Press Releases from HOPE

May 22, 2009

HOPE partners in the area are hearing unspeakable stories from the humanitarian disaster in the North and are doing what they can to alleviate the suffering and to gear up for the task of rebuilding people's lives. HOPE has been active in Sri Lanka for over twenty years and works with a network of community based organizations in Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and Vavuniya. We are providing these desperate families with immediate help. This help is provided as food, water, and shelter. We are also preparing work with these families to help them revive their livelihoods and to become self sustaining. Similar to HOPE projects helping 3,000 families in the last 3-4 years since the tsunami.

 

First and foremost, we have to help people survive this crisis. Any donation will help but, as a guide, a typical HOPE survival pack costs about 20,000 yen, this conatins: a blanket, medicine, and food aid.

 

 

We are also recieving donations for the rebuilding phase.

 

Note: HOPE is not an emergency-aid agency, but it is our policy that when a disaster strikes where we and our partners are working, we leverage our local resources and contacts to provide immediate emergency help to save lives and remain engaged for the long term by helping families regain their livelihoods and become self-sustaining

 

 

May 17, 2009

 

HOPE International Development Agency continues to mobilize emergency food and water rations, temporary shelters, and other urgently needed materials and support in response to a growing humanitarian crisis unfolding in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 100,000 people have fled the conflict between government forces and the Tamil Tigers.

 

Innocent victims caught in the brutal crossfire, these families have escaped from the conflict area with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the hunger in their bellies, and horrifying accounts of death and suffering.

 

Our friends and colleagues in Sri Lanka - survivors of the killer tsunami of 2004 who know what it’s like to experience terrible suffering and loss - can barely find the words to describe what they are hearing from families who have emerged from the conflict zone.

 

Help is urgently needed in order to save these survivors by providing the emergency food and water rations, shelter, materials, and other support so desperately needed right now.

 

An emergency gift of 5,000, 10,000, or even 50,000 yen today, will ensure that survivors, all of whom have been through unspeakable hardship, do not perish in the coming weeks.

 

Survivors, by the hundreds and thousands, emerge from the forests and fields in a state of shock, their listless walk and blank stares evidence of the horror and suffering they have endured.

 

The need is great - it's expected that the population in the displaced person camps will continue to grow as people flee the conflict area.

 

Time is as precious as the lives it will save - the situation in the camps is expected to rapidly deteriorate as more and more people arrive, all of whom need food, water, shelter and in many cases, medical attention for wounds or sickness.

 

Among the tens of thousands huddled in makeshift displaced person camps right now, there are families whose hope of survival rests in your gift today.

 

 

May 10, 2009

 

Our colleagues in Afghanistan have given us an update on the progress of the projects in the field.

 

So far, 45 families have received animals from HOPE's Animal Bank. We are hoping that many more families will be able to benefit from these loans in the near future.

 

Construction on the new high school has already started, it will be completed in approximately two to three years. The first level of the school will have 12 classrooms, once the second story is complete the school will go up to grade 12. Local Staff estimate that about 2,000 students will attend the new school.

 

All these projects are possible thanks to HOPE supporters, like you.

 

May 7, 2009

 

Each summer HOPE International takes a group of people to Cambodia where they live and work along with the poor families HOPE International helps. UNION participants share the work of people living in impoverished communities coming to understand their struggles and hopes. The program’s aim is for the participants to acquire a deep understanding of the challenges that the neglected poor face everyday and how we in the industrialized world can do to help them climb out of poverty.

 

This year's trip will take place from July 31st to August 9th and the participants will be participating in the building of a new school and in the building of wells for our water projects. The cost of the trip is 177,000 yen (which covers airfare, accommodations, food, travel within Cambodia, a visit to Angkor Wat and travel insurance) and, in addition, we ask our participants to raise a contribution of 50,000 yen (75,000 yen if this isn’t your first UNION trip) to help the projects that they will be working on.

 

This is an opportunity to make a great difference in the lives of these communities and to see first-hand how we all can be part of the change we want to see in our world.

 

The application deadline is June 30th.