Mormon Humanitarian Aid Summary 2010

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church), contributed to disaster relief in 58 countries during 2010.  The Welfare Services Emergency Response Report shows that the LDS Church responded to 119 disasters and provided millions of dollars in emergency aid.

Disasters worldwide claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 people in 2010, making it the deadliest year in the last 25.  There were about 350 natural disasters.  Two hundred million people were affected, and disasters caused about $100 billion worth of damage. 

Earthquakes took center stage with temblors in Haiti and Chile, and New Zealand.  The Mormon Church continues to send relief to Haiti.  The most widespread type of disaster globally was flooding.  Pakistan, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as Central America and northern South America, suffered from devastating floods, as has the United States.  There were two major cholera outbreaks, one in Haiti and one in Papua New Guinea. 

The humanitarian aid efforts of the Mormon Church are made possible through the generous donations of members and friends of the Church. One hundred percent of all contributions are used to help those in need.

Utah Mom Helps Albino Children in Africa

In the United States, just one child of 20,000 is born without pigmentation, a condition called albinism.  But in Kenya, the percentage is much higher due to intermarriage.  The condition is caused by a recessive gene; one recessive gene from the father, and one from the mother, and an albino child is born.  Some Africans believe that there is magic in the body parts of albinos, so there is an active black market for them (bringing $10,000 per child, and putting albino children at great risk).

Jami Quesenberry was a 47-year-old Mormon mother and homemaker who joined a charitable expedition to Kenya to help build schools.  While there, she saw a native mother with an albino child.  The child was in need of medical care because of her condition, plus ways to be protected from both violence and from the sun.  Quesenberry’s heart was touched, but she didn’t know what she could do to help.  Some months later, Koins for Kenya asked her to manage another expedition.  Remembering the mother and child, she heard that Hussein Lumbambo, was starting a school for albino children in Kinandaongo, a safe school with a high-walled dormitory for the students.  There had been a benefactor, but money had run out.

Quesenberry and her family went through their substantial amount of “stuff” and had a garage sale.  She is looking for other ways to raise funds.  There are probably 100 other albino children in the surrounding area.  The mother she had seen actually had two.  The father divorced her and chased her and the children with a machete.  They had found refuge behind the walls of the school grounds.  Word about the school and the protection it provides is getting around, and more children are being brought there.  Koins for Kenya is seeking personal sponsors for the children.

Bret Van Leeuwen, an Alpine businessman and founder of Koins for Kenya, said the school for albino children is purposefully located in a village that’s not easily accessible. He said when the school opens in January, he expects 80 children but is prepared for 100. [1]

Read more.

LDS Church Donates to Local Homeless Shelter

The South Provo homeless shelter is only about 30 miles from the Salt Lake City headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Brent Crane, executive director of the Food and Care Coalition received an e-mail from Church Humanitarian Services and LDS Charities in November, 2010, announcing a donation of $341,000.  The donation would arrive immediately to go toward its transitional housing center in south Provo.  The goal is to get more people off the streets this winter.

The homeless shelter still has not reached its goal of $700,000 in donations, but the offering from the Church is a big leap.  Crane must prove that he has enough money to operate for one year before the board of directors will allow the upper floor to be opened to homeless singles and couples.  The LDS Charities donation will be enough to finish off the living quarters that will house 26 homeless men and 12 homeless women.

The funds will go for construction and finishing materials and furnishings.  The coalition leadership had contacted the LDS Charities several months ago.  Funds come from the volutary donations of members of the Church.

LDS Mom Helps Lepers in India

Becky Douglas has turned a tragic event into a charitable project helping many in India.  Becky’s oldest daughter, Amber, took her own life in college, ending a struggle with bi-polar disorder.  When Becky was sorting through Amber’s possessions, she discovered that Amber had sponsored an orphan in India.  She requested donations for the orphanage in lieu of flowers for Amber’s funeral.  So much money was collected that Douglas was asked to serve on the orphanage’s board of directors.  She decided she had better make a trip to India.

