For us in Colombia, the first week of September marked the completion of one of the longest quarantines in the world. Since March of this year, as in other parts of the world, the entire country went into a strict lock down due to COVID-19. It was only a few days later that families living in impoverished areas began facing struggles to put food on the table. Red pieces of cloth tied to doors and windows became a national sign that hunger had hit the homes of thousands. In only six months, Colombia lost 10 years of progress. Poverty
Until now, 14.085 unique sponsors have received a message from their sponsor child. That really is worth a huge compliment to you, our partner organisation! The COVID-19 pandemic has made our work more difficult, but nevertheless you succeeded in sending 14.876 greeting letters, 7.291 progress reports and 3376 thank you letters to the sponsors. Amazing! New initiatives Digitized letters of sponsor children During lockdown, sending written letters was not always an option. This speeded up our ambition to digitize the sponsorship program. As a result, we started sending scanned copies of Greeting letters and Thank You letters. The picture
The last 3 weeks Woord en Daad has been working on program plans for 2021. Within the Sponsorship Program we’ve set some strategic goals we want to reach by the end of 2021. In this article you will read more about this as well as our growth ambition. We can’t reach our goals without your input, so please read further! Focal policy themes The coming 5 years all programs of Woord en Daad will work towards 3 policy themes: Reaching the unreached Value-based systemic change Pro-poor climate resilience Over the coming years, these themes will be addressed in all
This year, we are releasing ChildConnect: the app for reducing paperwork, speeding up the process of information exchange between sponsor child and sponsor and for improving the data quality. The app will be connected to WDCAP and allows digital registering of new sponsor children, but also updating existing information is possible. How are we rolling this app out to all partner organisations? Partners and users We found it crucial to get some future users involved as early as possible. Therefore we sought contact with three partners from different parts of the world to join us in the project. They
You are invited to join our sponsorship webinar On Tuesday September 22 and Monday September 28 we will organise a webinar to talk you through all the recent ins and outs of our sponsorship program. But above all, by bringing together our worldwide partners, we hope you get inspired! Will you join? In the last few months we have been working on several things. I’m sure you’ve noticed this, because it also means a different way of working for you. We digitized sending the ‘Thank you’ letters to our sponsors, we have been developing and trying out the Child Connect app
“We realized that we live a relatively wealthy life. However, for a lot of children it is not obvious that they can go to school and hear about the Word of God,” Corina explains. She took a look at the website of Woord en Daad and is now sponsor of Gay Seogo, a 9-year-old from Burkina Faso. Corina, married to Henri and mother of Job (4) and Hannah (1,5), has a picture of Gay. “We told our children where he lives and why we support him. Every night we pray for him. Our son also prays for Gay when
Back to school? If it is up to Fabian Garza, he will be going back to school as soon as possible! The 11-year-old boy from Guatemala attends grade 5, but is now following education at home. Not only him, but also his mother is learning new things. “The past months have been tough, but at the same time I have learned a lot. I now know how to use technology to take classes online.” Right now, 1.5 billion children and youngsters worldwide are unable to go to school because they have no online learning resources. Fortunately, this does not
Today we’re publishing our annual report for 2019. We are happy to share it with you. The theme of our annual report is “Building”. In 2019, Woord en Daad saw the revenues from our loyal supporters grow. Director-director Rina Molenaar: “We build our programs on the strong foundation of a committed support base and a solid partner network. Even in the uncertain times of the corona crisis, that foundation is vital.” We would like to tell you the story of the people who build a future through these programs in the video below. Thank you for your commitment to
The corona crisis affects all of us. People here in the Netherlands, but also farmers, families and entrepreneurs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. From all corners of the world we are getting updates about a growing number of people infected with Covid-19, governmental measures and lockdowns. Since we know first-hand about the lack of clean drinking water, hygiene and health care in many of the countries we work in, we are greatly worried. How to take care of good hygiene without clean water? How to have enough to eat when there is no work tomorrow? How to protect
During the “Week of Creation” several events had been organized to debate about living sustainable lives. I was going to have a talk with students in the morning and at night a debate was planned with several keynote speakers and entrepreneurs. However, on Thursday our Prime Minister held a press conference and all meetings were canceled. That afternoon many decisions had to be made. At Woord en Daad all events and fundraising activities had to be cancelled. Our fast moving, dynamic country came to a screaming halt. The virus that is moving around the world also brought our country
With a solid stick, Sorie Koroma bashes on what looks like a pile of dried grass. While Sorie continues to bash the dry blades, two women kneel at the edge of the pile. They set aside the dry grass and throw some hands of rice grains in a big thatched bowl. The rice harvest is in full swing, these are busy weeks for Sorie, his wife Mamusu and his mother Yeabu. The harvest time should be a period of happiness, but for the Koroma family the joy is overshadowed by worries. The 35-year old rice farmer lives in Mecca,
What do we respond to? The scope of our international work field is full of trends that increase pressure on the livelihoods of our target groups in the global South. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the world and as many expect, a phase of slowing economic growth and recession is ahead of us. The global population is growing from 7.7 to 8.8 billion people in 2030, We are driven by Hope As Woord en Daad we are hopeful, and not primarily because we see a number of opportunities among the worrying trends. Our deep personal and organizational