGI will fund several youth building projects in the fiscal year 2006-2007.  Grants will be provided to a number of groups who work together to build peace, whether in the nation or outside U.S. borders.  Young people should write to AGI telling about their proposed projects to receive a grant application.

$10 purchases one share of the Young Peace Builder’s fund.

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Let The Blind See / Guatemala

Lower the prevalence of blindness in rural districts, and train village health workers to diagnose eye care needs.

In the Central-Western and Peten regions of Guatemala, there are as many as 30,000 adults in need of cataract surgery.  At least 4,800 children need surgical care for cataract, glaucoma, corneal opacities, strabismus and amblyopia.  Additionally, more than 100,000 children need eyeglasses.  Even the nation of Bangladesh has better eye care services for its people than found in Guatemala.  Of Guatemala’s 150 ophthalmologists, only 20 work outside the capital in rural areas.  The Vincent Pescatore and Visualize Clinics are currently the only two eye care facilities in the country that welcome and accept low-income patients, but their services have been underutilized.

More about Guatemala

• Guatemala is slightly smaller than Tennessee with a population of 15 million.
• The climate is tropical with mostly mountains, narrow coastal plains and rolling limestone plateaux.
• The population growth rate is 2.67 percent with a birthrate of 34 per 1,000.

More about Blindness

• Every year approximately 500,000 children go bline – almost one per minute – and many die within the first few years of going blind.
• As much as 80 percent of global blindness is avoidable.
• Available studies consistently indicate that in every region of the world, and at all ages, females have a significantly higher risk of being visually impaired than males.
• Visual impairment is not distributed uniformly throughout the world.  More than 90% of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries.
• By region, Southeast Asia comprises 32 percent of blindness in the world – the largest percentage by region.

The SEVA Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose name means “service” in Sanskrit, has engaged in international blindness prevention programs since its founding in 1978.  Since 1986 it has partnered with several health care associations in Guatemala and has trained more than 4,000 rural health workers.  Today they are training 300 of these workers to diagnose basic eye problems and to inform village people that eye care services are available.  (A recent study revealed that 70 percent of the people with cataracts interviewed did not know their condition was reversible through surgery.)  Eye care health workers will provide sight-saving preventive education, simple home remedies for common conditions, the identification of serious eye problems requiring referral to local eye clinics, and follow-up care.

$60 enables trained health workers to provide basic eye care to 100 people

$6 buys glasses for one child

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Sun Power for the Lakota Sioux / USA

Supply solar heat for Native American families facing harsh winters, reducing energy costs and preserving native trees.

The Braveheart family dreamed of sending her children to college.  But they were struggling just to heat their home during the harsh South Dakota winters.  Dewey Braveheart is a Lakota Sioux Vietnam veteran who lost his leg to diabetes.  Many Lakota fear winter when ice sometimes covers  the walls inside their homes.  This is the situation faced by 30,000 other Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, located with in the poorest county in the United States.  The price of energy here is extremely high relative to income.  Many tribal people spend 50-70 percent of their income to heat their homes.  Families often forego the purchase of medicines and other necessities to buy propane, electricity, or firewood, when they are forced by wind chills of 60 degrees below zero.

More about the Pine Ridge Reservation

• Indian reservations in the western United States are some of the nation’s poorest communities.
• 63 percent of the Lakotas (also spelled “Lakhotas”) living on the reservation are living under the poverty level.
• Substandard housing with no insulation, no running water and dirt floors is common on Pine Ridge.
• Pine Ridge is near the Badlands National Park and is home to the site of Wounded Knee.
• “Weather is a force to be reckoned with on the reservation; from searing heat to deadly cold, from drought and prairie fires to tornadoes.  One storm can wipe out a family’s home and all their belongings.” – PineRidgeRez.net
• In a survey by the Native American Renewable Energy Education Project, 94 percent of the tribal representatives said that their energy costs were creating financial hardships.
• “There is a growing awareness among the people that coal and oil-based energy production is having a negative impact on future generations.” – Gus Yellow Hair

More about Solar Energy

• The solar collectors used on the reservation simply use the sun’s light to heat air inside the collector as it circulates around an absorber plate.  There is a control system with a thermistor and thermostat that triggers the collector to turn on when the air temperature is warm enough.  A fan then collects cool air from the home and circulates it through the collector, warming it and returning the heated air to the home.
• “If the current energy alternatives were competing in a true free market in which prices included their external costs to society, use of … fossil fuels would decline dramatically within two decades or less.” – G. Tyler Miller, Jr., Living in the Environment

Trees, Water and People (TWP), a nonprofit agency that helps communities sustainably manage their natural resources, is working with Sioux residents to install solar collectors.  The demand for collectors is high, because they lower utility bills, while making homes more livable.  The units can last up to 40 years, and provide heat any time the sun is shining.  The solar systems are installed and maintained by a Lakota team that has been trained by TWP, providing employment while helping Lakota families.

