Supporter: Jeremy Barnicle

Sumiko Takamatsu rides the Mercy Corps- and Peace Winds-sponsored bus that takes tsunami survivors — many of whom are still displaced — to do shopping and go to doctor's appointments. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

When my colleagues told me about a bus service we run between the coastal Japanese towns of Ofunato and Rikuzentakata, it struck me as a good idea but not something I urgently needed to see: the local supermarket was gutted by the tsunami, so in order to buy stuff, people who had no car needed a ride to the supermarket the next city over. Got it.

But they invited me to ride along today, and as a visitor from headquarters one doesn’t turn down such invitations. I am glad I went, because I got a chance to spend some time talking to a lady named Sumiko Takamatsu.

Just to set the stage a little, the average age on the bus is somewhere in the 70s, and the gender breakdown was overwhelmingly female. I’m an obviously foreign man in my late 30s, and when I come bounding on the bus with my camera the tittering begins. My colleague Rika explains who I am, I smile and bow awkwardly in several directions, and I find a seat up front — next to Sumiko Takamatsu.

Read more ▸

Tomoko Kinno, with her mother in the background, are reunited in a pre-fab home outfitted by Peace Winds and Mercy Corps. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

Rikuzentakata, Japan — When her home in this coastal city was destroyed by the tsunami, Tomoko Kinno, a 60-something retiree, was forced to stay with relatives hours away from here. She had lived with and cared for mother, who now had to stay in a temporary facility for the elderly.

Three months later, she’s back in Rikuzentakata and she could not be happier.

“I was so excited to move in that I came early,” Tomoko says of her new pre-fabricated home. “I am very happy to be back with my mother,” who nods in my direction from her perch by the TV.

The Japanese government has provided thousands of prefab units — think FEMA trailers — for the hundreds of thousands of displaced by the tsunami’s destruction, with the expectation that it will take a couple of years to rebuild permanent housing for everyone who lost a home. But because most of these people lost everything in the disaster, it’s not enough to just provide the housing, and that’s where Mercy Corps and Peace Winds come in.

Read more ▸

Sachie Saijo stands in what used to be her family's bathroom. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

As we head west toward the coast, and start to see signs of the March tsunami’s devastation, I ask my colleague Sachie Saijo to stop the car so I can check it out.

“Wait a minute,” she says. “I have the right spot to show you.” We pull off the main road, drive up a way, and park at a huge white institutional building on a hillside.

“My junior high school,” Sachie says, with a pride not generally associated with middle school. We get out of the car and she walks me to an overlook. The view is stunning. “This is Shizugawa.” Below us, several square miles of rubble stretch all the way to the sea. It is her hometown. And it is a complete wasteland.

Sachie, a sweet and sturdy 30-year-old who manages the fisheries restoration project for Mercy Corps’ partner Peace Winds, gives me the background. Before the tsunami, about 10,000 people lived here. Now, no one lives downtown – it is literally obliterated. Fishing, seafood processing and tourism drove the economy.

Read more ▸

(Back Row, L-R) Mercy Corps Educators Sarah Bever and Gil Corral, Jeremy Barnicle, and Global Citizen Corps (GCC) Program Manager Sailesh Naidu with GCC program participants at New York City's Lincoln Center. Photo: Heather Mangrum/Mercy Corps

On Tuesday, November 9, Mercy Corps joined Boys & Girls Clubs of America, CARE USA, Save the Children and U.S. Fund for UNICEF at the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s breathtaking Allen Room in New York City. The occasion was a kick-off event for Western Union’s 50 Days of Giving, a national campaign designed to help raise charitable giving awareness.

This special launch featured a live performance by Grammy Award-winning artist John Legend and the introduction of www.50daysofgiving.com — an online voting site to encourage consumers to take an active role in supporting the five charities featured in the campaign this holiday season. The organization receiving the most online votes by December 25 will receive a $150,000 grant from Western Union.

While the other organizations were all well-represented by friends who came out to support their respective campaigns, Mercy Corps had the loudest cheering section, led by New York City high school students participating in its Global Citizen Corps (GCC) youth program.

Earlier that day, these GCC students participated in their first video conference at the Action Center to End World Hunger with students from Khanaquin, Iraq. The students from Iraq spoke about their lives during conflict, and the students from New York listened and reflected on their own experience with gang violence in their communities.

Fully energized by the video conference and proudly wearing bright red Mercy Corps t-shirts, these enthusiastic youth leaders let everyone at the event know who they should vote for during the 50 Days of Giving campaign contest.

“In building support for the work we do around the world, we also saw the need to educate our youth at home,” I explained to the crowd of foundation executives and supporters. “Through Global Citizens Corps, we are teaching this community of young people to serve as active global citizens for the future.”

If Mercy Corps wins the 50 Days of Giving contest, $50,000 of the prize grant will be used to sponsor a GCC international youth conference, in which GCC leaders from each of our country programs will get to work with each other, receive training from Mercy Corps staff and develop their capacity to be effective community leaders.

As of this posting, Mercy Corps was leading the voting and — if the GCC youth leaders have any say — Mercy Corps emerge as the winner on December 25.

Read more ▸

On my first day in Zimbabwe, I went to visit some farm families in the town of Murejwa. People are poor there, and Mercy Corps is working with them to find ways to boost their incomes.

In this video, I'm with Fred and Beauty Jokonya, who live and farm on a half-acre on the outskirts of town. The star of this show, however, is a piece of basic technology: the treadle pump. As you'll see, this pump has made the farm and its owners a lot more productive.

I mention in the video that Fred and Beauty are looking after many of their grandchildren. What I don't mention in the video but want to note here is that the kids are AIDS orphans. In recent years, about 20 percent of Zimbabwe's adults have been struggling with HIV/AIDS and as a result there is a whole generation of kids being raised by their grandparents.

Read more ▸