CARE'S BLOG
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CARE Ramps Up Response in Sri Lanka
- Posted on 04.22.09
Related causes: Human Rights
CARE is providing lifesaving food, emergency supplies and shelter to thousands of people who have escaped the conflict in northern Sri Lanka. Survivors are dehydrated, hungry and exhausted after being trapped for months.
As many as 70,000 people have managed to escape the conflict zone since April 20, according to the Sri Lankan government. People are fleeing by boat and on land, taking refuge in camps set up by Sri Lanka as the country's army makes its final push against the Tamil Tigers, or LTTE.
CARE is coordinating with the government of Sri Lanka and other aid agencies to provide food and emergency supplies. But with tens of thousands more people escaping the conflict zone, the flow of assistance needs to increase.
CARE staffers are helping the United Nations erect tents for nearly 30,000 displaced people and completing emergency shelters and latrines for an another 3,000. The humanitarian organization also is: providing hot meals, emergency supplies and hygiene kits; ...Read More -
CARE Believes Climate Change Resolution Will Have Positive Impact on Women and Girls
- Posted on 04.09.09
CARE welcomes House Concurrent Resolution 98, which recognizes the disparate impact of climate change on women and the efforts of women globally to address climate change. The resolution was introduced by Congresswomen Barbara Lee (D-CA), Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA).
The resolution also recognizes that climate change is already creating challenges for vulnerable communities and encourages the use of gender-sensitive frameworks in developing responses to climate change. The resolution encourages the president to consider the disproportionate impact of climate change on women when developing policies and programs.
''CARE's field work documents that climate change has the greatest impact on the poorest communities and most marginalized groups. Women in particular are at high risk because they rely on natural resources that are sensitive to climate change,'' said JoDee Winterhof, CARE's vice president for policy and advocacy. ''Women are the primary food and health...Read More -
Madagascar, the Island of “Mora Mora”, Faces More
- Posted on 02.24.09
Posted by: Laura Bellinger
And it’s not over yet. A ravishing island nation of intense contrasts – immense poverty embedded in luscious landscapes, people who are gentle and smiling, in spite of the deadly cyclones they face year after year – Madagascar is now embroiled in a new disaster, but this time it's man made. And largely due to poverty.
In late January, Andry Rajoelina, the former mayor of the country's capitol called for the removal of President Marc Ravalomanana, proclaiming himself as the country’s new leader. Tapping into a nation where more than three quarters of its inhabitants live on less than two dollars a day, opposition rallies have shook the country, and you don’t have to be standing in the "red zones" to feel it.
Given the speed of these developments, I anxiously look forward to Skype updates by my friends at CARE Madagascar. This morning, Laureat Mandresilahatra, CARE's bureau chief in Manantenina, shared the following:
"In just two weeks, there ha...Read More -
A Request for President Obama
- Posted on 02.24.09
Related causes: Health, Human Rights
Written by Christy Turlington Burns
It's time to get rid of a policy that kills women around the world. As we gear up for the new year ahead and new leadership in the White House, the fate and well-being of hundreds of thousands of women around the world hangs in the balance.
More than half a million women die each year giving birth. Young women - adolescent girls ages 15 to 19 - are often the most vulnerable; they account for at least 20 percent of these largely preventable deaths. Fifteen percent of all pregnant women worldwide experience obstetric complications. Too often, a young woman will be in labor for several days, resulting in her baby's death because her birth is unattended. As it stands, 13 percent of these maternal deaths worldwide - 67,000 per year - are due to unsafe abortion procedures.
Thankfully, on Election Day, we did not choose four more years of conservative, unsympathetic leaders. Under the previous administration, we simply made it far too difficult ...Read More -
Dad, why did my friend die?
- Posted on 02.24.09
Related causes: Human Rights
Posted by: Jawad Harb
Saturday was the first day of school for my children. My 12-year-old son Yazan is in the 6th grade. He went to school and realized he had lost six schoolmates. One of the boys used to sit at the desk behind Yazan, so every time he turns and looks behind him, the boy he used to talk to, to laugh with, is not there anymore.
The children lived through the air strikes, the danger, the lack of sleep, and now they have a world that they don’t recognize. They can’t understand why their classmates are dead. Yazan asks me, “Why did my friend die? Why was his house hit? What did he do wrong?”
They want to know why children were killed. They know that many adults were killed, but for them, it is more difficult to understand when it is children, children like them, who were hurt, or killed, or were in pain.
For Ziad, who is six, his school was destroyed in a bombing two weeks ago. They haven’t found any place for the kids yet, so they sit in tents surrounded by...Read More
