World Vision News Magazine

World Vision Update Child protection $6.92 million to protect the world’s most vulnerable children through programs reaching over 300,000 people.

Economic development

Transforming 2 million lives in two years Major supporters are partnering with us in a bold new initiative: transforming the lives of over 2 million people in the next two years.

With a goal of $70 million, the One Vision campaign aims to fund over 50 priority projects across the world’s six most critical areas of need.

So far, generous supporters have donated over $1.5 million.

Thank you for sharing in this life-changing vision!

You got fit to change children’s lives In the first 30 days of 2015, 709 of you took on World Vision’s 30for30 Fitness Challenge to fundraise for maternal and child health, with a particular focus on helping babies survive their first 30 days.

$11.38 million to create opportunities for over 240,000 people through small business loans, savings groups and access to markets.

You did anything from daily bike-riding, yoga or swimming to completing a 300km triathlon by the month’s end.

Together you’ve raised over $140,000, which will provide more than 120,000 women with access to maternal, newborn and child health services.

Education

Sovann, in Cambodia, is one of many children getting a better start in life thanks to these essential services.

$18.8 million to help over 26,000 children gain skills to lift themselves out of poverty.

Food $10.7 million to ensure over 1 million people are well nourished.

Health $16 million to provide over 360,000 people with healthcare and reduce deaths from preventable diseases.

Water $6.2 million to provide over 140,000 people with access to clean water.

For more information, call 1300 303 401 to speak to one of our Relationship Managers or visit worldvision.com.au/onevision

2014-2015

“I want to see my sons be healthy and have enough nutrition – just like other children,” she says.

With your support, more children like Sovann will grow up healthy and strong. Thank you to everyone who put in the hard yards or supported friends or family for this great cause!

Photo: World Vision

He was born a healthy 3.2kg and was growing well until his mother, Sophors, became pregnant and stopped breastfeeding him.

She simply didn’t have access to the knowledge and skills needed to provide the best nutrition. “Sovann began to lose weight from about 12 months old,” she says.

Luckily, the family was introduced to World Vision’s Together for Child Health Project. Sovann participated in a program to reduce malnutrition in babies and toddlers, gaining 200g in just 15 days.

Sophor’s son Sovann gained 200g in just 15 days through a program to reduce malnutrition in babies and toddlers.

Sophors also learnt about proper breastfeeding, personal hygiene, how to prevent and treat diarrhoea, and nutritious food for children and pregnant women.

Armed with this knowledge, she’s determined to feed her children meals that include the three key food groups.

Sovann’s now eating well, and enjoying supplementary foods like banana. He also loves vegetables, so Sophors often cooks him vegetable soup.

Last Christmas, generous Aussies like you raised over $4.3 million by making World Vision Gifts part of your celebrations. Chickens and eggs, school pencils and fast-growing seeds were your most popular choices.

Your gifts double the joy of giving – first bringing a smile to friends and family, then to children and their families living in poverty.

For example, the gift of a goat represents support for activities that help struggling families access food and income, while the gift of a newborn baby kit helps with healthcare for mums and babies.

Precious gifts: World Vision Gifts can help babies like four-month-old Precious, shown here getting weighed at her local health clinic in Zambia.

Photo: Alexander Whittle/World Vision

Thank you for sharing your Christmas with communities in need around the world. Next time you’re looking for a meaningful gift – for any occasion – remember our range at worldvision.com.au/gifts

Nepal Earthquake You’ve donated over $6 million, enabling us to distribute and send urgent relief to over 28,000 people.

You’re also helping us to provide Child Friendly Spaces and protection for children who’ve lost or become separated from their parents.

So far, this has included food for over 7,600 families; thousands of tarps, roofing sheets, blankets, kitchen sets and mosquito nets; and hundreds of hygiene kits, tents and shelter toolkits.

Syria Refugee Crisis

With your support we’ve also established 12 Child Friendly Spaces, where children have a safe space to play following the distress of the quake.

These have included food, clean water and sanitation, warm winter clothing, healthcare for children, and clean camp environments.

Where do World Vision funds go?

Cyclone Pam

Our Financial Statements for 2014 can be viewed at worldvision.com.au/annualreports

Since the cyclone devastated Vanuatu in March, your donations of over $1.4 million have helped more than 20,000 people.

Since the crisis began in 2011, you’ve helped us reach more than 1.8 million people in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Education transforms children’s lives. This is one of six priority areas you can target through our One Vision campaign. Photo: Jon Warren/World Vision

Thank you for giving the best gifts ever!

