Here’s an update on some World Vision projects that got a great boost from funds raised in last year’s 40 Hour Famine.
East Timor: how do you turn 5kg into 500kg?
Lidia with her children and their blooming crop of corn.
Last year the 40 Hour Famine focused on one of our closest neighbours, East Timor, where around half of all children under five are malnourished.
Like us, you were probably shocked to learn that for anywhere between two and five months of the year in East Timor many children suffer through the “hungry season”, when the food runs out before the next harvest is ready and families survive by grinding up and eating sago trees.
Part of the World Vision 40 Hour Famine funds goes towards projects in East Timor that help to fight hunger and malnutrition – and its causes. Thanks to Aussies like you raising funds, people like Lidia are growing more crops and learning new ways to make money, so their children can have more to eat and grow up healthier.
Lidia and her husband Simao live in East Timor with their five children. Lidia is part of a group of people that World Vision helps with seeds, agriculture, buffalo breeding, and savings and loans. In October last year, Lidia’s group got help in the form of 5kg of vegetable seeds to plant on a block of land, along with training on how best to sow the seeds and tend to the plants. The result was a 500kg crop of vegetables!
Lidia’s farming group stored plenty of seeds from their crop and used them to plant even more vegetables the next season.
Lidia fills her land with vegetables like mustard, tomatoes, eggplant and lettuce, because she knows that if her children are eating a variety of vegetables they’ll grow up healthy and avoid being malnourished.
“My children love the plants that we grow. I think that is good because they can get healthy and diligent [and] go to school,” says Lidia with pride. “We hope World Vision always accompanies us.”
But it’s not all about World Vision. Lidia’s success is because of YOU! People like you who did the 40 Hour Famine last year are helping so much to fight hunger in East Timor – so thank you.
Cambodia: helping children who’ve lost their parents
For families living in poverty in Cambodia, getting enough food can be hard. But for children who’ve lost one or both parents, it’s even tougher.
Vibol lost both his parents and his younger brother, and now it’s just him and his elderly grandma living together in their little house. “I miss them so much,” Vibol says. His grandma couldn’t earn enough money and for a while they were going hungry. “There was not enough rice to cook,” he says.
But a World Vision project helping children like him – and funded by people like you doing the 40 Hour Famine – has helped bring relief to Vibol. The project ensures that he’s got enough food, as well as school materials so he can stay in school.
“I can now cook for my grandson,” says Vibol’s grandma. “We will never forget every good act of World Vision staff whose members come and visit and support my family regularly.”
“My grandson now looks fresher and I hope he will become a teacher as his dream,” she says.