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Tag: Humanitarian Relief and Disaster Risk Reduction

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.

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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

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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

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The Letter from CEDAR | July 2020

Dear supporters, In mid-May, I was appointed as the Acting Chief Executive to continue the work of Dr. Raymond Kwong Wai Man. Although I was not fully prepared for it, I decided to respond with a humbled heart to continue realising our mission: to live out the integral mission of the Church in partnership with Christians around the world. Indeed, I had some hesitancy in undertaking the new role. However, when I sought God through prayer and meditation, He reminded me of His promise that “I am with you”. Perhaps, that is all I need to know. The future of an organisation does not depend on a single leader, but how well we function as a team. In

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The First Sign of Disaster has Appeared: Cries of the Poor in Developing Countries during the Pandemic

Banner image: medical workers treated the sick after putting on their personal protective equipment (Source: CEDAR’s partner) “For poor places, [the spread of COVID-19] implies calamity.” ‘The Next Calamity’, The Economist, 28th March Globalisation has made it impossible for any one country to avoid the risk of being affected by contagious diseases. When there is a pandemic, developed countries can still make use of their resources to procure pandemic prevention materials. They can also utilise their financial reserves to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on their medical systems and economies. For many poor and densely populated developing countries, their medical systems were already vulnerable even before the pandemic and there had always been a lack of social welfare.

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Love in the Time of COVID-19

Written by: Edward Lai (Senior Communications Officer) Combating virus in China In China, the coronavirus has rapidly spread cross the country’s territories. During the early stage of outbreak when anti-virus materials were lacking in China, CEDAR made an allocation of approximately HK$513,000 to provide emergent relief aid in Hubei, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. Through the local networks of our Christian partners in mainland, we provided medical personnel, disinfection workers, impoverished families, as well as civil servants who were on shift duty to combat the disease, with hygienic and protective supplies. We also mobilised volunteers to care for the poor families and offer living supplies. As the novel coronavirus is highly contagious, our partners strove to keep person-to-person contact

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Serving Beyond Your Ability

Written by: Raymond Kwong (Chief Executive) Over the past nearly 30 years, CEDAR has participated in over 100 relief campaigns and the most touching thing for us is seeing the disaster-stricken victims help each other. They do not worry about what will happen to them next, instead, they make every endeavour to help those around them. Even though they barely have enough for themselves, they still try to help others, which is not an easy thing to do. This spirit of selflessness is a grace from God. In the Bible, the Macedonian churches are an exemplar of selflessness. In 2 Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul described how the Macedonian churches served the poor Christian believers in Jerusalem. Back

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CEDAR Aided 14,640 Families Affected by the Flood in Maharashtra, India

Banner image: Jagganath, flood survivor in Maharashtra, received our emergency aid Since this July, India has been impacted by monsoon. This disaster was the most severe flood in recent 25 years. By the end of October, over 2,100 people died, 2.6 million people were inflicted and more than 400,000 houses were destroyed. [1] And Maharashtra, the major cane production area in India, was most severely impacted, where 22 districts were devastated, 430 people died, and over 700,000 residents were forced to seek shelter. [2] After donating HK$195,000 to EFICOR, our Indian partner, to help 1,500 flood survivors in July, CEDAR Fund received a grant of HK$4.81 million from the Disaster Relief Fund of the Government of the Hong

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How did CEDAR Select and Manage Overseas Projects?

CEDAR has been collaborating with 53 Christian organizations and churches worldwide from 2018 to 2019, to support 80 relief and development projects all over Asia, Middle East and Africa. With an enormous amount of projects and great needs in poor regions, how did CEDAR select and manage the projects? Let’s hear what our Programme Officer Hollace say. Hollace noted that CEDAR’s support to a poverty alleviation project took into account of the project’s community involvement and mobilization, which included the following aspects: 1. How to enhance project’s endeavor to mobilise targeted community’s own resources? 2. How to assure better transparency and fairness in beneficiary selection? 3. Any feedback and response mechanisms? 4. Is local volunteers mobilized? 5. How

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‘Death Sentence’ to the Climate-affected Poor – Disaster Relief and Risk Reduction in India

Written by: Edward Lai (Senior Communications Officer) The world experienced the hottest month ever in July [1]. In fact, 2015 to 2019 may have been the hottest 5 years in human history. [2] In recent years, the United Nations (UN) [3] has issued several warnings on the imminent peril of climate crises induced by human activities. Under the same climate crisis, the threats borne by the rich and the poor are totally different. As pointed out by the experts at the UN [4], the rich can use money to mitigate the impacts of global warming, but the poor are almost powerless. They are left to bear the brunt of rising temperature, such as drought, famine and infectious diseases.

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