During the trip, Becky discovered that the orphanage was well-run and that the children were well cared for.  However, her heart bled when she saw lepers begging in the streets.  She discovered that people with leprosy are outcasts, and that their children also become untouchable, living in the leprosy colonies with their parents.  She decided to do something.  She called four close friends, and together they created Rising Star Outreach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving leprosy victims in India and their children.

Leprosy is curable and easily treated.  India provides care for lepers.  But many are too ashamed to seek help.  They become outcasts and beggars.  Becky decided on a three-pronged approach — 1- to provide mobile medical care for people living in the colonies; 2- to create a safe learning environment for the children of lepers; and 3- to offer micro-loans to lepers to wean them from begging into gainful work.  The work is moving forward, thanks to volunteers from all over the world.

Because of Rising Star, lepers have access to clean bandages and medications.  The mobile units also check for other diseases and conditions and seek to discover leprosy when it’s just begun, thus possibly preventing physical signs of the disease. 

Rising Star gives colony kids a separate place to live and go to school, protecting them from the disease through separation and clean environs.  At school they learn English and computer skills.  There are nearly 200 children in Rising Star’s primary and secondary schools.  Rising Star has partnered with people in India to help with the micro-loan program.  Rising Star has been invited to open facilities in nearly every state in India.  To date, the organization has helped around 20,000 people.

Rising Star can be contacted at risingstaroutreach.org.

To read the full article in LDS Living on Rising Star Outreach, click here.

LDS Living Magazine editor Jamie Lawson visited India and has written about the experience in three parts, including a video.  You can see the articles at the following links:

The Untouchables, Part 1

The Untouchables, Part 2

The Untouchables, Part 3

The Untouchables Video

Mormon Church Gets Aid into Pakistan

The Mormon Church has no members in Pakistan, and no meeting houses, temples or welfare centers.  Thus, there is no church infrastructure on the ground in Pakistan to help distribute aid or to inform the Church as to where aid is needed. 

Therefore, the LDS Church has partnered with International Relief and Development, International Medical Corps and Saba Aslam Welfare and Trust to locally purchase and distribute immediate relief supplies.

Additional supplies from the Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City will be shipped in the coming weeks, in partnership with Islamic Relief USA. 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Pakistan,” said Presiding Bishop H. David Burton, who oversees humanitarian efforts. “The generous donations of church members and others is allowing the church to provide aid that will relieve the suffering of many people.”

“Heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan triggered the worst flooding in 80 years, beginning in late July. More than a third of the country has been impacted, and more than 1,500 people have died; 17 million others have been directly affected.” [1]

One hundred percent of the donations given to the church’s humanitarian services are used for relief efforts. The LDS Church absorbs its own overhead costs.  The help the Church is able to give around the world regardless of their culture or religion is due to the generousity of its members.

So that Newborns can Breathe

BYU Students Harness Sun Power for Peruvians

The Peruvians who live on the floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca want for basic amenities.  19 BYU engineering students recently returned from Peru, where they set up sustainable projects to meet basic human needs.  BYU Global Engineering Outreach class/club has visited the Uros people on the floating islands before. A windmill power generator was installed by a previous class.

However, the villagers weren’t using it, gravely concerned about the lightning risks of having a tall metal pole in the middle of a lake on an island made of reeds.  The windmill, therefore was left in the hands of the local government, while another project was planned.  The locals can study it and hopefully install it on the shore and in some of the mountain villages.

Next year’s students will work on a solar-heated water tank and possibly a bio-filter toilet — the simple wishes of one of the mothers on the island.

Currently, the Uros make small reed fires or spend nearly a third of their small incomes on fuel for propane stoves.  The engineering students designed sun cooker prototypes and spoke with members from the village to identify locally available resources.  The sun cooker can boil 12 eggs in 30 minutes.

