With Child Sponsorship, You Can Make a Difference: What is Sponsorship all About?

It's all about giving a needy child the hope of a better future! Your gift of $25every month provides a needy child with access to education, health, and nutrition. Because of you, a needy child and the family can look forward to a future of dignity and hope!

Your support can make a world of difference!

Your Sponsorship Opportunity: Haitian Children Need Sponsors in Times of Needs Caused by Hurricanes, Poverty

Your Unique Opportunity to Sponsor and Lift up a Needy Child

How many needy Haitian children can you sponsor? Just start with one!
Sponsorandfeedachild Program
(http://sponsorandfeedachild.blogspot.com) has a list of needy
children who are waiting for somebody to give them a helping hand.
Maybe all you can afford to sponsor is one child. That is what
Sponsorandfeedachild is all about. It is a tangible way for us,
concerned parents, to reach out and show our own children how we can
help someone else in the world.

The harsh economic and political situation that Haiti has been going
through for the past decades has undoubtedly prevented many parents
from feeding and sending their children to school. I was in Haiti a
few months ago and witnessed the deplorable human conditions! Before the Hurricane season, Haitians had little. Now they have less! Their situations worsened after the recent back-to-back hurricanes that caused mudslides and floodings all over the island.

Some of the parents may resort to placing their kids with more well-off family
members or friends who may be able to raise them. Others who are in a
more desperate situations may end up unknowingly giving up their kids
to "child slavery" where abuse and an uncertain future await them.

As recently reported by ABC News, Child Slavery flourishes where high
illiteracy rates, lack of education and social services exist. As a
poor country, Haiti meets all the conditions for this type of
exploitation to exist. Where else have you heard about parents feeding "mud
cakes or mud cookies" to their hungry children?

Through SponsorandFeedachild Fund, you can make the difference in a
child's life. You can prevent one child from knowing this type of
depravity and misery. Educating and/or feeding a Haitian child will
be greatly appreciated.

If you want to sponsor a child, visit
http://sponsorandfeedachild.blogspot.com or write to us at
sponsorachildemail@gmail.com

More Than 300000 Haitian Children Are Hungry, Shelterless, Affected by Back to Back Hurricanes: Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said today that 650,000 people – some 300,000 of them children – have been impacted by back-to-back hurricanes that have recently battered Haiti, warning that ruined infrastructure has impeded efforts to deliver relief to those in need.

Hurricanes Fay, Gustav and Hanna, which passed through the Caribbean nation in a three-week period, have forced thousands of people to flee to their rooftops. Key bridges have been destroyed and landslides have blocked roads, obstructing aid delivery.

With Haiti having witnessed violent riots in April due to the global food crisis, UNICEF said the current situation has been further exacerbated by possible social and political unrest.

Yesterday, urgently-needed supplies were sent to Gonaives, the hardest-hit city with 70,000 uprooted by the hurricanes, by helicopter and boat. UNICEF and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) have provided drinking water and food, and UNICEF is also providing tarpaulins for shelter, water purification tablets and sanitation materials.

“The initial push to provide aid to Gonaives is a start, but there is a great deal more to be done to help children and families that have been affected by the storms throughout the entire country,” says Nils Kastberg, UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

UNICEF has made more than $1 million available to help hurricane victims, and a Flash Appeal from all UN agencies operating in Haiti will be launched in the coming days.

Neighbouring countries Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica have also been hit hard by the strong storms, and UNICEF is rushing assistance to those affected while assessing future needs.

“We are faced with a combination, once again, of severe natural disasters in a number of places which is stretching our resources,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters yesterday.

On 3 September, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) deployed a UN disaster and coordination team (UNDAC) to Haiti.

“This is very much the beginning of the operation and we're still trying to establish how bad it is and build up our capacity,” said Mr. Holmes, adding he was ready to assist with assistance from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

The world body's peacekeeping force in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, is assisting in the aid efforts, including for evacuation and for the distribution of relief items.

“It was really, really difficult even for our troops to assist the population due to the level of the water,” MINUSTAH spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de la Combe told the UN News Centre.

“The situation in Gonaives is really critical and everyone is doing the best they can to support the national authorities,” she added.

So far, MINUSTAH troops have helped to evacuate more than 500 people to emergency shelters, Ms. Boutaud de la Combe said. In addition, hundreds of people have been treated by the Mission's doctors and its helicopters have been transporting food and other emergency relief supplies from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to Gonaives.

On the way back, the same helicopters have been transporting people who require urgent medical attention to the capital because the hospital in Gonaives is not able to treat them, she added.

Hurricanes in Photos: Haiti's Children, Schools and Other Infrastructures During the Hurricane Season

Thus far, Hurricanes Left 137 or more Haitians Dead: Young and old Haitians are going hungry, wet and flooded out of their homes by the recent hurricanes. They have not had any break. They got hit by back-to-back hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike and possibly Josephine.

Tropical storm Hanna has so far caused the deaths of 90 people in Haiti, 37 of them were killed in Gonaïves, the country's third city. Hundreds of houses have been destroyed and tens of thousands of Haitians have sought safety on rooftops and in temporary shelters.

Floodwaters frustrated efforts by Argentine peacekeepers to distribute food Thursday at orphanages in Gonaives marooned by Tropical Storm Hanna. The peacekeepers hunkered down in their base as people begged for food and water outside.

Half the homes in the low-lying city of 160,000 remain flooded in Hanna's wake, estimated Lt. Sergio Hoj, spokesman for the Argentine battalion, part of a United Nations contingent on the island. Many houses were torn apart. Families huddled on rooftops, overturned cars were everywhere, and televisions floated in the brown water.

At least 137 people died when Hanna struck Haiti, 102 of them in Gonaives and its surroundings, officials said Thursday.

Some 250,000 people are affected in the Gonaives region, including 70,000 in 150 shelters across the city, according to an international official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Forecasters warned Hurricane Ike could hit the Western hemisphere's poorest country next week.

Hanna swirled over Haiti for four days, dumping vast amounts of water, blowing down fruit trees and ruining stores of food as it swamped tin-roofed houses.

Many of the thousands of people who fled to rooftops, balconies and higher ground have gone without food for days, and safe drinking water was in short supply as the fetid carcasses of drowned farm animals bobbed in soupy floodwaters.


Notes: Various sources

Haitian Children Are Eating Mud Cookies to Survive; Let's Break the Yoke of Poverty and Hunger

Many women start preparing mud to make mud cookies to feed their family. They dry them in the sun on the the roof of their houses.
Rising prices and food shortages are threatening Haiti's fragile stability, and the mud cookies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger.

For the price of a Starbucks, for what you would spend at any fast food restaurant, you could help a child eat a meal and get educated. If teachers are not paid, if they have to worry about what to feed their children, they are not able to teach these young minds.

If you are seeking to help solve the Haitian food crisis, here is your opportunity to do it right here. Your donation will go to a church-based school where teachers can get paid and children can continue to attend classes.

Kids should not be reduced to eat mud, dirt to survive. Check out the food riots in Haiti.