Nearly 30 years ago, a small group of women came together with the vision of empowering local women and children in poverty through education, allowing them to move out of dire poverty into stable and self-sufficient lifestyles. Since then, they have established two primary schools, a vocational school, agricultural training and a micro-credit scheme for rural women.
Then, at the end of 2016, regional conflicts overflowed and the area in which this group was working became a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of people (mostly women and children) who had lost everything. Suddenly all our partner’s programmes needed to expand massively. Crossroads has previously sent two shipments to this group, and as the needs continue to grow, we are now preparing a third container load.
This shipment will include a great deal of school furniture, computers, small electrical appliances such as irons and food blenders (that will assist women in starting small businesses), nursing supplies, stationery, bedding, clothes and kitchen wares for distribution among newly arrived displaced people, and of course toys to brighten children’s lives!
This internally displaced family of nine people had been sleeping on the floor for more than a year when a previous Crossroads shipment arrived and they received beds, mattresses and warm blankets.
Our partners train facilitators for the “Radio Education” service that provides for continuing literacy and numeracy classes for some 20,000 internally displaced children. Many groups like this one meet in informal, outdoor settings.
One of the primary schools set up by our partners specifically to cater for orphans and vulnerable children. More than 15,000 children who would not have had any other opportunity to attend school have graduated in the 22 years since the school was established.
