Rural

Hassan Sabri and another local fisherman in southern Iraq bring in their catch with nets donated by Mercy Corps, which enabled them to restart their business — and their livelihoods. Photo: Adnan Ali/Mercy Corps

Hassan Sabri is a 33-year-old fisherman, and one of the beneficiaries of a recently-completed Mercy Corps Iraq livelihoods project. Our team provided nets to poverty-stricken fishermen in Al Bihar sub-district, which is located 90 kilometers away from the southern city of Basra.

In the last year, Hassan’s nets tore due to frequent use, and he lacked the income to replace them. Although he tried his best to continue fishing, he eventually gave up and began looking for another job. When he couldn't find any work, he fell sad and weak.

With the new nets that Mercy Corps supplied it to the poor fishermen, Hassan's eyes glowed with happiness. Hope began to shine again on his face and in his life. He was finally able to resume work and contribute to his family’s livelihood.

The very day after he received his new nets — they day I visited — Hassan rowed out onto the river in the very early hours of morning. He immediately threw his nets into river and patiently waited for the haul he'd missed for so long.

As he came back to his family with a large number of fish, he thanked our Community Action Program for their assistance to the residents of Bihar village, who rely heavily on fishing just like he does.

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Earlier this week in Ethiopia's drought-hit Somali Region, I saw a small boy kneel and drink from what was left of a pond. I'd been talking all day with local people about the major shortage of water across the area, but it was only when I saw this boy — covered in dust and drinking what I'd thought of only as mud — that the reality of the crisis really hit me.

This was a small lake that served the water needs of families and their livestock — now it's mostly dried up. Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps

I've since learned that this boy was one of the lucky ones. Many more across East Africa face the months ahead without even dirty water to drink. Rains have barely touched the land here since the middle of last year, and aren't expected again until October.

It's made worse in parts of Gashamo District, where I have been, because there are no natural underground water sources to make wells or boreholes when rains fail. People survive by catching rain in big pits, and save it through the dry months to keep them, their families and their animals going. But now, as two consecutive rains have barely appeared, these pits are drying up — and there's still two months until there's any hope of more rain.

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Lucia and her 16-month-old baby, Maria in Guatemala's Alta Verapaz region. They're both receiving food and health assistance through Mercy Corps' PROCOMIDA program. Photo: Lindsay Murphy/Mercy Corps

In the northern highlands of the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala, the signs and symptoms of malnutrition are a common sight: stunted growth, underweight bodies and visible fatigue. According to a study by the United Nations World Food Program, Guatemala has the highest rate of malnutrition in Latin America — and Alta Verapaz ranks second in Guatemala in the number of communities at risk.

Mercy Corps is doing something to change that. Through a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mercy Corps is leading a new innovative approach to improving food security and nutrition in Guatemala.

The Mother-Child Community Food Diversification Program (PROCOMIDA in Spanish) is a five-year program that strives to prevent malnutrition before it starts and ensure that everyone in a community has access to food and health services. Through the program, Mercy Corps distributes food rations to impoverished families and educates mothers and caregivers on the nutrition needs for children and mothers, as well as proper food handling and household sanitation.

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A pathway through the village of Los Mangales, Guatemala, with the Tienda de Salud sign at right. Photo: Lindsay Murphy/Mercy Corps

Los Mangales is a collection of humble one-room huts with sporadic electricity and dusty rows of beans and corn outside. Amid the lush and verdant banana and coffee trees in Guatemala's central highlands, it seems like any other sleepy village -- except for the placard on the side of the road that reads Tienda de Salud: a Health Store.

Since that sign went up two years ago, residents have avoided the grueling and costly two-hour round-trip to the nearest town to purchase basic medicines, first-aid supplies and other health products. Before, many avoided seeking preventative health services due to the high cost and inconvenience — risking greater complications for otherwise treatable illnesses. But today, thanks to Mercy Corps' Sustainable Community Health Stores program, there exists a hometown alternative.

Filling a health gap

Guatemala is a poor country — especially in rural areas. More than half of its residents lives in poverty, and 60 percent do not have access to the most basic education or health care. Living conditions in rural areas are even worse, where malnutrition and mortality rates are exacerbated by the lack of health services.

Francisco and his wife stand by the sign that announces their Tienda de Salud — a health store and micro-pharmacy — in the village of Los Mangales, Guatemala. Photo: Lindsay Murphy/Mercy Corps

Historically, the Guatemalan government and local charities have offered health programs to rural communities. But those services are often focused exclusively on young women and children below the age of five, leaving much of the population without adequate access to medicine or health care.

Sustainable Community Health Stores is a new way of addressing the rural healthcare problem. It helps local families start small businesses while providing much-needed medicines in communities like Los Mangales.

Empowering local entrepreneurs

Francisco was the first participant in the health stores program. Like other business owners, he had previously worked as a health promoter in his village. Through Mercy Corps' tutelage and technical assistance, he learned basic business planning and bookkeeping and received a small seed loan to provide start-up capital for the store.

Francisco opened his Los Mangales store in June 2009, stocking it with drugs such as anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, vitamins and some common household items like soap and diapers. The "Tienda de Salud" sign points to his house; he built a tiny storefront addition from which he runs the business. Residents say the products he offers are higher quality than what's offered nearby.

Opening a store can be a risk, but it can also be as profitable as any other available job nearby. Thanks to what he'd learned and a strong work ethic, Francisco was able to repay his initial loan in only 11 months -- seven months ahead of schedule.

"Owning a business comes with responsibility, not only to my family but for the betterment of my village," Francisco says.

