A microfinance family, The Harding, who lost husband when children were young. CRC helped them stay together and build the late Mrs. Harding’s business.
Day 2 – Hello Floris
Today has been a day of learning and seeing for me. I’m humbled and thankful for your generosity in Sierra Leone over time, but also in this very present moment.
I visited Mercy Hospital for my first time today and was so impressed by the staff and care given there. We visited with a newborn baby and his mother who had come through a complicated time of delivery. Both were gaining strength. The life-saving potential of the hospital brought tears to my eyes. Through your support, lives are saved, and maternal and infant mortality rates are improving each year.
We also visited the governmental hospital in Bo, where we learned about a diabetes management grant the staff were working on there with hopes of some collaboration with Mercy Hospital. I could say so much about diabetes and the challenges of it here – from access to proper diagnosis to the unavailability of meds, to the lack of consistent electricity. It is literally a matter of life and death here.
My day rounded out with a couple of visits to microfinance families that are being served by the CRC through loans from our Christmas Eve offering. This year, they supported 28 families through loans, with hope of developing relationships with 31 more as they are in training now for the next year. The families were female-led households that have struggled since the loss of the father in the family. I was so impressed by the strength and entrepreneurial spirit of the women, as well as the pride of their children in their mother’s work.
The microfinance program allows for education and training for the parents, as well as the resources needed to help lift a family from poverty so that they can provide for their families and become resilient in sustaining their own home business, sending their own children to school, and providing for their needed life resources. Families have often been in similar situations and needed to give up their children to orphanages. Support from the microfinance families also comes from the expertise of case managers at the CRC and the medical staff at Mercy Hospital. One of the families we visited had a young girl about age 6 who is deaf and mute. She is being educated in school with the support her mother can provide. The other family had a daughter who is doing well in the science program in her school and wants to become a doctor in the future.
The word for today is that you are making a difference one life at a time as your generosity streams into the hearts facing great needs here in Sierra Leone. Thank you!
I hope to update you more as we continue our work here. Continue prayer for our work here. Continue prayer for our team and all those serving here.
-Gina