“The sixteen building central cluster at Lallubhai Compound in Mankhurd rises ominously, each building separated by a space that could park only a single car. Dominos in a hellish mass of concrete, only 4 buildings have access to direct sunlight on one side each. Housed in these rows of buildings are slum dwellers from all over Mumbai City. Welcome to Mumbai’s slum resettlement housing projects.

No one moves to Lallubhai compound because they choose to, they move forced in the name of “slum rehabilitation.” Their homes have been demolished under the claw of a bulldozer. A visit to Mankhurd teaches you rehabilitation means for very little here and all you will find is a concrete slum - one of far more dangerous social ramifications.” -Akshay Mahajan

I stumbled upon Akshay’s flickr stream this morning as I was searching “india slum” on Flickr’s creative commons. I wanted to highlight the poverty that exists in India. The daily reality for the hundreds of millions trapped in urban slums is heartbreaking. It’s amazing that their existence is not completely void of joy and smiles are not uncommon. However, that’s probably what makes it sad, that these beautiful people are forced to make their memories amidst the garbage piles, raw sewage, drugs, violence and despair. Akshay provides a unique look inside their lives, check out more of Akshay’s flickr sets or visit his website.

This October Bright Hope is hosting its biennial Poverty Summit. Sign up for October 6 to hear India Partnership Developer, James Das, talk about the exciting partnerships we’re building relationships with there. It will be an encouraging evening as you discover the methods that we see working to lift families out of extreme poverty. (Plus there’ll be some exotic foods to try!)

Sometimes I lay in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling, on my comfortable bed and think of the family living under the bridge. The thoughts slowly surface when I visit the four corners of my ceiling. It’s a big room. I have it all to myself. What does it feel like to come home to a four foot high space under a bridge? Does the father feel like a good provider? How does the mother make it feel like home?

It’s hard to grasp global poverty. What does it mean that 1,000,000,000 people live on less than $1 a day? What does it feel like to grow up in an urban slum? What does home look like?

In 2005 Jonas Bendiksen set out on a two year journey to document the life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela. He returned and set about sharing his story. Along with a book and museum exhibition in D.C. he published a website called theplaceswelive.com.

I remember seeing it for the first time. It gripped my heart and stirred my soul, birthing a deep desire for justice. I sat and listened to the families tell their stories and panned around their home in disbelief. How could anyone live like this?

Glimpses of reality like this are why I’m involved with Bright Hope. The problem is enormous but when I remember the families I know it matters to them. Check it out for yourself.

Bright Hope would like give a big round of applause to Makila! Who said you had to be old to make a difference? This weekend 5th grader, Makila Rivera, decided she was going to do something for those living on less than $1 a day.

Earlier this summer Makila filled Med Packs at Bright Hope for children in Haiti. She enjoyed helping so much she decided she wanted to do more. Makila went with her mom to Photo’s Hotdogs in Palatine. She explained how she wanted to set up a hotdog and lemonade stand to raise money to help the extreme poor. They were more than happy to help and donated all the hot dogs and buns she needed! They let her use their mobile Vienna Beef Hot Dog stand and donated a gift package which Makila used for a raffle.

Everyone was getting involved. Makila’s mom works at a graphics company and when her boss heard about the event he decided he would make posters for Makila to post around the neighborhood.

Initiative like Makila’s gets us very excited. One person can make a big difference for families who live on less than $1 a day. The hotdog sale was such a success that Makila is going to do it again next week. If you’d like to show your support contact Meredith at Meredith.Hodge@BrightHope.org for the address and come eat a hot dog for the extreme poor! For more ideas about how you can get involved check out our Organic Fundraising Page.

What does $1,000,000 worth of medical supplies look like? According to volunteer and project specialist Henry Chu, it looks like Hope. It was Henry who fostered a strategic partnership between Bright Hope and Giving Children Hope.

Uniquely, GCHope resources local clinics, hospitals and orphanages doing their best to serve in areas of extreme poverty. In many of these places, as is the case in Samfya, Zambia, the home of Bright Hope partner, Samfya Community of Care Providers (SCCP), the local hospital is dangerously under-resourced. This summer, Samfya was hit with a large outbreak of malaria and measles that threatened lives as the hospital overflowed with patients.

Making matters worse, the Zambian government is never able to adequately supply the hospital with medicine. Samfya quickly ran out of the drugs needed to fight infection and ward off disease. The health workers felt hopeless against the outbreak.

It was the GCHope medical shipment that saved the day! Because of the partnership, Bright Hope was able to purchase $1,000,000 worth of invaluable medicines that saved lives. On August 8, 2010 this shipments arrived in Samfya and immediately went to work in the hospital. The hospital sends their great thanks to those who donated and made it possible for Bright Hope to purchase the medical shipment.

This year, Bright Hope has been able to purchase three of these medical shipments from GCHope. This partnership has powerfully impacted lives in Haiti and Zambia. We continue to search for more ways to partner together and bring Hope to those living on less than $1 a day.

Bright Hope has found a new friend. I’d like you to meet Water4. They’re an awesome organization with the mission to bring clean water to the extreme poor. Did you know 200 children die every minute from water-borne diseases? But with a $20 copyright-free pump that can be made in any country and hand drilling technology Water4 is beginning to change that statistic.

With kindred hearts for the extreme poor, Bright Hope and Water4 became quick friends and quickly found ways to work together. In Zambia, Samfya Community of Care Providers (SCCP) is using the technology to create jobs, drill wells and install pumps that will water the kitchen gardens being planted with Bright Hope’s micro loan. In Haiti, the $20 pump will be installed in hundreds of wells that were destroyed by the earthquake. Working together we are accomplishing powerful acts of love.