Solar energy is clean, renewable and abundant.  Each collector can offset more than 6,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.  Additionally, reduced demand for fuel wood will help preserve native forests and restore wildlife habitat.  These endeavors allow th Lakota people to honor their belief that “every generation consider the welfare of the Seventh Generation yet to come.”

$440 purchases one solar heater

$44 provides one share

*This project will be matched dollar for dollar by an anonymous donor

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Free Wheelchairs / Cambodia

Give mobility, independence, dignity and hope to persons with disabilities.  Improve their caretakers’ quality of life, as well.

In Cambodia, the number of persons affected by polio, cerebral palsy, birth defects and warfare, is shocking.  A multitude of citizens are amputees and this number grows continually because of the hug cache of landmines still buried in the countryside.  Land mine removal progresses slowly and will take decades to complete.  The stress on individuals with disabilities and their caregivers is overwhelming.  Without a wheelchair, the disabled must crawl, wait to be carried, or spend their days in loneliness and darkness, living each day in humiliation and danger.

More about Cambodia

• Cambodia is slightly smaller than Oklahoma
• Population is about 14 million
• Forty percent of the people of Cambodia live below the poverty line
• 75 percent engage in subsistence farming
• Fifty percent of the population is 20 years old or younger
• The deterioration of health and social service systems and the destruction of the educational institutions is a plague still suffered following years of civil war
• The ineffectiveness of vaccination programs has led to a high incidence of disabled due to polio and rubella

Landmine Facts

• A great number of the disabled did not receive prompt or adequate medical care at the onset of illness or at the time of injury.  Infections have compromised their health
• Cambodia has one of the highest rates of physical disability of any country in the world.
• More than 40,000 Cambodians have suffered amputations as a result of landmine injuries since 1979.  That represents an average of nearly forth victims a week over a period of twenty years.
• At the current rate of removal, it may take as many as 100 years to clear all the mines in Cambodia.
• Once laid, a mine may remain active for up to 50 years

Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM) seeks to bring the transforming gift of mobility to many developing countries.  After researching and designing a wheelchair to meet the needs of the physically disabled poor around the world, FWM now sends a simple, rugged and inexpensive wheelchair delivered in a kit.  The kit includes assembly tools, air pump, cushion, patch kit and a harness for small children.  A wheelchair can be assembled in about 20 minutes.  FWM’s goal is to place 20 million impoverished people with disabilities in wheelchairs by 2010.

$49 purchases one wheelchair

$5 purchases one share of a wheelchair

*FWM will receive a matching grant for this project 

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Single Moms Step Forward / USA

Give a boost to women in transition as they gain self-reliance and job skills.

In the U.S.A., there is a significantly higher rate of poverty among households headed by women.  Too many single moms have a tough time making it in our society.  Due to abandonment, divorce or domestic abuse, these women find that they need to become self-sufficient in a hurry in order to care for their children.  Many are not prepared to shoulder these responsibilities.

More about Women in the USA

• Twelve percent of Americans live below the poverty line
• Households headed by women, particularly those who are African-American or Hispanic, are far more likely to be poor than any other households
• Regardless of race, female household leaders in the United States frequently are challenged in getting good jobs because of a lack of education, a damaged self-esteem due to abuse or addiction, and the demands of dependent family members.

La Mujer Obrera has worked for 23 years to transform the conditions of Mexican immigrant women and their families in El Paso, Texas.  This hardworking agency manages businesses which combine leadership training and community organizing for bilingual workforce development.

The Women’s Initiative Network serves women in poverty in Wichita, Kansas.  Here, survivors of domestic violence learn job skills and life skills in a supportive workshop environment while also advancing their education through GED classes, Vo Tech training or college.