A microfranchising model based on a private-sector partnership

To give rural villages access to the same medicines as their urban counterparts, Mercy Corps developed a microfranchising model with Farmacias de la Comunidad, a generics-only drugstore chain with over 400 stores throughout Guatemala.

The inside of a typical village Tienda de Salud, supported by Mercy Corps' Sustainable Community Health Stores program, with various health products and medications stocked on the shelves. Photo: Lindsay Murphy/Mercy Corps

Each store owner is given financing, a defined logistical chain and pricing, and marketing support to promote their products and better health practices in their community. Financial support comes from Linked Foundation, a U.S.-based enterprise committed to improving the health and economic self-reliance of women in Latin America.

These entrepreneurs build a vital social enterprise that improves the well-being of their families and provides jobs in their communities — and helps their neighbors stay healthy.

"This private-sector partnership model is a lasting way to give families in rural Guatemala access to medicines that can prevent serious illness," says Stephanie Skillman, the project manager for Mercy Corps.

More stores are on the way. Skillman says the hope is to open 30 by year's end. The result will be more small pharmacies run by entrepreneurs like Francisco -- and more lifelines to families in remote communities like those in Los Mangales.

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Marudin, a local farmer who received tools and seeds from Mercy Corps, thinks the results from the corn harvest are encouraging. Photo: Iswanto JA/Mercy Corps

Indonesia's Mentawai Islands have a very hot and arid climate but, because of high rainfall and minimal pests, it is great for agriculture. When the tsunami hit last October, Mentawai residents ran from the waves with only the clothes on their backs. Most tools and crops were lost.

Through separate but collaborative programs, Mercy Corps has distributed 559 Farmer Toolkits through funding from USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). We've also given farmers 565 packs of corn, chilli, eggplant, watermelon, cucumber and green bean seeds — as well as 150,000 cacao seedlings — through the generosity of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As you enter Kinumbuk, Bulasat village on Pagai Selatan (South Pagai Island), the air becomes cool. Each temporary shelter belonging to a tsunami-displaced family is nearly covered with a leafy and shady corn crop. Not far from the house there are also cacao, pepper, eggplant and cucumber seedlings that are beginning to grow.

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A water buffalo in Myanmar’s Delta region. Cyclone Nargis killed more than 90 percent of the region's buffalo; Mercy Corps is helping farming families buy buffalo and get back on track.

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During the eight-hour drive from Yangon to Myanmar’s Delta region, I’d seen lots of beautiful water buffalo hanging out in mud by the side of the dirt roads, flicking their ears lazily. Farmers across the delta rely on them to help plough their land, so they’re a common sight.

A water buffalo in Myanmar’s Delta region. Cyclone Nargis killed more than 90 percent of the region's buffalo; Mercy Corps is helping farming families buy buffalo and get back on track. Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps

From inside the truck, I’d decided the buffalo were adorable. But standing right next to an extremely grumpy pair the following morning, they seemed rather less cute, and their horns considerably bigger (and much pointier).

The buffalo belonged to Aye Myint, a 53-year-old farmer who lives in Tha Pyay Kwin village in Myanmar with his wife and two children. He told me he grows rice and breeds chickens on his small eight-acre farm, using the two buffalo he bought at a buffalo market arranged by Mercy Corps last year.

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With help from community action groups in some of Ethiopia's poorest, driest and most remote villages, Mercy Corps is digging ponds and wells to ensure more reliable water supply for irrigation, livestock and household needs — especially during long months of drought.

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Rasunan is a board member of the Arinagata coffee cooperative, a third-generation coffee farmer and the father of two girls. Photo: Sarah Castagnola/Mercy Corps

Rasunan offered me a cup of coffee. The coffee was hot and thick with sugar. It was delicious. I visited Rasunan with Mercy Corps' Community Health and Investment for Livelihood Initiative (CHILI) staff. The staff is working with coffee cooperatives and communities in the Gayo Highlands of Aceh — a region famous for coffee production.

I learned Rasunan is a board member of the Arinagata coffee cooperative, a third-generation coffee farmer and the father of two girls. Rasunan recently added a new role to his busy life. In July, Rasunan will become a volunteer Financial Literacy Trainer for his village and his cooperative.

“In my community some people have only finished junior high school. I want to share knowledge with the community. Many people do not save and borrow money in between the coffee harvest,” explained Rasunan.

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Each time I showed up to small and faraway communities where the heat was unbearable, where there was no electricity to turn on a light bulb, where there was no wind to ease the heat in the air — and where the field workers were parking their motorcycles and placing their gear on the dried grass after a heavy day of working in the field — I met energetic personalities ready to connect and do some hands-on work with Mercy Corps Guatemala's PROCOMIDA food and nutrition project.

A PROCOMIDA staffer for Mercy Corps Guatemala takes place in a mock television broadcast to practice how to better relay important health and nutrition information to families in some of Guatemala's poorest villages. Photo: Martha Munocito/Mercy Corps

Part of my job with these hard-working field staffers is gathering in PROCOMIDA's warehouses or small meeting halls in the communities where we work to practice and create key nutritional and health messages. The use of different communication channels is one of the strategies PROCOMIDA uses to achieve behavior change for better health and nutrition with the beneficiaries of the project, who live in some of Guatemala's poorest and most remote villages.

The warehouse space was converted into a makeshift studio to do a simulated television interview or news report. Printing paper was used to build up the studio's walls and motorcycle helmets were transformed into video cameras. Empty cardboard boxes became computers monitors. Cell phones were used to invite the audience to participate by calling in to express their opinions and questions about the interviewees' comments or the news reported about various health issues and topics.

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