We’re always excited to connect with others working on behalf of the extreme poor. We are certain, day by day, we are making an impact in the lives of those living on less than $1 a day.

If not for casual Fridays, Tuesday would be the best day of the week. It simply comes down to the fact that we’ve got some really cool people working at Bright Hope. And every Tuesday we all have the pleasure of gathering round the lunch tables and catching up with each other.

It’s an hour to clear our heads, forget the spread sheets and deadlines and enjoy our small band of brothers fighting for people living on less than $1 a day. Joy takes the weekly vote for takeout. Chipotle was the front runner until an off handed comment about Qdoba quickly swayed party lines and took the election by a landslide.

When the food arrives and the all call goes out we drop what we’re doing to gather around the lunch table. It’s a great way to stay connected. We talk about all sorts of stuff: John’s sky diving plans for next Monday, Meredith cringed as Ted shared her water park horror story and Craig and Mike (aka “W”) compared trips to the movies. It’s how we stay connected, it’s why we’re more than co-workers, we’re family. We even have a crazy Aunt Heather, she’s the one giving the camera the evil eye. (Just kidding).

Get to know us a little more, check out our staff bio page.

Located in the heart of one of Santiago’s poorest communities our partner, Fuente de Vida Para Las Naciones (Foundation of Life for the Nations) is a light in the darkness. They have seen the love of Jesus heal the wounds of a suicidal father, break drug and alcohol addictions, restore marriages and reunite families.

The church, with a new outreach idea, came to Bright Hope for help. They were very excited and explained their vision for a community center. It would be a safe place where the abandon and hopeless could find love, acceptance and even a hot meal.  They would bring in the elderly, the teenage alcoholics and the drug addicts. They wanted to provide classes, skills training and entertainment. They wanted to provide an alternative, a place of warmth and unconditional love. They wanted to be the manifestation of Jesus’ love.

Today, we’re very happy to report the community center is receiving its final touches. Their dream is becoming reality! Bright Hope is proud to support their outreach to the poor and outcast. We also just heard their church has doubled in size since the earthquake. They truly are shining the light of Jesus. It’s an undeniable love! We’re proud to call Fuente de Vida our partner, for more information check out their profile.

Daiwik and Anshi had been huddled in the corner of their one room shack for two days. The downpour was unrelenting, Cyclone Laila was destroying everything.  Anshi worried about her family, how was she going to feed her five children after they lost everything? But in the middle of her despair she remembered a Bible verse she had learned in sewing class at Emmanuel Handicrafts.

She started to repeat the verse aloud, over and over, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Her husband, Daiwik, got angry as he heard her, “Where is the God you are speaking to? He is the one making this attack by cyclone!”

But Anshi continued to have faith and prayed that God would have mercy. Several hours later the rains began to slow and the winds calmed to a gentle breeze. As Daiwik and Anshi stepped out of their house they saw an amazing site. All around them there was devastation and many of their neighbors’ houses were completely flat. Their house was far better off than most.

Anshi told her husband that she wanted to believe in this God that protected them. She ran to the local Christian family and told them her story. Her husband could not deny the goodness God had shown his family and prayed to know God as well. Now their whole family has a new relationship with Jesus!

With the help of Bright Hope, our partner, Emmanuel Handicrafts has been able to bring relief to this cyclone ravished area. With encouragement, counseling, with food and medicine, with prayer meetings and Bible studies Emmanuel Handicrafts has been able to minister very powerfully to their community.

13 people have seen the love of Jesus displayed through their cyclone relief efforts and began their personal relationship with Jesus. For more information about the exciting work of Emmanuel Handicrafts with the extreme poor click here.

In Zambia, Samfya Community of Care Providers (SCCP) sponsors over 807 community orphans to attend local schools. Unfortunately, we have quickly realized that attending school does not mean that the students are actually learning! Even worse, SCCP sponsored students typically perform lower than the already poor provincial standard.

But these results don’t surprise us when we think of all the obstacles these children have to overcome. The weight of feeling alone, the drag of poverty against every concerted effort, the lack of quality nutrition and being stuck in a school system characterized by rote memorization all stack up to make the hurdle of success seem insurmountable.

Enter our heroines, Bright Hope Interns, Courtney O’Connell and Heather Cogswell. Beginning in January they worked with SCCP and our Partnership Developers, Mark and Carmen Brubacher, to craft an after school literacy program for SCCP sponsored students in grades 1-5. The program meets two afternoons a week and has started with 15-20 students. Courtney explained the benefits of a small class size, “It is wonderful to get to know these students and give them one-on-one attention, in a culture where children simply get pushed to the side.”

“One challenge is to try to get the students to think for themselves and to be creative. The teaching method in the schools is to simply copy whatever the teacher has put on the board. So, when we ask students to come up with their own answers, they’re just silent!” explains Heather.

The intention of this program is to use creative methods to help improve the students’ knowledge, understanding, and usage of the English language. The students have been using crafts and games to build their phonetic skills. This is essential as all standardized testing is done in English. SCCP hopes these students will have greater success in future years of schooling.

On May 21, the worst storm Andhra Pradesh has seen in14 years slammed into in southeastern coast of India. 60-80 mph winds, heavy rains and 9 foot tidal waves forced the evacuation of more than 50,000 people from coastal and low-lying villages. 23 people have been confirmed dead and another 55 fisherman are missing.

Andhra Pradesh is home to one of Bright Hope’s job creation programs, Emmanuel Handicrafts. The women of Emmanuel Handicrafts make lace products, which they are able to sell at local markets to help offset the devastating conditions of local poverty.

Bright Hope’s Partnership Developer, James Das, was sent $5000 to bring immediate relief to the disaster zone. We’d like to send more, if you can help please donate here.