The Enterprising Kitchen (TEK), in Chicago uses transitional employment to teach job and life skills to women to help them become self-sufficient and economically independent.  Participants receive computer and literacy training, financial education, GED and ESL tutoring, and health and nutrition counseling.  They work in a nonprofit social enterprise manufacturing natural soap and spa products to learn to participate in all aspects of a dynamic business enterprise, from production to marketing. 

$35 provides job skills training and support for one woman for one day

$5 provides on share of training and support

*Donations for this alternative gift will be divided evenly between the three agencies listed above.

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Micro-Enterprise for Untouchables

Empower Dalit women to participate in self-help groups for enterprise, health care and community development.

Nepal is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.  In the marginalized Dalit communities women are responsible for much of the community work.  Their poverty is intensified by lack of education, uneven land distribution, lack of crop diversity and basic health care services.  Also, HIV/AIDS greatly complicates their lives. 

More about Nepal

• In the Hindu caste system, a Dalit, formerly called untouchable, is a person outside the four castes, and considered below them.  Included are leather-workers, scavengers, street handicrafters, poor farmers and laborers
• Nepal is located in southern Asia, landlocked between China and India
• It is slightly larger than Arkansas with a population of 28 million
• Nepal experiences severe thunderstorms, flooding, landslides and drought.  There are periods of famine depending on the timing, intensity, and duration of the summer monsoons.
• Nepal has a 45 percent literacy rate.
• The quality of education in the rural areas is inferior to the urban areas
• Generally the children with easy access to education included the sons and daughters of landlords, businessmen, governmental leaders and the elite members of society
• Rural education suffers from poor facilities, inadequately trained teachers and a lack of available materials.
• Eight of the ten highest mountain peaks in the world are located in Nepal, including Mt. Everest, the world’s highest
• Nepal has a population growth rate of 2.17 percent annually
• The infant mortality rate is 65 per 1,000 (USA is 6.5 deaths per 1,000 live births)
• One-third of the people live below the poverty line
• Agriculture is the livelihood of three-quarters of the population and there is a severe lack of skilled labor
• Agricultural products include rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops, milk and water buffalo meat.

In Nepal’s Pharphing area in the Kathmandu valley, Lutheran World Relief partners with a private voluntary organization called “Share and Care” and reaches out to empower women’s groups.  Now, the village leaders in this part of Nepal are Dalit women of the untouchable caste.  Their social status becomes a moot issue when they find out how effective they can be when they work together.  Self-help groups give women self reliance and a voice with some power to build their own life goals.   These groups engage in learning about health care, building new businesses with micro-loans, creating an emergency response program for their village in case of a floor, learning to increase crop productivity, building a seed bank or raising animals for a profit.  These newly empowered women already see improvement in the local economy and in the well-being of their families.   They are happy to work together for change.

$44 builds one seed bank, with seeds and equipment

$11 provides micro-credit and enterprise training for four women

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Green Education / Haiti

Help Haitians better feed themselves and restore their environment through education in sustainable agriculture.

In 1492 Columbus declared Haiti to be “the most beautiful land in the world.”  The land he saw was an island paradise covered by tropical forest.  Today less than three percent of Haiti remains forested.  Slash-and-burn agriculture on Haiti’s mountainous terrain has led to extensive soil erosion, making it increasingly difficult for Haiti to feed itself.  Haiti was recently ranked the third hungriest nation in the world by the United Nations.

About Haiti and Deforestation

• Haiti was once a lush tropical island, replate with pines and broad leaf trees; however by 1988 only about 3 percent of the country had tree cover
• Haiti is slightly smaller than Maryland with a population of about 8 million people.
• The most direct effect of deforestation was soil erosion.  In turn, soil erosion lowered the productivity of the land, worsened droughts, and eventually led to desertification, all of which increased the pressure on the remaining land and trees
• Analysts calculated that, at the rate of deforestation prevailing in the late 1980s, the country’s tree cover would be completely depleted by 2008
• Life is extremely challenging for most of Haiti’s people with 81 percent of the population earning less than one dollar a day

Hope can be found in a few Haitian communities where farmers are learning to farm sustainably.  Using a few simple techniques, they are growing more food while stabilizing and restoring their soil  For example, they have learned to plant contour hedgerows in special soil-enriching trees at intervals up and down their mountainside fields.  These develop into natural terraces that prevent soil erosion.  While the results of these new practices are truly impressive, their use has not spread quickly or widely enough by word of mouth to stop Haiti’s rapid agricultural decline and environmental destruction.

