WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING?

In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to a school to support girls who were victims of violence.  This modest beginning has since grown to include programmes for boys to give them hope of a life outside criminal gangs by offering career guidance and vocational training. They increased its capacity to include more schools and now runs a soup kitchen and supports overstretched and underfunded local clinics.

Crossroads’ first shipment to this group impacted this community at many levels: from the provision of hospital beds for a clinic serving 370,000 residents, to shoes and blankets that provided a welcome boost to vulnerable individuals.

For this shipment, they have particularly asked for appliances such as sewing machines, fridges and microwaves to start a skills training project for widows as well as school furniture, computers – and of course, as many shoes, clothes and household goods as we can fit into a container.


As well as helping to build and equip larger organisations such as schools and clinics, Crossroads’ partners also help individuals and families in need.

Below: Mama Tiny is a widow recovering from a severe stroke.  All her possessions were sold from her home to cover hospital bills. She received new furniture, appliances and a blanket out of Crossroads’ previous shipment to her community.


The director of a drop-in centre that received boxes of new toys was almost in tears as she explained that this event was an “early Christmas” to many of the children who attend because they had never had any toy to call their own before, let alone a brand new one!

Crossroads is grateful to be able to assist this project in its work for the poorest people in South Africa. 

Living conditions are challenging in the areas covered by the project.


S5559

South Africa

Population: 57 million
Largest city: Johannesburg (pop. 9.8 million)

There are 3 capital cities – Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial)

South Africa has the most unequal income distribution in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 63. There are 11 official languages. isiZulu is the one most commonly spoken in homes and English is the lingua franca of commerce and administration.

Youth unemployment of over 60% has led to increasing resentment and unrest in urban areas.

Sources: CIA Factbook, Wikipedia.

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided to provide educational opportunities for children in their own communities. They raised funds to build simple school buildings and to pay teachers’ salaries.  As the schools became established, our partners realised that students and their families also needed basic health education and medical services, and later employment opportunities for those in remote areas. This led them to start a clinic, with a travelling health clinic team, and establish village bakeries.

They are planning to build and equip dormitories for senior secondary school students, open a micro-finance office, and provide simple poverty relief supplies such as shoes and clothing.

This shipment will include items ranging from mattresses and kitchen supplies for dormitories to office furniture, computers, and clothing.


Benjamin’s story

When our partners opened a primary school in Benjamin’s district, he became the first person in his family ever to attend school. Despite a 6 km walk between school and his family’s farming plot, he excelled at his studies. Benjamin not only finished primary school but also secondary school and then graduated from university with a teaching degree. As a teacher, he enjoys being an example and a source of encouragement for children who come from similar backgrounds.


Esther’s story

When Esther’s family moved to a small village, she was afraid that her schooling would come to an end. She was delighted to discover our partners’ secondary school there with “diligent and knowledgeable” staff.

When a nurse visited the school to give lessons on health and hygiene, Esther immediately knew that she too wanted to become a health professional. She is now in her second year, studying nursing at university.

This modest, 5-room school is built and staffed by our partners. It is the only secondary school in this district of northern Sierra Leone.

This shipment will include stationery, books, furniture and other school supplies to provide educational opportunities for many others like Esther and Benjamin.


(S3525)

Sierra Leone snapshot

Population: 8.9 million
Capital: Freetown
Main languages: English (official), Mende, Temne, Krio
Poverty rate: 60% of the population survives on less than US$2 per day.

This small country boasts both great natural beauty and mineral wealth but issues including high level corruption and tropical diseases like Ebola have left it as one of the 10 poorest countries in the world.   Although its people are known as resourceful, hard-working, and resilient, most of them currently use these strengths simply to stay alive.

Sources: CIA Factbook, BBC

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that are among the poorest in Europe. Before the Ukraine conflict began last year, we sent multiple shipments of items including hospital beds and equipment, school furniture, computers and electrical appliances that have been much used and well cared for.

Since the conflict began however, needs have changed as villages in the west of the country find themselves hosting large numbers of internally displaced people – mostly the elderly, women and children – in whatever rooms they can find. Spare classrooms, barns and clinic waiting rooms are all pressed into service in communities which scarcely have enough resources for their own people. We are delighted to be able to assist our partners by sending a second container of household furniture, bedding, clothes, and toys to benefit both the original village inhabitants and the many displaced people now sharing their space.