Mormon Brings Hope to the Poor in Kenya

Louis Pope, the retiring chief executive of US Synthetics, is moving to a nice beach house in Kenya.  Rather than launching out on a dream vacation or relaxing retirement, the 62-year-old Mormon instead will take a hands-on approach to directing two businesses he has created to lift the poorest people in Kenya out of abject poverty.

Pope formed Orem-based US Synthetics in 1978 and built the company into the world’s leading producer of synthetic diamond drill bits, a critical component in oil and gas exploration.  He is using the rewards of this success to bless the lives of others in a remote part of the world.  His entire family is behind the move and eager to help.

While working as a busy executive, Pope took the time to join a humanitarian aid project called Choice Humanitarian to rural Mexico in 1996 to help build a school.  Choice Humanitarian is based in West Jordan, Utah.  The experience was the first step in what became a life-changing journey for Pope. A year later, he went to Kenya with the same organization.

Pope has since returned more than 25 times to the former British colony on Africa’s east coast on a personal mission to help “the poorest of the poor,” he said.

During the past 10 years, Pope has established two Kenyan-based companies — Yehu Microfinance, which offers loans to women living in extreme poverty, and Coast Coconut Farms, which produces coconut oil using low-tech methods developed by a group of BYU engineering students as one of the school’s Capstone projects. Pope created a third company, Basa Body, based in the US Synthetics Orem plant, to use the coconut oil to make body lotion and similar products.

Coast Coconut Farms provides work for more than 100 Kenyan families, from farmers’ cooperatives to harvest coconuts to groups of micro-franchisees that operate small-scale oil presses.

Yehu Microfinance offers loans that average about $135 to women who have had no access to money lenders in the past to start small businesses. 17,000 women are currently employed (MormonTimes.com).

In January, 2010, Pope and his wife, Chriss, will take the next step when they move into a home they are building near Mombasa. They plan to live there nine months out of the year so Pope can focus his energy on his Kenyan businesses and perhaps launch some new ones — all of them designed to provide work for the Kenyan poor.  The Popes will be distancing themselves from their 5 children and 21 grandchildren, but will stay in touch via the internet.  Members of their family will make the trip for visits and extended stays to help with the work and experience the culture.

The presence of the LDS Church in the area — Mombasa has three branches — means the Popes can stay close to their faith. And as a former British colony, Kenya has two official languages — English and Swahili.

And they are building a beautiful house on a beautiful beach.

Electricity-Generating Merry-Go-Rounds in Ghana

BYU technology students and professor Charles Harrell worked with teachers at the Golden Sunbeam School in Essam village, Ghana, to install an electricity-generating merry-go-round. Some 10,000 schools in Ghana have no electricity.

“It’s a double dream come true,” says Monica Opare, founder of the Golden Sunbeam charity school, “because we are going to get equipment that the children can play with and then at the same time we are going to get electricity from it and that is exciting.”

“These villages and schools don’t have electricity. As children push the merry-go-round, it [generates] electricity that [lights] the school rooms,” says BYU professor Charles Harrell from the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology.  The first project was completed in 2008.

The project was co-sponsored by Empower Playgrounds, Inc. and BYU’s special Capstone project program, wherein technology students plan and complete projects for real business needs.

“Our objective overall is to improve quality of life in rural Ghana,” says Empower Playgrounds founder Ben Markham. “This project will enhance education by providing power for lighting, giving children opportunities for fun and also giving them a hands-on science laboratory.”

“In the rural villages the kids almost have no toys. I seldom saw the kids playing with anything other than a car tire or something else that could be used as a wheel,” says Markham, a retired engineer who served in Ghana as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When he approached BYU about the project, Markham challenged BYU students to engineer a device that could generate power but would be fun, not work, for the children. To make it fun to ride, the students used a gearbox to multiply the rotation speed and incorporated circuitry to limit the amount of energy extracted from the system.

“The spinning is converted through a gearbox. The gearbox takes their rotation and multiplies it by 35, which then spins the generator and the generator is what converts that energy into electrical energy,” says BYU technology student Ben Drewry.

