On the International Family Day, we want to share Fabiola’s story and how the Sembrar Foundation has helped her embrace the gift of family.
FIEDS – Italo – Ecuadorian Fund for Sustainable Development, celebrated 20 years of its debt swap between Ecuador and Italy, this mechanism represents a strategic tool that allows financing of development projects, making it possible to transform the lives of even more vulnerable people.
In commemoration of the 20th anniversary, FIEDS held an event last Wednesday, March 29. The celebration brought together officials from the Italian government, federal and provincial Ecuadorian government, United Nations, and key Ecuadorian universities, as well as beneficiaries from all over Ecuador, who have been participants and witnesses of the projects’ excellence.
We share a couple’s story of resilience. Peace Besime and Nsanze Sepiria were struggling after years of failed farming ventures, they could barely pay for their basic needs (medical expenses, school dues for their five children, and the construction of a decent shelter). Thankfully, they were introduced to the Graduating to Resilience Activity funded by USAID (led by AVSI Foundation, in partnership with American Institute for Research and Trickle Up). Peace and Nsanze were empowered with practical tools: goal setting, business coaching, good agronomic practices, and even more; finally, their voyage to self-reliance began!
We tell the story of Florence, 42 years old and the mother of nine children, just one of the 6,824 households actively involved in the USAID-funded Graduating to Resilience Activity in Kamwenge District, Southwestern Uganda.
Florence’s children had no access to quality education, and in and out of their school since she had no money to pay for their fees. Worse, the family couldn’t afford to feed the children with nutritious meals and their health was in disarray. Florence’s hopes of guiding her children to a bright future appeared dim.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy awarded AVSI a grant from the CDP Haiti Earthquake Recovery Fund to mitigate the harmful effects of the earthquake on August 14, 2021 on children by providing physical and psychosocial protection, promoting child development through informal education programs, and reactivating child protection networks.
UN data reveals that more than 393 million children have failed to gain the basic literacy skills at age 10; and in the case of Ivory Coast, the reading rates have always been low, with the reality that one third of children who start in 1st grade will drop out before finishing primary school. In response, AVSI has been working to improve literacy rates in 613 schools of Ivory Coast through the USDA/McGovern-Dole Program. Led by the World Food Program from 2016 to 2021, 150,000 students were able to receive quality school meals. Amid the crisis, AVSI has stepped up its work with refugees and migrants in the region, leveraging the little money available to create pathways for long-term integration and development for Venezuelans in host countries. Through the project Integrados, funded by the US Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, AVSI provides legal protection, housing, and livelihoods assistance for Venezuelan refugees and migrants in three regions of Ecuador: Pichincha, Manabi, and El Oro.
Cindy Gonzalez, 32, is from Venezuela. She is living now in Pisulí, a poor remote village on the outskirts of Quito, with her husband, her mother-in-law, and her two daughters: Isabella, 3, and Ivana, 6 months. Cindy arrived in Ecuador with her family three years ago. Like most Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador, she and her husband have informal jobs, the type of unstable work that makes up a large part of the economy in developing countries. She promotes beauty products, and he sells food items on the street.
It is freezing in Ukraine. Thousands have been sleeping in subway stations and makeshift bunkers to protect themselves from bombs. For over a million people, the time has come to flee. Across the eastern part of the country, women, children and the elderly daily board any bus or train they can find heading west and south, either to cities like Lviv (Leopoli) near the Polish border, or continuing further into Poland, Romania, and Moldova. How long will they be gone?
Living in an orphanage in Ukraine is usually a traumatizing experience, even in peaceful times. Estimates put the number of youth in orphan care in the country at about 90,000. The majority are social orphans, meaning they have been placed in institutions because their parents could not care for them on account of extreme poverty, abuse, or abandonment. Around age 16, orphans must leave the boarding schools or other care institutions because state funding runs out. Yet, having spent their whole lives without parental love and care, most are woefully unprepared for independent adult living.
AVSI-USA received a grant of $160,000 from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s (CDP) Haiti Earthquake Recovery Fund to mitigate the harmful effects of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on August 14, leaving more than 650,000 people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. Funds will be used to provide physical and psychosocial protection, promote child development, and reactivate child protection networks. As part of the project, AVSI will render fully functional 8 child-friendly spaces with programming serving at least 800 children and their families living in underserved urban slums in Les Cayes and Torbeck and remote coastal villages, including Roche a Bateau, Coteaux, Port-a-Piment, and Chardonnieres.