Thank you for coming through in a year of crises

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Join the conversation. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/WorldVisionAustralia and Twitter @worldvisionaus For more information please visit worldvision.com.au or call 13 32 40 AC F I D World Vision Australia is a member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and is a signatory to the ACFID Code of Conduct. The Code requires members to meet high standards of corporate governance, public accountability and financial management.

This newsletter includes references to organisations, products and initiatives which are not official endorsements by World Vision Australia.

The initial relief phase has included distributions of food for over 8,000 people; thousands of tarps, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, blankets and jerry cans; hundreds of toolkits; and hospital birthing kits.

West Africa Ebola Outbreak You’ve given over $400,000 in the past year, enabling us to send a planeload containing 5 million items of protective equipment and clothing; and a 2.6 tonne shipment of patient care equipment, syringes and surgical garments (such as masks and scrubs).

Over the past year, with your contributions of over $280,000, we’ve assisted 300,000 Syrians and their host communities with desperately-needed essentials.

South Sudan Crisis You’ve given over $410,000 in the last year to help children and families affected by violence, displacement and a looming food crisis.

Your support is providing emergency food relief, including food programs for malnourished children in partnership with the World Food Programme; water and sanitation, to help prevent the spread of disease; mosquito nets, plastic sheets, blankets and cooking pots; and safe learning and play environments for children and adolescents.

You’re helping to provide emergency shelter for thousands of Nepalese families whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. Photo: David Munoz/World Vision

Through Child Rescue, World Vision establishes and trains child protection committees to identify and follow-up on cases of child neglect and abuse.

Thanks to you, Cynthia can smile again Not long ago, eight-year-old Cynthia was in a dark place: abused and neglected by members of her own family.

Thankfully, donors like you helped to provide her with the support she needed through a Child Rescue project in her Rwandan community.

When Cynthia’s dad remarried, she and her sister began to suffer mistreatment at the hands of their new stepmother.

World Vision has installed a borehole in Dorcas’s village, and volunteers are teaching the community about hygiene and sanitation.

Cynthia’s teacher became concerned about her state of mind and contacted the local child protection committee.

Through Child Rescue, World Vision establishes and trains child protection committees to identify and follow-up on cases of child neglect and abuse.

Florence, a compassionate committee member, went to check on Cynthia at home. She found the little girl hiding in the corner of a room, about to attempt self-harm.

As well as helping millions of people to overcome poverty, Australia’s aid program builds stronger trading partners and a more secure region.

But despite representing only 0.9 percent of total government expenditure, it’s been cut time and again.

On budget night this year, the Australian Government confirmed cuts of $1 billion. This brings Australian aid down to just 25 cents in every $100 of national income.

Which regions are affected?

• Cuts of 40 percent apply across Asia, including Indonesia, with the exceptions of Nepal, Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

• Cuts of a staggering 70 percent apply to Africa, one of the regions of greatest need. This comes on top of already significant cuts last year.

• Aid in the Pacific was largely protected.

To have your say about the budget and discover some of the consequences, visit isthebudgetfair.com

Thanks to supporters like you, nine-year-old Dorcas now has access to one of life’s most basic essentials.

“Me and my sister, we had to fetch water … cook food which we wouldn’t [be allowed to] eat and then we would have to go to school without food. Some days she would even beat us,” Cynthia said.

Florence comforted her and listened to her story.

Then she arranged for Cynthia’s father to discuss the situation with the committee and local authorities.

After several meetings, Cynthia’s father and stepmother acknowledged the harm they were causing and committed to providing the girls with proper care and attention.

Cynthia is now doing well, smiling and laughing and enjoying life again.

“My stepmother no longer mistreats me. I go to school after I have eaten. But what I am most happy about is my father listens to me and spends some time with me now,” Cynthia says.

Florence still visits the family weekly to ensure Cynthia’s parents are keeping their promise. Behaviour change takes time, but learning about children’s rights has changed their attitude.

“The stepmother has accepted the child, and the father understands now that he has to take care of his daughter and show her that he cares,” Florence says. “The family have learned to live peacefully together.”

In the past year, supporters like you have raised over $5.3 million to help protect vulnerable children like Cynthia around the world.

Photo: Diane Igirimbabazi/World Vision

It’s hard to imagine having to drink from a filthy open hole where animals drink, bathe, defecate, and even die.

“I have not had diarrhoea since the new borehole,” Dorcas happily reports.

But until recently, this was the only option for Dorcas – and 86 households in her village in Zambia. When a dog drowned in the waterhole, the villagers didn’t know until its fur floated to the surface.

She’s healthy and back in school, with an ambition to become a teacher one day. “I like school. I love learning,” she says.

