Stories

Kuong is enjoyed by Khmer people across Cambodia as a lunchtime snack, street-food treat, and party platter favourite—some people even eat it for breakfast! It’s a great way to jazz up leftover meat!

Whether we see it in run-down farming towns on the Prairies or thousands of miles away in Africa, poverty often leaves us feeling sad and distressed. In their paradigm-shattering book, “When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor...and yourself”, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert affirm that there is something “uniquely devastating about material poverty. Low income people,”

Before partnering with FH, many communities farmed and gardened in ways they had done for centuries. While traditional farming methods are important, it’s also necessary to incorporate simple new agricultural techniques that keep soil healthy and diversify crops. As FH partners with communities, many are looking for better agricultural success. Implementing these new practices are the first place to start.

Real change for communities does not happen overnight. Each of us plays an important role—from supporter to office staff to community leader. It takes years of relationship building, planning, education, and persistence. But the conduits that make this happen? FH staff who live and work in the community, who truly walk alongside leaders, churches, and families.

It’s not exactly “business as usual” for a handful of companies in British Columbia. While the bulk of companies prioritize the bottom line—balancing the numbers and cutting costs to make as much money as possible—Alderidge Construction, Stattonrock Design & Build, Balzer’s Brushing, and Ferguson Moving & Storage have gone to great lengths to inject meaning into their work.

No one expected that Peg Peters—the five-year-old Peg Peters, kicking a soccer ball around with Ethiopian neighborhood kids and eating injera with his hands—would one day be raising millions of dollars of support for Ethiopia alongside thousands of volunteers through the Run for Water campaign.

We first were introduced to Food for the Hungry (FH) in 1989 by a friend, Brian Robertson. He had just finished university and was heading off to Thailand to put his degree to use on a water development project with FH. The more we learned about FH the more we liked what they were doing. When we heard about the Child Sponsorship program we prayed about it and discussed it with our children; we thought it to be a good fit.

Is the next terror attack just around the corner?

From pat-a-cake under a beautiful mango tree to a rousing game of volleyball, the way kids in Ethiopia play is not all that different from what you might expect on a Canadian playground.

Businesses have increidble power to impact the world for good! Here's how one small paper company helped break the cycle of poverty in a community through FH partnership.

FH Uganda has been an active development partner in Mbale for the last 17 years. We were particularly singled out for championing the needs of women and girls who are, in most cases, considered the most vulnerable in our Ugandan cultural context.

My name is Consolate, and I'm a 27 year old farmer who likes to laugh. I am married to Gerard, and together, we have one daughter and two sons - Chanelle is eight, Claude is six, and Manasseh is just two. We live in Jene community in Burundi.

Sometimes you need just the right expression to ‘hit the nail on the head’. Check out these local idioms from FH-partnered communities — ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’! While they don’t come from your ‘neck of the woods’, you might just find they are your ‘cup of tea’.

In 2011, Syria burst into flames as a civil war ripped through the country tearing apart families, communities, and cities. The war has continued raging for the last six years with no end in sight. Over 220,000 people have been killed, most are civilian casualties—men, women, children—this war does not discriminate. More than 50 percent of the population has been internally displaced, with 4.8 million people fleeing as refugees. Two and a half million of those refugees are under the age of 18; this unbridled violence has put Syria’s children at extreme risk.

You may remember that our last issue of Hope Notes began with an interview with the Waktola family of Sasiga, Ethiopia. They enthusiastically told us that having coffee with friends and neighbours was the number one thing they did for fun. So we decided to dig a little deeper into where that comes from.