Cyclone Idai has triggered a “massive disaster” in southern Africa affecting hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, the UN has said. The region has been hit by widespread flooding and devastation affecting Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi called it “a humanitarian disaster of great proportion”. The death toll is in the hundreds, with hundreds of thousands more affected, and cholera is starting to spread, thanks to compromised drinking water. There is an urgent need for aid. 

Image: Climate Centre

What Crossroads is doing

April 2019: Zimbabwe Rugby Seven team helps deliver relief goods
As we prepare a full shipment, another small consignment of relief goods has already made it to Zimbabwe, carried by the mighty Zimbabwe Cheetahs Rugby Sevens team! The delegation (pictured below with Crossroads’ staff), who were in Hong Kong for the annual Sevens tournament, was generous enough to carry home with them 2,500 pairs of medical gloves and 100 mosquito nets, which have already been delivered to our partners on the ground, ready to help those affected by the cyclone and cholera epidemic.

June 2019: DHL offers pro bono shipment to Zimbabwe
Our second shipment of disaster relief goods has arrived in Zimbabwe, thanks to DHL. Crossroads worked closely with a trusted partner in Zimbabwe to prepare this second shipment of goods that included mosquito nets, shelter kits, medical supplies, blankets and clothing. We are very grateful for the support of DHL, who delivered the goods pro bono to help affected families. And a huge thank-you to everyone who has already donated towards our Disaster Fund.


How you can help

You can still give to help people rebuild and recover: If you would like to donate towards our disaster response to southern Africa, please use our Disaster Fund specify Cyclone Idai in the form there. Thank you for caring for those in need in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi!

DONATE NOW

 

 

Donate Now!

If you would like to donate towards our disaster response to southern Africa, please use our Disaster Fund specify Cyclone Idai in the form there.

 

DONATE NOW

 

Thank you for caring for those in need in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi!

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

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In the massive global discussion surrounding refugees, one desperate reality seems rarely mentioned. While much is made of the movement of refugees in places such as Western Europe and the UK, a far higher proportion is being absorbed by fragile states and under-resourced nations. One of the largest camps in the world this year, for example, is housing South Sudanese refugees in Northern Uganda: a region where people, at the grassroots, were already struggling.

Not so long ago, that part of Uganda endured a 20 year civil war which left the area devastated. Education and medical provision are extremely weak. Jobs are few and far between, with some areas citing formal employment as low as 1%. Sheer, unmittigating poverty holds this area in its grip. With what, then, are they to absorb the constant stream of refugees pouring over their border?


NUTRITION: A simple meal of corn flour and water is the staple for many. It offers very limited nutrition

WOMEN & CHILDREN: The refugees in Northern Uganda are largely women and children. The men have either been killed in the conflict, or are still in South Sudan caught up in the fighting

 

MEDICAL CARE: The life of this little child is at risk because of malaria. Medication is available in these area, but is not accessible for these refugees.

HUNGER: The food provided for refugees, monthly, lasts for only two of the four weeks. They also grow what they can, but their plots of land are small and they cant manage on the yielded crops. Malnutrition remains high.

 

SHELTER is a major challenge as the number of refugees continues to increase.

FUEL: Firewood sounds like a simple enough requirement, but it comes at a cost to both the refugees and the Ugandan residents whose own supplies are limited.

FUTURE? There is hope in this little refugees cheeky face, but one has to wonder what future life holds for him.


Malcolm Begbie, Crossroads’ Co-founder and Director, along with Crossroads’ Global Village UK Manager, Natalya Kan, visited Northern Uganda, this year, where we had sent 2 x 40’ containers to support refugees in need.

Malcolm Begbie visits a school project

Natalya Kan with community leader, Katherine Okello


SOLAR LIGHTS Crossroads partnered with solar company, d.light, to give solar lights to refugees in this area.

 

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

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Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

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Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

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Instead of entering the corporate world, Myron has chosen to work for people in poverty.

We first met Myron in 2014 when he came to work with us, as an intern in our Incoming Department: a task, he says, that helped prepare him for his current role.