What has encouraged us most is your efforts to make this container possible in such difficult times for us. –NGO worker

After days of sleeping in open fields or on basement floors in bombed-out buildings, this mother and son delights at having a real room, bed, mattress and covers!

This shipment will contain many more such household necessities to help villages with few resources host their countrymen who have escaped from war-torn areas.

Vanya’s story

For an autistic child like 7-year-old Vanya (above), the disruption of routine involved in being forced out of one’s home and into a succession of strange places is even more traumatic than it is for neurotypical children and frequently results in sensory overload and meltdowns.  His mother reported that the play-doh set he received from our previous shipment has led him to become much calmer as he enjoys the texture, colours and being able to model little figures.

Below, an all-too-common scene for our partners as they drive through villages previously occupied or bombed.

6024A

Capital: Kyiv

Population: 43 million (approx.)

Major languages: Ukrainian (official), Russian

Following the break-up of the USSR in 1991, independent Ukraine spent the following decades working to rebuild itself as a democratic country with a free economy.  During those years, larger cities forged ahead but many rural communities found themselves left behind.  In 2022, more than 11 million people fled from the east of the country, with about 6 million leaving their homeland for other European countries like across the border in Poland, and more than 5 million finding “temporary” accommodation in less vulnerable areas inside Ukraine.

Sources:  CIA Factbook

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

Low-lying Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change, with the poor pushed to live in the lowest-lying areas.

Because of the unrelenting hard work needed just to keep a family housed and fed for most people in Bangladesh, people who are seen as unproductive are often left to their own devices to try and survive. These include the handicapped, daughters whose parents cannot afford a dowry, refugees, and others.

Crossroads is shipping to a well-established organisation which began by providing accommodation, therapy, and training to physically handicapped people. With the expansion of their programme, they launched initiatives that provide nutrition, health, and behavioural education for teenagers. Additionally, they also offer vocational training courses, as well as community sanitation and housing provision. These programmes are provided for both local people and for the Rohingya refugee population in Cox’s Bazaar.

This shipment includes medical equipment, electrical appliances, and furniture to assist our partners in expanding their medical work.


Mr G’s story

Although Mr G is a social worker and receives a modest salary, he spends much of that money in assisting his clients, so much so that he was unable to afford decent accommodation for himself and his family.

Our partner organisation has gifted him with a small house with its own toilet (a luxury in that neighbourhood), as the first home of a local sustainable housing project.

His reaction on moving in was, “At last I receive my own house – long live the providers!”

This shipment will help our partners assist many more people to help even more people who live on the fringes of society.


Miss N’s story

Miss N is a member of a social class despised in her community and during Covid she lost even the menial employment she was able to obtain.

Our partners not only provided her with food parcels but also gave her a place on a tailoring course. When she graduated, she received a sewing machine as a prize.

She said, “I want to open my own fashion house where people like me will be welcomed and served with dignity.”


Provision of physiotherapy to stroke victims and people with congenital handicaps is an important part of our partner’s work.

Nursing supplies, heaters, lamps and other items in the shipment all contribute to an improvement in care for the disadvantaged people of the area.


(S5516)

Bangladesh snapshot

Population: 161.4 million
Capital: Dhaka
Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar: 859,161

Bordering India and Myanmar/Burma, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated nations in the world.  For many years, people from the minority Rohingya population in Myanmar have fled violence to find safety in Bangladesh. The UN calls them one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

These refugee numbers have surged since 2017, and more than 744,000 Rohingya refugees have sought refuge in Bangladesh in the past few years alone. They are concentrated in the Cox’s Bazar District on the southeast coast, where most are reliant on aid to survive.

Source: UNHCR

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING?

The conflict has been ongoing in Cameroon between the French and English-speaking populations since 2016. Tensions and violence have forced more than 160,000 people to flee their homes, becoming refugees or internally displaced people. Our partners in Cameroon are working hard to continue to support health, education and human rights amidst the often-chaotic conditions faced by their communities.