Beyond Borders is a non-profit organization that specializes in participatory education in Haiti.  Beyond Borders has developed an engaging curriculum that teaches Haiti’s rural population how both to grow more food and better care for their environment.  The curriculum is effective with adults and youth at all education levels.  Because of the rich color illustrations, even illiterate students benefit from the program.  Instead of handouts, this program is giving hope by helping Haitians learn both to feed themselves and restore their land.

$30 provides 4 months of environmental training in sustainable agriculture

$4 prints one native-language textbook

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A New Kitchen Stove / Honduras & Nicaragua

Update cooking on an open fire to a clean “Lorena stove,” and life for the cook and her children means better health and no smoke.

Every parent who cooks for their family, the world around, needs a good stove.  They may even dream of someday owning “the stove of the future.”  For Central Americans, the Lorena stove is that dream stove.  Made of mud and sand (in Spanish, lodo and arena, thus the “Lorena”), this simple stove is designed to circulate the heat within its small inner chamber and to channel the smoke through a chimney pipe outside the house.  No more smoke in the kitchen – a dream come true!  Also, it burns only one half of the wood that is needed for an open fire – another dream come true, since never-ending fuel gathering is an exhausting daily task for women and children.  Instead of a heavy black soot buildup on kitchen walls (as well as in the lungs of every family member), the Lorena stove brings only blessings to the cook and her family.  And it is safe, too.

More about Honduras

• Honduras is slightly larger than Tennessee with a population of 7 million
• The population growth rate is about 2 percent with a birth rate of 30 births per 1,000
• The climate is subtropical in the lowlands and temperate in the interior mountains
• About ten percent of the land is arable
• Environmental problems are deforestation and soil erosion as a result of clearing the land for agricultural purposes

More about Nicaragua

• Nicaragua is slightly smaller than the state of New York
• It contains the largest freshwater body and is the biggest country in Central America
• Its climate is tropical in the lowlands and cooler in the highlands.  The Atlantic coastal plains rise to central interior mountains and the narrow Pacific coastal plain is interrupted by volcanoes
• About 16 percent of the land is arable
• Natural hazards are destructive earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, and it is extremely susceptible to hurricanes.
• Nicaragua faces the same environmental issues as Honduras with deforestation, soil erosion and water pollution

Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), an American NGO founded by a Peace Corps volunteer, has built 200 Lorena stoves for village women in Honduras and close to 100 for Nicaraguan homes.  Also, community members have been taught how to build the Lorena stove so that, on their own, they can continue to promote their use.

$28 provides the materials for one Lorena stove

(Sand, support metl, cement and a stove pipe)

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Village Water Security / Bolivia

Give to village folk, living in the Andes, permanent access to clean drinking water.  Build efficient water systems on the Altiplano.

The world largely ignores Bolivia.  There are no terrorists, no earthquakes or floods to read about in the newspapers.  Bolivia simply suffers grinding long-term poverty.  Rural Bolivians have become the poorest people of South America, a forgotten people.

Eighty percent of rural Bolivians have no running water or electricity.  Up to 70 percent of rural women are illiterate.  Without clean accessible water and poor basic education, poverty has a stranglehold on Bolivian families.  Water sources on the arid altiplano (an average altitude of 12,500 feet) dry up in summer and standing water becomes highly polluted, threatening children and the elderly with intestinal parasites and diarrhea.

More about Bolivia

• Though the major religion of Bolivia is Roman Catholic (95 percent of the population), the culture has maintained its pre-Columbian traditions and identities.  Bolivian culture has been highly influenced by Andean and other indigenous beliefs
• Sixty-five percent of Bolivians are indigenous Andean people.  They are poor and marginalized in their own country.  They face many obstacles including poor soil, a short growing season and a lack of safe water for drinking and irrigation.
• Bolivia is slightly smaller than three times the size of Montana with a population of 8.9 million people
• More than 3 million people (37.5 percent) live in rural Bolivia
• Bolivia has South America’s lowest income per person per year at around US $830
• 97 percent of rural Bolivians live below the United Nations recognized poverty line
• The 1992 national census showed that 69.8 percent of households lived under the poverty level with no permanent access to clean water, the basic element of life.  The poverty is greatest in the mountainous areas.
• Bolivian girls only complete half the years of schooling s Bolivian boys

Quaker Bolivia Link (QBL), a British-American development agency, has already helped many villages there build efficient water systems.  Guided by QBL technicians, villagers construct wells, storage tanks, and miles of piping, to bring clean water to many households.  Villagers set up a savings fund to maintain and repair their new water system, and QBL technicians continue to monitor the project for up to three years after completion.  A QBL spokesman says, “There is no end to the need.  Dozens more villages need clean water!”