“I don’t like this water at all,” Dorcas said at the time.

She’s a smart, determined girl, but her future looked bleak. To help her grandmother Mera, she had to fetch water from the disgusting source four times a day. She was constantly sick with diarrhoea and missing school.

Thankfully, those days are over. World Vision has installed a borehole in Dorcas’s village, and volunteers are teaching the community about hygiene and sanitation.

“Whenever I would do something wrong she would tell me to repeat several times that she was not my mother.

That would hurt me so much … My father did not care.

When I told him about how we were mistreated he would not believe me. Nobody loved me.”

What the 2015 budget means for aid

Dorcas’s life turns around

Mera always knew Dorcas was full of potential, and now it’s possible for her to fulfil it. When clean water is within reach, so is a brighter future.

This year, generous supporters like you donated over $500,000 to help children like Dorcas around the world.

The funds will help provide them with access to basics like clean water and sanitation, healthcare and education, so they too can grow and learn and break the cycle of poverty.

Photo: Jon Warren/World Vision

You’re taking action and creating change You spoke out against child labour Worldwide, there are 168 million child labourers. When the G20 met in Brisbane last November, you put child labour on the agenda by demonstrating how it hinders growth and development.

• Hundreds of you wrote to your local MPs. • You met with Senators and MPs, who then spoke out in Parliament.

• This led to a Motion in the Senate, encouraging G20 Employment Ministers to discuss eliminating child labour.

For the first time ever, they agreed to take a strong stand against forced and child labour. Thank you for influencing the world’s most powerful leaders to protect the world’s most vulnerable children!

Through Australian Aid, every Australian helps the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people to build a better future.

As a sponsored child, Djimhoungar progressed through school and eventually became a teacher. Today, he’s one of the best teachers in his school and has twice been appointed headmaster.

But, with the biggest ever cut to aid, the 2015 Federal Budget has made us the least generous we’ve ever been.

World Vision is leading the Campaign for Australian Aid, for all Australians who believe we can and should do more.

55 aid and development organisations have united for the cause.

• Over 60,000 of you have joined the campaign.

• Over 15,000 of you have written to the Treasurer and your local MP, protesting the cuts before and after budget night.

Inspired by his own experience, he further supports local kids as a supervisor for the child sponsorship program.

“I am now watching over 148 sponsored children in my community,” he says. “I help [the children] reading mails they receive from their sponsors, following their health and education progress.”

Djasnodji is very proud. “I am happy to see him working with World Vision in the same capacity like I did for him some years back,” he says. “That could never happen if he was not sponsored.”

Join Australia’s largest movement to end extreme poverty at australianaid.org

The sponsored child who became the school headmaster

You’re shopping more ethically Your morning coffees, afternoon cuppas, chocolate indulgences … these are just some of the everyday items that may be tainted by exploitation. But the good news is it’s easier than you think to shop ethically!

• 2,000 of you have subscribed to our Good Chocolate Guide, showing you where to buy chocolate free from forced, child and trafficked labour.

• You have joined over 13,000 others petitioning Coles and Woolies to double their stocks of ethically certified products.

For more ways to use your purchasing power for good, visit worldvision.com.au/buyethical

“We selected Djimhoungar for the child sponsorship program in 1990 because he is an orphan,” explains Djasnodji, who worked for the program.

You’re for Australian Aid

Djimhoungar was born in 1978 in a small community in Chad. Just one year later, the country became unstable due to civil unrest. Seeking safety, teachers abandoned their schools. Most of them were closed.

By advocating on behalf of vulnerable children, you help to make the world a fairer place. Photo: Annila Harris/World Vision

It wasn’t until a decade later that Djimhoungar finally attended school for the first time. But his uncle, who looked after Djimhoungar after he became orphaned, couldn’t afford to keep him there. It’s likely he soon would’ve stopped going – if it wasn’t for child sponsorship.

Djimhoungar agrees: “Many young men like me have preferred to live in the cities but I have chosen to help my community … I am sure I would not have thought of that if I had not been trained by World Vision or sponsored to be able to continue to go to school.”

But Djimhoungar’s journey hasn’t stopped there. Two years ago, he was selected from among the teachers in his community to study for an official teaching degree. He’s set to graduate as a fully qualified teacher next year.

“World Vision has changed life in our community and I am one of the life proofs of this improvement,” Djimhoungar says.

To learn more about child sponsorship, visit worldvision.com.au/howsponsorshipworks Djimhoungar takes great pride in passing the gift of education on to children in his community. Photo: Djimte/World Vision