Village of Bandali Bigha,
27 miles and 2½ hours from Patna, Bihar, India
February 12, 2008
My name is Christopher Hest, and I head up the external affairs team at Freedom from Hunger. I am traveling in India with colleagues to step into one of our new programs, Reach, in deeply poor rural areas of West Bengal and Bihar. Our interactions with villagers have been profound, and I find myself feeling sad, frustrated, and angry that life for so many is so staggeringly difficult. The most enduring emotion, however, has been hopefulness, because in addition to the warmth and pure grace of these impoverished women I have been moved by Reach’s Service Center Trainers. Read more …
As the Vice President of Program Services here at Freedom from Hunger, I would like to thank Daniel for contributing to Freedom from Hunger Day all the way from Ghana. I hope you were able to engage with him and learn more about our programs. As shown by our video, Freedom from Hunger’s programs are making a difference in the lives of women facing the many challenges of poverty, hunger and ill-health. These women’s determination to overcome these odds has always inspired me. I would love to hear from you, too. Let us know what you think of our work in Ghana and West Africa.
Hello, this is Sean Kline, Director of Reach Global. More than 300 million people in India still live in absolute poverty, a figure that exceeds all of the poor in Africa and Latin America, combined. This statistic can be overwhelming, but it is such a powerful one we consider it a call to action. Alay shared some of our plans with you about our work in the regions of India with the most severe poverty–east and northeast India; what else would you like to know about our work in India? What do you think about those numbers?