$220 provides permanent accessible clean water for one family

$44 provides permanent accessible clean water for one person

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Safe Havens for Lost Kids / Kenya

Provide safety, love and a ral home for street boys and children orphaned because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In Kenya, there are many circumstances in which children find themselves to be homeless and without a loving adult who can care for them.  Poverty and unemployment, food insecurity, substance abuse and the plague of HIV/AIDS keep families from being able to support their own children.  In Kenya, the extended family has traditionally cared for the orphans, but now the demands are too great.  As the family disintegrates, the elderly and the very youn are left to provide for the “left out” children.  They have opened small homes and have dreams of creating more room to accommodate the growing number of children needing love, food, education and a surrogate parent.

LOST KIDS – Street children roam the streets of big cities like Nairobi.  At night they light bonfires in the center dividers of main streets and sleep around the fires for warmth.  They seek out dumpsters for throw-away food in order to get something to eat.  Thousands of street children are abandoned or runaways, but most of them are parentless because their parents have died of AIDS.  Only a few find a substitute parent or a real home.

More about Kenya

• This east African nations is about 6 times the size of the state of Main and has 32 million people.
•  According to the CIA 2004 estimated statistics, more than 3 percent of the population is orphaned children.  (In sub-Saharan Africa there are over 12 million children orphaned by AIDS.) 
• In Kenya, 40 percent of the population is between the ages of 0-14.  Over six percent of the adult population is living with HIV/AIDS. 
• The unemployment rate in Kenya is estimated to be greater than 40 percent
• Kenya received its independence from Great Britain in 1963.  It has had three presidents since that time. 
• Kenya had rampant corruption throughout the 1990s.  The World Bank cut funding to Kenya and industries left for other countries with better development potential. 
• In the 2002 elections, Daniel Moi’s 24-year old reign ended, and a new government took on the formidable economic problems facing the nation.  Since 2003 there has been continuing progress in rooting out corruption.
• Kenya is the host country for thousands of refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries.

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of East Africa in Nairobi provides home life, education and medical care for HIV-positive orphans at Tumaini Children’s Home.  They are now constructing a large apartment style home for 50 more children so they can expand their capacity to minister to street children.  The women of the church will take turns living with small groups of lost children and will act as house mothers.

Expanding Opportunities (EO), and American NGO, has organized the Joseph Waweru Home School in Nakura.  EO seeks to increase the number of its small villages where children and surrogate parents live and learn together, sharing common kitchens, dining rooms and classrooms in new buildings soon to be built to accommodate a growing number of lost children needing assistance.

$35 purchases one share of home construction materials

$7 provides one week of shelter for one orphan

*Donations for this alternative gift will be divided evenly between the two agencies listed above.

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OTHER OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH ALTERNATIVE GIFTS INTERNATIONAL:

These are not specified on the shopping list, but can be added at the bottom.

Milk for Prescholers / Gaza Strip

Join the battle against malnutrition by giving to children in a conflict zone nutritious food for their well-being.

In Gaza an alarming number of children at the vulnerable ages of six months to five years are suffering from malnutrition, anemia and vitamin A deficiency.  Many risk irreversible physical and neurological damage.  Food is available, but families cannot afford to buy the food their children need.  Two-thirds of Palestinians live below the poverty line of $2.20 pr person per day, and half of these live on less than $1.60 per day, termed subsistence level poverty.  According to the World Bank report of June, 2004, “The Palestinian (economic) recession is among the worst in modern history.”  Because of this severe poverty, children in Gaza experience the suffering of chronic hunger and malnutrition evry day, growing up knowing only conflict and poor health.

More about the project

The project objectives are:

• Provide preschool age children with a snack of fortified milk and wafers every school day through an existing network of non-profit preschools in Gaza
• Provide nutrition education for the teachers, children and families of the affected population, and
• Provide jobs by producing the fortified products in a local dairy and bakery in the West Bank
• After the first year of the program (2003-04) a study conf