Four Things I Appreciate

Please welcome Lindsey Nobles from Food for the Hungry…

I started working for Food for the Hungry {FH} last summer. In the last year, I have gotten to see work around the world, from Bangladesh to the Dominican Republic, from Guatemala to Ethiopia. The more I travel and learn about FH the more I understand that this is an organization that does things right. FH does real development {the hard kind} and are working with people to transform lives and eradicate poverty.

FH’s work is child-focused. FH has a Child Focused Community Transformation model which means that it assesses the health of a community by looking at the health of the community’s children. While FH works throughout a community, the organization’s introduction and key interfaces is through the children.

FH believes in relationships. This is Abraham. He is an FH social worker who serves 200 children and their families in Ethiopia. He loves each one of them like they are his family. How do I know this? Because I have heard one of the kids he serves {and her mother} say Abraham was like a father and a mother to them. A father and a mother to 200 kids. Now that is an important job. But it speaks to the level of intimacy FH has with the communities it works. Abraham is not the exception. How do I know this? Well, because I have spent time with Markos, Protap, Amalia, Domingo, Carlos, Maria…just a handful of FH workers around the world who have shown me what it looks like to the care for the orphans and widows.

 

FH assesses the assets and needs of a community and implements programs to best meet their needs and maximize their strengths. Child sponsorship funding allows FH to be more holistic in its approach. Sponsorship lifts up not only sponsored children, but an entire community. In Ethiopia, FH’s Reforestation, Agriculture, Advocacy, Education, Hygiene, Malaria & HIV/AIDS Education and Prevention, and Food Security Programs, all serve the needs of children in the communities in which it works.

 

In Guatemala, FH educates families about agriculture and nutrition to combat chronic malnutrition that is inhibiting brain development and growth.

 

In Bangladesh, FH works with schools and savings groups to improve literacy, develop small businesses, strengthen their communities, learn leadership skills, discover their rights, and prevent childhood marriages.

 

And most importantly, FH empowers those in need. In the words of Darrell Vesterfelt, “The best part about the work with FH is that they are not just giving charity to people in need, they are empowering people to create lasting change in their own lives and communities. FH doesn’t give handouts. They give dignity.”

 

-Lindsey Nobles
fh.org