We have shipped to these partners on three previous occasions, and all shipments have been highly strategic in their efforts to improve living conditions in their communities. Some of the impact from these past shipments include the following:

  • Increasing the exam success rate at schools, by providing improved school furniture to ten institutions
  • Better service and patient comfort levels at a rural health centre, after receiving medical supplies and equipment
  • Upgrading head office and other facilities using furniture, appliances, and office equipment, helping them administer projects more effectively and retain staff
  • More than 100 aid workers and other key stakeholders given training in use of equipment received
  • toys and educational aids which have brought joy to children.

This shipment will include:

  • Educational supplies, computers and stationery
  • clothing, footwear and babycare items
  • nursing and hygiene supplies and hospital beds
  • blankets, bedding and household accessories

Grace’s Story

Grace was violently attacked and left for dead after armed men broke into her home and she did not have the money they demanded. This left her unable to care for herself or her children. Our partners provided her with intensive counselling as well as medical help, a safe space for her family, new skills training, and a microloan to assist her in starting her own business. She has now moved from home-cooking and selling bean paste to opening her own village shop.  She has also rented a home and is able to feed and send her children to school.

 

Goods in this shipment include provisions for expansion of this work that assists many more women like Grace.


Refrigerators from Crossroads’ previous shipment were distributed among regional hospitals and are being used to store vaccines and medicines. Within a year, this provision allowed vaccination against, and effective treatment of, tropical diseases and other infections for more than 30,000 people.  Staff expressed great relief that they no longer needed to worry that medications had degraded because of unsuitable storage conditions.

Reference No: S3318C

Cameroon snapshot

Population: 26.55 million (2020)
Capital: Yaounde

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforest and savannas. Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, violent conflict is hampering development and significantly impacting children’s access to education.

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

When Florence was eight years old, her family was forced to flee Rwanda to escape the genocide. Miraculously, her brothers, sisters and mother all escaped to DR Congo, but her father, who helped the family get away, was caught before he reached the border. He was burned to death.

Florence and her family scraped by for years in DR Congo, but despite their best efforts, they didn’t have enough for basic needs like health care. After years of hard work to support the family, a new tragedy hit: Florence’s mother contracted malaria and, unable to afford treatment, passed away.

Eventually, Florence and her siblings were able to return to Rwanda, but finding consistent work was impossible, because she never had a chance to finish primary school.

Then, she met Cards from Africa, a local social enterprise, and her life was changed forever.

Not only did a job with Cards from Africa enable her to pay for food, shelter and medicine, she was able to save money and start putting her son through school, and even started her own business. “My life was hard, and I was not able to finish school,” says Florence. “But my son will not have a life like that. He will get a good education and have an exceptional life.”

Cards from Africa has helped many women on their own journeys to self-determination. Many have experienced trauma through the Rwandan genocide. All have stories of poverty and hardship. Cards for Africa trains and employs young people in Rwanda like Florence to make beautiful cards that are sold all over the world. Each card is made by hand and signed on the back by the person who made it. “We’re restoring hope to those who are barely surviving, offering well-paid employment to those who need it the most,” say Cards from
Africa.

Crossroads sells some of the cards made by CfA at our Global Handicrafts shop, online and in-store.

With thanks to CfA for Florence’s story

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

Tatiana’s story
Tatiana’s childhood years in Transnistria, Moldova, were filled with suffering. She grew up as an orphan, living in a residential school, and has had epilepsy since childhood. When she aged out of the institution, she graduated into an adult world for which she was dangerously unprepared. Like too many vulnerable women, she fell pregnant to a young man who swiftly abandoned her, and she gave birth to her first son, Vlad.

In the years that followed, Tatiana battled life as a single mother in desperate poverty. She had another baby son, this time to a violent man who beat Tatiana so badly that she suffered a stroke and spent a month in hospital. Young Vlad, at just 12 years old, found himself the man of the house. While his mother was hospitalised, he took his little brother to kindergarten each day, and shopped for groceries, all while managing to make it to his own classes at school.

Despite his courageous efforts, it was a desperate situation for the small family. When Tatiana recovered from her injuries, she looked at her home, in very bad repair and unsafe for children, and she knew she needed help. At that point, our friends in Moldova began providing the help Tatiana and her children needed, by supplying the goods to renovate their home to a livable standard, as well as helping them with emotional and other kinds of support.

