Last month, important program activities took place at one of our projects in Samfya, Zambia. These trainings will greatly impact the community and lives of those who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Read on…

March has been a busy month in Samfya. In program activities, the project held two important trainings - a Loan Officer training and a Nutrition and Vegetable Production training for Home Base Care clients.

Micro Loan Program: In February the project leadership team met with Church Leaders in order to finalize the micro loan implementation manual. The training of the 22 Loan Officers took place during the second and third weeks of March. The Loan Officers were trained in a variety of topics including:

· Christian Leadership and discipling

· Root causes of poverty in the local region

· Solutions to local poverty

· Biblical view of poverty, work and investment

· The role of the micro loan officer

· Accounting and reporting

· Proposal writing

· Vegetable production

At this point in the Loan program, the Churches are opening bank accounts, and putting together their loan groups. In early April each of the 22 micro loan groups should begin to meet with the first loan disbursements going out by the end of April.

Home Based Care (HBC): One hundred twenty five Home Based Care clients took part in a four-day training that focused on nutritional management and vegetable production for HIV+ clients. Each client in the program will have the opportunity to take a $30 loan in order to start up a vegetable garden. The primary purpose of the garden is to improve household nutrition. A secondary purpose is to generate income for the family. At this point the Home Based Care clients have not been included with the larger Church-managed loan program. Once clients have been on the Home Based Care program for a year they will be referred to the Church-managed loan program. This process allows space for 125 newly diagnosed clients to receive support from the project in the following year.

Submitted by Bright Hope Staff Member, Rosey Lavine

A young girl knocks on your window
as a left over tear dries on her cheek.
She’s hungry to the point begging.
She’s desperate to the point of eating… anything
down to the dirt off the ground…

And she asks you for change.
She reaches her hand through the window.
Hoping…Hoping…

“Please sir. Please”

Do you see her?
Her clothes are torn and her face is dirty.
She holds her baby brother in her arms.
She holds him like a mother,
but she must only be 8 years old herself.
And you wonder…

Who holds her and tells her she’s beautiful,
and tells her she is loved? And tells her…
that it is going to be alright?

Is it?

She looks to you, with hope in her eyes,
hoping for more than just change,
but all she can feel in this moment
is the painful emptiness in her stomach…
Her brother quietly cries.
She’s reaching out to you.
Waiting…Waiting….

She’s desperate.
She’s weak.
And she stares into your eyes…
Staring.
Hoping.
Waiting…

And suddenly…
You’re overwhelmed.
Stunned.
Moved.
Burdened.
Weakened.
Nauseous.
Even Afraid.
But…
Everything seems so unreal at the same time
even as you sit there in the presence of…
her eyes staring straight back into yours.

So you close your eyes.
You turn your face away.
But she’s still standing there.
Waiting….Hoping…

Could this be reality?
You’re not dreaming.
It is reality…
True,
heart wrenching
reality.

Where does this guilt come from?

I sat in that car.
I couldn’t look back into her eyes any longer.
I hoped that she would leave.
I even prayed that she would leave…
Why?
So I didn’t have to deal with the pain of knowing that
life for too many…
is just like hers,

In a complete state of desperation.

It’s this reality that is so hard to embrace,
that I wonder if anyone ever wants to know that
It is out there.

So I pretend its not,
and I close my eyes,
and I turn away.
I don’t want to know,
but…

It’s still there even when I close my eyes,
and even though I’m on this side of the world now,
and she’s on the other.
It’s still real.

I can’t see her now, but it doesn’t change that…
she’s sleeping on a dirt floor tonight,
and she went to bed starving tonight
and she doesn’t know if she will find food tomorrow.

I can’t see her now, but it doesn’t change that…
she’s holding her brother as he cries himself to sleep,
and her father is sick with aids
and she’s never had the chance to go to school.

I can’t see her now, but it doesn’t change that…

she might not make it through tomorrow.

I could ignore it,
but I saw her face
and her reality.

The guilt comes from knowing that…

No one.
Anywhere.

Ever…

deserved a life like that.

Ever.

Submitted by: Amy Endler, Bright Hope Staff Member

I’ve met the indigenous leaders, viewed the pictures, listened to the stories, read the reports.  Global poverty effects the poorest people in the world who live in the most remote places of their country.  Extreme hunger is not just a stomach growling but someone who is dying from malnutrition.  The children are dressed in rags or barely dressed at all.  Young children with holes in their clothes, no shoes and no one to take care of them wander the streets at night without any one protecting them.  They hide and sleep in sewer pipes in groups hoping for a little rest.  Parents dying of AIDS leaving orphaned children behind where the eldest child (as young as 8 years old) has to take care of younger siblings.  They cry because they’re alone and miss their mom and dad.  Adults are looking for work so they can feed their family but there is none to be found.  Sick people walking for miles to get to a hut called a hospital where there are no bandages, no antiseptic, no prescriptions to relieve pain.  Only a bed where they lay and wait to die.  There are no government assisted programs, no one to help, no one they can depend on and in many cases, no one who cares.

The education I’ve received about global poverty has humbled my self-righteous indignation toward some of the poor in certain countries like India.  Now I see them as brothers and sisters who are suffering from the history of economics, caste systems and preventable diseases: 

- Malaria wipes out an entire village of hundreds of people.  We take a pill for 10 days and don’t think about it but Bright Hope sends chemically treated mosquito nets so the Malaria doesn’t spread and kill more children and grandparents who are most susceptible. 

- The poor drink water that animals urinate, defecate and die in.  We complain about the taste of our tap water and drink bottled water but Bright Hope digs wells so communities can have sustainable clean water for many years.

- Many of the global poor have no education or access to education.  We grumble when classrooms are over crowded or college tuition goes up but Bright Hope helps local communities build schools, supplies school uniforms and age appropriate textbooks. 

I’m proud to be a servant of God in this ministry.  It’s not for my glory anymore – it’s for God’s glory.  He’s the one who opened my eyes to see what He sees, feel what He feels then challenged me to do something.  To put Compassion into Action.