AMERICAN GIVING | Strengthening communities through generosity
14 February 2008
Catholic Giving Helps Improve Lives Around the World
Annual Lenten appeal seeks small sacrifices from community to aid others
Washington -- Felipa Perez lives in rural Guatemala, where in October 2005 her village was struck by a hurricane, damaging the community's water system. The villagers no longer had a source of clean water and did not have the resources to rebuild the system.
Perez's family and neighbors joined to write a letter to Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and its Vatican City-based partner Caritas Internationalis, asking for help to rebuild. The organizations agreed and -- after meeting with the community -- provided aid to begin the rebuilding, with villagers contributing the labor.
Now, the village again has clean water. Perez says the assistance "has helped improve our health and enabled us to prevent disease."
This story is just one example of how CRS -- supported by the Catholic community in the United States -- helps people around the world improve their lives.
During Lent, the religious period before Easter, many Catholics join in CRS' "Operation Rice Bowl" project, daily collecting money they would otherwise spend for nonessentials and placing the donations in bowls in their homes. At the end of Lent, they take their donations to their local churches, from where their contributions are passed on to CRS.
Operation Rice Bowl began in 1975 in Pennsylvania as a response to a drought in the African Sahel. Since then, the Lenten program has spread across America and has raised more than $160 million to fund development projects that improve peoples' ability to access food, according to CRS.
Seventy-five percent of Operation Rice Bowl donations help fund food security projects in developing countries. The other 25 percent is used for hunger and poverty alleviation projects in America.
In Haiti, farmer Francois Livert joined an agricultural development program sponsored by CRS to learn how to grow crops better, care for livestock and build structures that protect his small plot from erosion.
With his new knowledge, he was able to increase his production and income so he could buy more livestock and concrete for improvements to his family's house.
"Pailash," a teenager in Kolkata, India, has polio. He is an orphan who had survived on the streets selling newspapers. He feared robbery as he slept at night.
Then a friend told him about a CRS-supported school. There he found a safe place to call home, where he now receives meals every day and enjoys learning math. He looks forward to learning a trade eventually so he can support himself.
"Angeline," lives with HIV in Cameroon. Her husband also had HIV and died. "Angeline" was getting sick often but says she was still in denial.
With the encouragement of a doctor, "Angeline" began taking anti-retroviral drugs and joined a CRS-supported association of people living with HIV.
The association brings people with HIV together so they can form a strong social support system, helps people learn about the importance of healthy eating and provides training for revenue-generating activities so patients can continue to support their families.
CRS also supports microfinance projects that encourage the growth of small businesses and mother-and-child health projects providing basic health and nutrition services.
