Give2Asia Giving Forum

The Story of Huot Ravuth: A Mother’s Smile, A Son’s Dream

A young man lives at the Center for Children’s Happiness in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and leads his fellow students in many activities throughout the day. He is only 17 years old and unlike most teenagers, he has overcome incredible obstacles and willed himself to gain an education, impact his community, and live a happy, productive life. When Give2Asia Program Officer Gillian Yeoh visited CCH in June 2009, Ravuth showed her around the center and told her his life story in fluent English. 

This impressive young man, Huot Ravuth, was born on March 8, 1992 in the Kandal province of Cambodia. As a small child, Ravuth lived in the rural countryside with his family, caring for the home, cows and chickens with his siblings. Though the youngest and smallest, he also worked in the rice field, side by side with family members and other workers, carrying heavy bunches of rice.

Healthcare through Texting

A new program in Bangladesh successfully transmits medical information and health care to remote areas
By Seema Khan, Give2Asia Finance Associate

In the past few years, mobile phones have been taking on a new purpose in the developing world. Being a relatively cheap tool for communication and increasingly accessible, mobile phones are being used to transmit medical information and deliver health care in remote areas. There are several organizations currently exploring the potential for mobile phones to expand the current reaches of health care.

One organization, FrontlineSMS:Medic, uses three major components to create a network of communication between clinics and people far from medical care. The heart of the network is a software program, FrontlineSMS, which creates a large-scale two-way text messaging network through a laptop. This software, used with a GSM (global system for mobile communication) modem and cell phones, completes the platform for communication. With the laptop and modem based at a central clinic and mobile phones distributed to community health workers (CHWs) stationed at remote villages, the system enables fast, real-time communication between remote areas and clinics.

Give2Asia launches the Pakistan Humanitarian Relief Fund

Conflict between the Pakistan military and Taliban insurgents has displaced over two million people from their homes in the Swat, Malakand, Buner and Dir regions of Pakistan. The fighting has compelled millions of Pakistani men and women to leave their homes, belongings, livelihood, and even their identities behind. These internally displaced people are in dire need of food, water, supplies, shelter, and medical care. The majority of those displaced have moved to the cities of Mardan, Nowshera, Peshawar, Charsada and Swabi. Some have relocated with relatives or host families; a majority are in camps, while others have taken refuge in different parts of the country.

This is the worst displacement of people globally since the Rwandan genocide in 1994; and the largest in Pakistan since the historic partition of the South Asian subcontinent in 1947. Day by day, the number of displaced Pakistanis continues to mount and the current funds and assistance are insufficient to meet their needs. The camps have become over-crowded, and lack proper medical facilities and sanitation.

There is something you can do.

Recipe for Relief: Chefs Guild and Sarvodaya work together to feed IDPs

Give2Asia launched our Sri Lanka Humanitarian Relief Fund on Monday, June 1 to facilitate funding to the Sarvodaya and Chefs Guild joint project to feed 10,000 Sri Lankan IDPs.

Check out our web page for the fund to read more about the project and to donate to the cause.

Below is a brief speech by Sharadha de Saram, Give2Asia program consultant, highlighting Give2Asia's work and facilitation of the partnership between Chefs Guild and Sarvodaya during the launch event.

Also, check below for pictures from the launch and links to media coverage about the relief project.

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you all for coming this afternoon to support the launch of the initiative, Helping Hands – a partnership project by the Sarvodaya Movement, one of Sri Lanka’s leading peoples participatory movement and the Chefs Guild of Lanka, an organization founded in 1988 and nominated as the 37th Member Nation of the World Association of Cooks Societies. 

The project will feed 10,000 of the Internally Displaced People living at Menik Farm in Vavuniya by providing them with three meals a day, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. This would mean preparing 30,000 meals a day. 

Success Against All Odds: Women's Education in Afghanistan

"Please teach our children."  This was the message that Dr. Sakena Yacoobi heard when she visited refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran during the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and before the rise of the Taliban.

Later in the early 1990s, when the Taliban came to power, many thought it would be safe to return to their homeland. What they found was a new regime, which distrusted the practice of teaching girls -- a practice suddenly negatively associated with the Soviet occupation. However, protected by the communities where she operated, Dr. Yacoobi safely entered Afghanistan -- and an Afghani woman herself -- and began teaching girls and training new teachers in an environment where such activities could lead to imprisonment or death.

Early this week, on Monday May 18, Give2Asia had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Yacoobi, founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning. Dr. Yacoobi is the president and executive director of this internationally recognized NGO, which grew out of her work teaching girls and training teachers during the Taliban's rule.  Today, AIL provides health care to women and children, teacher training for women, and educational support for boys and girls in Afghanistan. Despite the ongoing violence, her schools remain safe because of her respect for local traditions and partnership with the villages and towns where AIL operates.

Since 1995, AIL has been able to provide access to education and health care to an estimated 350,000 women and children every year. This NGO, still led and run by Afghan women, plays a major role in reconstructing the health and educational systems in Afghanistan today.

During her presentation to Give2Asia, Dr. Yacoobi spoke of conditions in Afghanistan when she was a little girl, watching women in Afghanistan receive poor or little medical attention, especially during stages of pregnancy. She was lucky to be able to receive a formal education in the U.S. and Europe, but she was always aware that she was one of the lucky ones.

Dr. Yacoobi is a 2006 Skoll Award recipient. This year Dr. Yacoobi received the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership for extraordinary accomplishment and bold, visionary leadership in the nonprofit sector. 

To learn more about Afghan Institute of Learning, check out their Web site at www.afghaninstituteoflearning.org. To donate to AIL, click here.