Myron went on to work with FOOD-CO: a service which sees Hong Kong’s excess food and other commodities reach people in need.

Myron at his current job with St James Settlement FOOD-CO

 

FOOD-CO says that Hong Kong sees 3,600 tonnes of food wasted every day. In his job, Myron helps get excess food to organisations who give it to the elderly, children at risk, people with disabilities and others in financial need.

We in Crossroads also regularly use FOOD-CO’s services as we accept goods to help feed people in need and support our own volunteers, a serious cost saver! We are cheering Myron on in his life choice! (see main image below of Myron with other interns at Crossroads in 2014)

From July 2017 to June 2018, we welcomed 99 student interns, each on his or her own life path. It is our privilege to be a part of their story as they seek to make choices that can impact a world in need. 

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

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Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

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We often speak of our experiential programme that simulate issues such as the complexity of poverty. Read these words from a participant this year:

“Seventy of us enter a large room. We sit on a concrete floor, empty aside from rusty corrugated iron wall paneling and a few makeshift shops…The next hour is a haze of noise, rejection, begging, and work that fails to meet the minimum targets. We start with intent and vigour but the desperation grows each moment. We start to offer our possessions and confront our own values and integrity in the quest for survival. And I feel like I’m in a washing machine struggling for breath. I cannot think of tomorrow when today looks hopeless and urgent. I’ll work all day. All night. But the challenge to survive is overwhelming. And this is day one.”

The person writing that was part of NGO, Global Development Group. This participant, as the others, already knew poverty well. GDG is an association that brings together people dedicated to alleviating suffering.  Even so, the simulation proved powerful. We often hear practitioners say that, while they work amid poverty, the simulation of it still brings the reality home in new ways.

GDG held its International Development Partner Conference in Hong Kong this year and chose to include our Struggle for Survival simulation. Its participants, largely from developing nations, found it a time of perspective-shift, and reaffirmation of their organisations’ goals.

 

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

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Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

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Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

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Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

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Huong grew up in a rural Vietnamese village where the odds were against her. Her father had died when she was little and her mother, dependent on seasonal earnings from their little family farm, needed to bring up five children alone. “All I can give you is education,” she told them. “Study, study, study!”

Huong did study hard, graduated and then won an internship with a major company. She quickly climbed the corporate ladder. She never forgot, though, how it had felt to be a small village girl with big dreams and, in time, started a business employing other young women trapped as she was. She chose to specialise in the art of quilling: crafting coloured sheets of paper into extraordinary shapes.

 

Huong started with just 10 women, but the enterprise has now grown to 300 staff, never straying from the goal of paying a fair wage to every employee. She also gives maternity leave and healthcare benefits and strictly limits working hours to avoid exploitation.

In the five years since she started, 2,000 young employees have been trained, most of them women from rural provinces. “Of course, this is a business,” she says, “but the way I look at it, it’s not just about the bottom line. It’s about how many jobs I can create for young women, to give them financial independence and a stable family.”

Today, Quilling Card’s handmade products are hot sellers in our Global Handicrafts shop. We sell a large variety of their greeting cards, as well as quilled earrings, and quilling kits. We were also excited to choose them as the producer for our official 2017 Christmas cards, sending thousands to Crossroads’ supporters and friends around the world.

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

read more ...

“I still vividly remember the beginning of the simulation… a group of ‘militants’ broke in, forcing us out of safety. At that moment I realised what I had signed up for. Frankly, it was terrifying.”

Gingin Mak, a secondary student, undertook our simulation of the refugee crisis and, afterwards, told us how she found it. “Throughout the entire experience, the only thought I had in my head was: How are millions of people surviving through this living hell?”

Gingin was impacted so deeply by the ‘Refugee Run’ that she decided to channel her experience into a theatrical script. She called it, poignantly, ‘Home’. It tells of a young girl, Ola, who leaves her family in search of safety. “The plot reveals the raw pain of sacrifice,” says Gingin; “of restarting life and the loss that refugees face in the process.”

 Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation (YAF)

Undertaking the Refugee Run at Crossroads helped Gingin access the emotion and empathy with which she infused her play. “The authenticity of the simulation played a key role,” she says. “It allowed me to enrich my writing with personal experiences.”

‘Home’ was performed by the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation, in December 2017: an extraordinary achievement for Gingin. Her classmates from Renaissance College were likewise moved to help and focussed on producing educational packs for us to use in our refugee work. We are deeply impressed by the difference students can make when they care about world issues. Gingin and her colleagues are proof positive.

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

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It may be the last thing on our minds when taking a sweet bite of chocolate, but it’s the bitter truth: child slavery still plagues the cocoa industry, and the number of slaves is increasing as the world’s consumption of chocolate is increasing. These children are handling dangerous agricultural chemicals, wielding sharp tools, carrying heavy loads, and enduring abuse from their captors.

“The beatings were a part of my life,” said one former child labourer. “When you didn’t hurry, you were beaten.”   

Fair trade group, Divine Chocolate, demonstrates that a love for chocolate doesn’t have to cost innocent lives. They are the only chocolate company worldwide which is 100% fair trade and owned by cocoa producers in a Ghanain cooperative called Kuapa Kokoo. Last year, they generated an astonishing GBP 282,000 which was designated to help build schools, along with other projects that are lifting people out of poverty.

Our Global Handicrafts marketplace has been selling Divine products proudly since our very beginnings.

In 2017-18, we sold 2,339 bars of chocolate, and served chocolate drinks in our cafe made with Divine cocoa, loving that our customers can indulge with a clear conscience.

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

read more ...

Lush, the handmade soap company, always furnishes its shops in ways that are a feast for the eyes. So imagine our delight when, just when we needed to furnish our new Hong Kong Distribution Centre, they happened to be refurbishing and offered us their exquisite, superseded items.

It was amazing. Our goal had been to create a space which Hong Kong people would find not only helpful but even beautiful: a place that felt rather like a nice boutique, although, of course, they would pay us no money when ‘shopping’ in it. This shelving was perfect, except for one factor. Our space was quite large and there wasn’t quite enough shelving to fill it. It seemed a pity. We had stored this furniture for three months, knowing how helpful it would be in this project, but we definitely didn’t have enough. Our team met on it and suggested other shelving to supplement, but it was not a great match. The following day, to our astonishment, an email came in. “Lush is renovating another store and is offering more shelving. Might Crossroads be interested?”  We jumped onto email with an astonished yes. The timing, the quality, the need met: everything about this was a perfect match. Now this space is open, serving Hong Kong people in need with, we hope, the sense that they are being cared for with dignity and respect (see image below).

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

read more ...

It was a challenge. Would they, could they, take it on? Someone had suggested that the kids of our own staff consider travelling to Thailand to help a children’s home.

The proposal was a trip. But trips cost money. Could these kids raise it? Their parents, working full time with us here at Crossroads, have no salaries. All are full time volunteers. How, then, could these kids raise the money to cover the costs of their flights, accommodation and food?

They rose to their challenge, each in his or her own way. Some got sponsorship for long distance running. Some turned to art and made stationery. Some did bake sales. The methods varied, but the outcome was awesome. They got the money and off they went.

The kids ran a weekend camp for 80 orphans. They took school equipment, toys and other supplies from our warehouse as a gift.  They led songs, dances, crafts and sports, all reminding each other that, wherever in the world, what kids need most is friendship, play and love.

Hope after incarceration: Zambia

“I was doing Grade 7 when my father was sentenced to life imprisonment,” recounts Bodiao. “Life came to a standstill as...

read more ...

Liberia: Youth empowerment

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? Liberia as a nation is still suffering deep social and economic wounds from a civil war that ended...

read more ...

Syria: Aid and empowerment for refugees

Shipment Feedback: The conflict in Syria continues to devastate lives and communities, with thousands of people still displaced and living in flimsy...

read more ...

Cameroon: Educating and rebuilding

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? When we first started working with our Cameroonian partners in 2010, they were planning and working on...

read more ...