Reversing the risk
Tatiana’s story is repeated over and over again among the many vulnerable people in this troubled region. In fact, truth told, they are far from the worst. In fact, the worst stories are those that we will never hear. They come from teenagers who graduate from orphanages and institutions with nowhere to live, no support network, job or any sort of training, and make easy prey for human traffickers or crime rings, absorbed into a dark world from which they may never emerge.

Heart4Orphans (H4O) began walking alongside highly vulnerable children even while still in institutions, helping find foster families, and supporting those foster families. They run programmes teaching life skills, job skills and counselling for trauma or neglect. Crossroads has shipped goods to them many, many times, goods that support their job training and employment programmes, like sewing classes or thrift stores, which give jobs to vulnerable youth.

In the past, Crossroads specially commissioned Christmas cards, to be made by young women employed with Heart4 Orphans. We were grateful for the chance to share the hope that their stories represent with our thousands of Christmas card recipients around the world, and indeed investing in literal terms in their lives through the production of the cards.

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

The sheer quantity of food waste in Hong Kong is staggering. Every day, we as a city throw away food weighing the equivalent of 300 double decker buses! It accounts for around 30% of all municipal solid waste.

At the same time, with one in four people in Hong Kong living below the poverty line, food insecurity is very real for many of our own neighbours. Crossroads loves partnering with food charities like Feeding Hong Kong and FoodLink to serve some of these most vulnerable, who have suffered even more through the economic upheavals of the pandemic. We often help match food donations with those who need them through such networks. In 2021-22, we also ran a food collection point at Crossroads Village for donations of food to Feeding HK, which was used by many in our local community to give rice, oil, canned food and more.

We’ve also benefited hugely from food donations ourselves in 2021-22. The gifts have been nothing short of astonishing! Our catering department (photo below)  is creative in using donated food like cheese, pizza bases, kale, fish, beef and even cookies and chocolate in feeding our hungry army of volunteers every day for lunch. It saves us thousands of dollars each year and we couldn’t be more grateful.

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...

In one part of Thailand, there’s a thriving, bustling Bangkok hospital. They’re so well-resourced that they can afford to update their equipment when needed, to ensure the best for their patients.

In another part of Thailand, hundreds of kilometres away, stands a little mountain village hospital so basic that the floors are bare concrete and they don’t have reliable electricity to power what should be life-saving equipment. It’s a common story in most nations: resources are concentrated in big cities and rural areas miss out.

But life in this mountain community is especially precarious. Their small tourism industry was wiped out by Covid, and now they’re seeing violent attacks as part of ethnic tensions in the area. Fishermen are scared to fish at night because of the unpredictable attacks, affecting their livelihoods, and cross-border trade has suffered too.

In 2022, the big Bangkok hospital offered 17 electric beds through our Global Hand service. We knew it was a valuable donation. So we were especially glad when a long-term partner working with refugees along the Thai-Burma border said they would be thrilled to take them. “We have really needed this for a long time, but we alone couldn’t buy them,” they wrote. “We truly appreciate it!” They made plans to get the beds to the mountain village hospital in their network, described above.

“We really want all 17 beds, but I don’t have enough money for transportation.”

Despite donor and recipient being located in the same nation, the chasm between these two worlds was still huge. Transporting the beds from Bangkok to the mountain village would cost a great deal of money. “We really want all 17 beds,” wrote our partner, “but I don’t have enough money for transportation. I’m trying to raise funds for this, but I don’t know how much I will get.” Even once they arrived in the mountains, the beds would have to navigate flood-damaged bridges and cut-off roads to reach the hospital.

Incredibly, the Bangkok hospital agreed to cover the shortfall of the transportation fees on top of the valuable beds donation, and once flood waters had receded, the beds could be safely installed at the little hospital.

Photos show them already in use by patients from the community and it’s wonderful to see patients brought a little closer to the same level of comfort as those who first used the beds at the luxury hospital in the capital.

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches and illustrative statistics. ...

read more ...

South Africa: Investing more in slum communities

WHO IS THIS SHIPMENT HELPING? In a slum on the outskirts of a South African city, a community group reached out to...

read more ...

Sierra Leone: Investing in the nation's future

After the end of Sierra Leone’s extended civil war, a group of people who wanted to help the country rebuild decided...

read more ...

Ukraine: The poor help those even poorer

Crossroads’ Ukrainian partner has, for many years, been working to bridge the gap between rapidly developing cities and rural communities that...

read more ...