Compassion Responds To Ethiopian Famine
With millions facing starvation, Compassion International continues to provide immediate support for Ethiopian children while contributing funds to assist small businesses.
Compassion International, the Christian child development organization with more than one million children under its care, is responding to the Ethiopian famine in a big way. Last month, the Colorado based organization contributed $1.4 million in aid to the poverty stricken east African nation, monies to be used for medical supplies and food relief. In addition, Compassion has earmarked some of its funds to help small businesses in a bid to help break the cycle of poverty.
Ethiopian Campaign
Active in Ethiopia since 1993, Compassion reports that they help 77,544 children through 321 child development centers. The organization says that in some cases the food provided by Compassion is all that the children receive in any given day, underscoring how desperate conditions are in that country.
Ethiopia’s current crisis is due in large part to rains which have failed over the past year, recalling a period twenty-five years ago when a similar crisis hit the country.
Back then, the world rallied around Ethiopia most notably through sales of Sir Bob Geldof and Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? fund-raising single in 1984, which was followed by Live Aid concerts on July 13, 1985. Still, the problems in Ethiopia have continued with some criticizing the help as not doing enough to prepare Ethiopians for future calamities.
Preparing Ethiopians
Compassion’s assistance is both immediate and for the long term as noted by Mark Hanlon, senior vice president of Compassion International, USA. “In these communities that are continuously dealing with food source issues, we are helping individuals to withstand and perhaps even avoid food crises in the long term – not just by helping them in the short term but also by supporting small business enterprises.”
Indeed, one of the faces plastered on television sets in 1984, Birhan Weldu, is now a 28 year old woman who says that food hand outs are failing her nation saying, “As well as being demeaning to our dignity, my education has taught me that constantly shipping food is costly, uneconomic, and can encourage dependency.”
To date, more than 91% of humanitarian aid given to Ethiopia in 2009 has been for food while just 0.14% has been set aside for preparing people for future droughts. Compassion, on the other hand, is balancing the two by helping people immediately as well as assisting small businesses who can provide long term sustenance for Ethiopians.
Compassion Today
Compassion International, founded in 1952, describes itself as “…a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.” More than one million children in twenty-five countries are helped in the name of Jesus Christ.
Photo courtesy of Compassion International
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