SAID brings hope and a future to struggling communities
SAID brings hope and a future to struggling communities
One of the main benefits of increased income and financial security in struggling communities is that children can go to school and help break the cycle of poverty.
The Salvation Army International Development (SAID) prioritises three main focus areas – Livelihoods, Health and Child Rights. The team has compiled some stories of hope and updates in each of these areas to encourage supporters and show the impact of their generosity and prayers. Below we feature projects and people in the Livelihoods and Health categories. Check out Global Focus next week for information on Child Rights or click on the link at the end of the story to read SAID’s summer newsletter.
Livelihoods
When people are taught the skills to grow their own food, sew and mend clothes, care for livestock and make handmade goods, their lives are improved dramatically. They have increased nutrition, knowledge and ability to apply their new skills and often start their own business. The increased income empowers them, restores confidence and dignity, lifts them out of poverty and provides a sustainable, secure future for themselves and their family.
Savings and Loans associations and the skills they teach are improving the social and economic status of households.
The Salvation Army in the Malawi Territory is implementing the Karonga WASH (water and sanitation) and Food Security (KiWASH) Project. The KiWASH project is supported by the Australian Government, through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
Farmers are trained in conservation and agricultural methods. They are given vegetable seeds and are taught the skills to plant, care for and harvest more from their gardens. Families have more food to eat, and their nutrition is higher, so they are healthier and happier. Excess produce can be sold to increase the family’s financial security. With the additional income, children can attend school to receive an education, and the cycle of poverty that they may have been in, is broken.
Anna’s story
Forty-year-old Anna is a widow. She participated in the conservation agriculture project and life has not been the same since. Previously, Anna supported her two daughters and two grandchildren by travelling to the mountainside to produce charcoal. However, selling charcoal did not provide enough income to support her family.
Anna received Chinese cabbage and mustard seeds from the KiWASH project and established a backyard garden. Using the new methods she learned from The Salvation Army, and with support from the community Conservation Agriculture Committee and project staff, Anna was able to harvest enough to feed her family.
“My vegetables grew well to the extent that I had enough to eat and surplus to sell to people within the community,” explained a very thankful Anna. “This gave me opportunity to stop going to the mountain to burn charcoal and focus on other productive things at my home. I now have time to support my family well.”
Additional livelihood projects aimed at sustainable agriculture and livestock production are also being conducted in Tanzania.
Savings groups changing lives
A Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) has been set up in Uganda to improve and stabilise the social and economic status of households to adequately meet the needs of children and young adults.
Community meetings helped train people in 16 groups on the concepts of savings, loans, interest and welfare. Now 489 children are less vulnerable because their parents and carers have the tools they need to save money and support their families.
Health
Practical expressions of Jesus’ love are evident across our partner countries. One area we are seeing transformation in is in people’s health. Borehole wells are being drilled and toilets installed. This, combined with teaching about the benefits of handwashing, living with HIV, and empowering women, is improving the health, sanitation, hygiene, safety and happiness of whole communities.
KiWASH project, Malawi
Clean water is the foundation of a thriving and healthy community.
Drilling borehole wells is one way SAID – with your support – is helping to improve the health of communities overseas. Clean water is the foundation of a healthy community. In the developing world, women and children often walk kilometres every day to collect water that may be contaminated and carry disease.
When a borehole well is drilled in their village, the whole community has access to a clean and consistent water supply. Children who have access to clean water are healthier, better protected from waterborne illnesses, have more time available so can attend school more often, and use their education to build a brighter future. Women also have much more time that they can devote to their families, or find external employment, and so increase the family income.
Through the KiWASH project, wells drilled between September 2021 to March 2022, have impacted 2325 people in 465 households. They now have access to safe drinking water. Local community members have been trained in the maintenance of the borehole pumps. They have been empowered and are responsible to make sure each pump is in full working order.
Through SAID’s support, the KiWash project has also highlighted the importance of good sanitation and now 896 households have permanent toilets and 4454 have traditional pit latrines.
Our intensified hygiene and sanitation campaigns have taught people about the importance of washing their hands with soap. Before the project, cholera and diarrhea were very common, but now, with fresh water, toilets and handwashing, there is no water related sickness in the catchment area of this project.
This is a huge testament to the generosity of our donors, without whom this would not be possible!
The KiWASH project recently completed a Disability Mapping Exercise to identify people living with a disability in the area and to find out what prevents them from participating in the project. We found that the major barriers are lack of information and negative community attitudes. The team will now use this feedback to better include people living with a disability in activities.
We are also networking with other organisations in Malawi to explore how people with physical disabilities can access wheelchairs and other mobility devices to improve their participation in project activities.
To read SAID’s full summer newsletter, click here
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