Scroll Top

Author: CEDAR Fund

‘SHARE’ 239 – ‘Give You This Calf as a Mark of Reconciliation’

Looking around the world, we can find that many people in developing countries have suffered from atrocities imposed by state authorities for power struggles. Every killing left all kinds of traumas on victims, making them impossible to look into the future. The ‘FOCUS’ of this issue shares how CEDAR’s partner in Rwanda healed the trauma left over from the genocide against the Tutsi and engaged in community reconciliation work based on cultural traditions. ‘BACK TO THE BIBLE’ explores the scriptural context of ‘Seventy-seven Times’, bringing out that forgiveness is the voluntary action of the victim, and seeking the truth is the basis for reconciliation. In addition, we share our children and youth development project that CEDAR has been

Continue reading

Hidden Crisis in the Pandemic: Human Trafficking

Written by: Clara Chiu (Head of Partnership Development) From July 20th to 23rd this year, several CEDAR staff participated in the “Asia Region Anti-Trafficking Conference” (hereinafter referred to as the conference). The conference was held for the first time three years ago, and this year is the third. It was changed to conduct online due to the pandemic. The purpose of the conference is to gather people from all parts of Asia who are concerned about human trafficking, and learn about it with other forms of modern slavery through various workshops, and know more about the latest anti-trafficking measures. During the meeting, representatives from different organisations mentioned that the situation of human trafficking has become worse under the

Continue reading

Listen to the Cries of the Oppressed

Written by Tony Chan (Senior Partnership Development Officer) “During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.” (Exodus 2:23) The old Pharaoh promised to the prime minister Joseph that Joseph would take his father’s family to live in Egypt and live in the “best part of the land” (Genesis 47:6), the region of Goshen. Jacob, the ancestor of the Israelites, was able to reunite with his son Joseph and escape the famine with his family, so he seized the opportunity and moved to Egypt with his family of 70 members. Over the years, Jacob’s family and

Continue reading

The Letter from CEDAR | Oct 2020

Dear supporters, The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging around the world for more than half a year. At first, everyone could not expect that the pandemic is still not under control until this day. It seems we no longer guess when this pandemic will finally disappear. The rising number of confirmed cases and outbreaks are global challenges that everyone in the world has to face. CEDAR has always been concerned about the issue of human trafficking. Since the beginning of the global outbreak of COVID-19, multiple reports and analyses have estimated that the pandemic will increase the risks of women and children being trafficked. Let me take the situation of migrant workers at the grass-roots level as an

Continue reading

How to Combat Child Trafficking under the ‘New Normal’?

Written by Edward Lai (Senior Communication Officer) As the pandemic is raging around the world, criminals do not only “hunt” civilians in a hidden way in poor villages, they also target their prey via the internet. By using their poor and fragile situation, they can easily force or lure the victims to work in sex industry, or engage in forced labour or any work that is obviously not commensurate with pay. Facing the “new normal” under the pandemic, Aashima Samuel, EFIC@R’s National Director, who has been engaged in anti-child trafficking for many years, shared her team’s coping strategies. Q: How does your team equip churches and local communities to fight child trafficking? A: In terms of preventive education,

Continue reading

‘SHARE’ 238 – Hidden Crisis in the Pandemic: Human Trafficking

The COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong is still unsettled and the labour market has been severely damaged. When the local situation worries us deeply, we are even more worried about the situation of the poor in developing countries. Not only do they face the risk of infection, they also suffer from losing their livelihoods and food shortage due to the pandemic. In order to survive, they desperately find a way out, and they are more likely to fall into the prey of human traffickers. This issue of SHARE will talk about the more rampant human trafficking problem under the pandemic, especially the situation of poor children who are the most vulnerable to the influence of online fraud (“Focus”).

Continue reading

Rescue Girls from Red Light Area of India during COVID-19

Banner image: Ayesha [centre], coordinator of CEDAR’s Nepalese partner, Asha Nepal (Updated on 9 October 2020) Our Nepalese partner recently told us that they rescued two girls from a red light area of India. The situation of the girls was very vulnerable so our partner carried out rescue even under the threat of COVID-19 and closing of borders. These two girls, who were physically and mentally weak, had undergone different circumstances. One of the girls named Nagina (pseudonym, 11 years old) had been sold by her own mother to a relative as a servant, due to poverty. The other girl named Lola (pseudonym, 16 years old) had been harassed sexually by her own father, after the death of

Continue reading

From Sewing Sanitary Napkins to Three-Layer Face Masks

Banner image: Theit Theit Shwee sewing face masks made by cloth (Source: CEDAR’s partner) “Kacha…Kacha…” Theit Theit Shwee, a woman from the slum area of Myanmar, sat in front of a sewing machine and sewed the fabric. She carefully wrapped the two white bands and sewed them with the fabric and finished making a three-layer cloth mask. This has been her daily job, making cloth masks with other women in the community center of CEDAR’s partner. Due to the local outbreak of COVID-19, Theit Theit Shwee, who was already over 40, immediately lost her job. She had been working so hard to raise her child for many years, but the pandemic has made her lose all her income.

Continue reading

When the Pandemic Never Goes Away – Implications on Poverty Alleviation and Social Economic Lifestyles

MC: Lai Ka Chun Lai: What impacts do the pandemic will have on developing countries? Fung: Even before the pandemic, the economic situations in many developing countries were not good. Most of the population belonged to the lower-income group, their sanitary facilities were inadequate and many individuals already suffered from malnutrition. Therefore, the pandemic will have a very profound influence on them, and it will be very difficult for them to recover from the present predicament. Emergency relief from international organisations can only provide short-term help. When the countries’ economies are paralysed and the people are sick, it is very difficult for them to restart their economies. Chan: Most of the developed countries are struggling to fight the pandemic themselves. I

Continue reading

An Overloaded Clinic in Lebanon

Written by: Edward Lai The pandemic makes us realise the importance of having a sound medical system, which does not only require sufficient medical personnel, but also a stable supply of medicine. Lebanon has been identified as a priority country in the United Nations’ COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan. As the country that has the highest per capita proportion of refugees in the world, Lebanon has taken in 1.5 million Syrian and 200,000 Palestinian refugees, who currently make up more than 30% of the country population. The exponential growth of refugees in Lebanon has put the already fragile medical system under pressure. The outbreak of COVID-19 further places enormous burden on its medical services, brining them to the

Continue reading