“So we’ve tried to balance fun, and getting an interesting amount of power from the device,” says Markham.

The power generated by the merry-go-round is stored in a car battery that recharges several dozen portable LED lights that can be used in classrooms and homes. Many families have little or no lighting in the evenings, relying on kerosene lamps, candles, or open flame “bobo” lights. Markham hopes that better lighting at home will lead to greater literacy and productivity for children and their families.

“Once the students have finished learning in the schoolrooms, they’re able to take one of these lamps home with them to light their homes,” added Harrell.

“We can right now have light for the kids, we can have evening classes, their parents can encourage them to do their assignments at home, and I can just imagine what it is going to be like; it’s like a liberation,” says Opare.

Although the current system is designed to charge the LED lights, Markham says the merry-go-round can be used for other applications.

“The amount of power available would easily recharge cell phones and laptop computers, which will probably be uses we’ll look to in the future,” he says.

With donor support, Empower Playgrounds hopes to bring inexpensive lighting and playground equipment to thousands of schools in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa.

BYU engineering and technology students worked more than a year on the prototype merry-go-round which is designed to be built with materials available in Ghana including recycled car parts.

“What we’d like to accomplish is not just to build a single prototype but to define a process, that is replicable, so that other facilities in Ghana, and in any part of the world, could duplicate this same process,” says Harrell.

In May, students from the Marriott School of Management met with Ghanaian education officials and made village school visits to identify site selection criteria for future Empower Playgrounds projects. In addition to the merry-go-round design, EPI is also investigating designs for an electricity-generating zip line and a swing set to provide additional play and power for village schools. For more information, see www.empowerplaygrounds.org.

Watch a short video about the project.

See the full report.

Read about Empower Systems’ Founder, Ben Markham.

LDS, Islamic Leaders, share relief efforts

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has partnered with Islamic Relief USA to provide assistance in the wake of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  The partnership continued with emergency relief response following the May 2006 Indonesian earthquake.  In July, 2009, leaders of Islamic Relief USA met in Salt Lake City with LDS Church leaders.  Together, they toured church humanitarian aid facilities.  Abed Ayoub cited recent talks with the Jordanian government, saying that the LDS Church was highlighted.

Islamic Relief USA is part of the larger Islamic Relief Worldwide family of charities.  The worldwide entity recently celebrated its 25 year anniversary.  The USA branch has been operating since 1993.  Islamic Relief is one of 1,500 registered non-government organizations and charitable agencies across the world that partner in humanitarian efforts with the LDS Church.

After the 2004 tsunami, the Church provided immediate relief by supplying water, food, hygiene kits, medical supplies, body bags, blankets, and clothing.  Long-term assistance by the Church is still ongoing, with home construction, the construction of schools and clinics, water and sanitation systems, and other projects under way.

In May, 2006, Islamic Relief provided a jumbo jet to transport $1.6 million worth of relief supplies provided by the Church after the Indonesian earthquake.  Islamic Relief was impressed that there were no strings attached to the generous donation of aid.  “[There was] no price tag and no attempts at conversion,” said Ahmad El Bendary, Senior Advisor for Islamic Relief.  “The Church has been welcomed with open arms because of their neutrality.”

The “Third Pillar” of Islam is called the principle of zakat, or the principle of charitable giving.  Muslims donate 2.5 percent of their annual savings, 10 percent of their investment net profits, and a third of their crops to charitable projects.  Mormons donate 10 percent of their income to the Church, and a monthly donation to the poor.  There are also separate funds for education benefits and humanitarian aid that Mormons routinely donate to through the Church.  In addition, Mormons donate many hours of labor to the Church’s humanitarian efforts.  Said Diana Sufian, a senior humanitarian consultant for Islamic Relief, “This is God’s work, whether it be in the language of Islam or the language of the Mormons.  It’s a moral obligation.  We can do it — so we must do it.”

From Deseret News.com

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