Four year old Ivan is looking for a sponsor. He lives with his parents and brothers in an Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDP) camp in Northern Uganda. The family moved to the relative safety of the camp after Ivan’s grandfather was beaten to death in December 2005 by the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, who also abducted some of Ivan’s relatives.

Ivan is just one of the 400,000 people whose lives were blighted by the conflict which raged in Northern Uganda from the early 1980s until a fragile ceasefire came into being in 2006. The conflict was between the Ugandan government and the rebels of the LRA, a group who were prepared to be extremely brutal in pursuance of their aims.

The LRA have a reputation for maiming victims cruelly, cutting off ears, noses and lips. They regularly abducted children from the villages, training the boys to become soldiers and forcing the girls to become sex slaves. The problem became so acute during the conflict that, in areas where the LRA was most active, hordes of children routinely left their homes each night and walked for several miles to sleep in the bush, in hiding.

People who sought the protection offered by the IDP camps also found life hard. They may have been relatively safe from the LRA, but they were also unable to tend their lands, plant their crops, or work.

In 2006, there was a cessation of hostilities and people have begun to move out of the camps and back to their homes. However, in a country devastated by 23 years of war, there is still an urgent need for humanitarian help. Many are very vulnerable – the elderly whose families have been killed are left with no-one to look after them, women are widowed and left to fend for themselves and their families. And as always, children suffer badly.

Some children are returning to “normal” life after having been forced into the conflict. The LRA took boys as young as eight years old from their homes and trained them as soldiers. Robbing them of their childhoods, LRA leader, Joseph Kony said, “There are no children here, only combatants”.

Grown men and women who have been involved in conflicts will tell you that it affects them, psychologically. They often have problems fitting in with family and civilian friends, and find adjusting to normality difficult.

For children, without the maturity and life experience to even try to make sense of what has happened to them, the return is even harder. They cannot play, or mix with other children, or even go to school until they have been counselled and rehabilitated. The same is true of the girls, who were repeatedly raped by the rebels.

World In Need’s representative in Northern Uganda cares for some of these children. He takes them into his own home and loves them, helping them begin the long process of healing. Through World In Need, sponsors are found for the children, and the money they give is used to pay for counselling and rehabilitation until the children are ready to resume their childhoods and their educations and find hope for their future once more.

Poetry wanted

We are currently trying to compile an anthology of Islamic literature and poetry. The works in the anthology will be English translations of works originally written in a variety of languages, including Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

We are looking for English translations of poetry that was originally written in Bedouin Arabic, Malay, Hausa, Swahili and Uighur, and would be grateful for any examples received.

The purpose of the anthology is to help improve our understanding of Islamic peoples. The world view of Islamic peoples – as opposed to the Islamic faith itself – tends to be formed not by the Qur’an, but by the poetry and literature of those peoples. It is in their writing that we see the root of much of the behaviour, attitudes and opinions held by Islamic people but not accounted for by a reading of the Qur’an. Behaviours such as the honour killings of those who disgrace the family name, for instance, can be traced back to literature rather than scripture.

Once the anthology is compiled, we hope to use it to develop a course, enabling people to study the writings and to form a deeper understanding of the people and cultures influenced by them.

If anyone has pieces which they feel would suit the anthology, please contact us. Our address and email details can be found on our website, http://www.worldinneed.co.uk

Update on the Philippines

In the latter part of 2009, a cloud of uncertainty hung over World In Need's work in the Philippines. After the devastation of the storms in the Autumn, came the bombshell that the school building was to be sold, and the uncertainty over whether the new owners would allow us to continue to rent it.

As well as this, our projects within the country were sponsored by a church in Singapore whose support was invaluable and enabled many children to be looked after. Unfortunately, in 2009, the church had to end this sponsorship, and this left a huge hole in the funds being sent to the Philippines.

However, we are pleased to announce that a gift received yesterday has bridged the gap and enabled us to continue supporting the children in the short term. Although the situation is not permanently resolved, the immediate danger has passed. We are so grateful to our supporters for the love and care with which they have blessed the people of the Philippines.

Thank you.

Good Neighbour Scheme

Outside my home the snow is over a foot deep. Underneath it, the ground is covered in a thick layer of ice. It's treacherous, to say the least. So I was very glad when my neighbour knocked on my door.

"I'm going to the shops," he announced, pointing at his four wheel drive car with its off road tyres. "Shall I get your shopping while I'm there?"

Other neighbours have come out to dig paths to people's homes. People push cars that struggle to move on the icy roads. They've called on those who live alone and made sure they're OK. In some cases, it's the first time the neighbours have shared more than a brief hello.

"Don't mention it," said my neighbour in response to my thank yous. "It's all part of the Good Neighbour Scheme."

By anyone's standards, I have very good neighbours. They've proved that this week. Time and again, they've come out to help someone, with no reluctance, no thought of profit, or repayment. They've seen a need, and they've jumped in to fill it. And everyone of us has felt better for it. Giver and receiver, the deed has left a feeling of well being within us.

But who is my neighbour? Is it just the person in the house next door? Is it the man who lives on my street? In my town? My country? My world?

We are all neighbours really. We're all people, we all have needs that someone, somewhere can fill. One person's insurmountable problem is another person's drop in the ocean.

For instance, in Sierra Leone, children are dying of hunger. The country is rebuilding after a bitter civil war, and many parents cannot support their children. For some, this is because of injury - soldiers on both sides cut off the hands and arms of men, women and children from the opposing factions, leaving a country full of people unable to work.

Those who escaped the amputations are not necessarily able to earn the money they need, either. Being available for work is not the same thing as having work. Industry, infrastructure, everything in the country is in disarray. Poverty is everywhere. And as usual, the children are among the worst hit.

World In Need runs a feeding programme through schools in Sierra Leone. For £5 (about $8) per child per month, we ensure the children get a good meal inside them every day they come to school. For many, it is their only food and we make sure it is nutritious, so it will help them stay healthy and grow strong. By linking it to school attendance, we are also able to ensure that this new generation will be better educated, gaining the skills they need to look after themselves, their families and their country in the future.

The programme is paid for by sponsors, people in the west for whom £5 a month is nothing. A drop in the ocean. To the child they help, it is the world.

From the snow covered towns of Southern England to the ravaged land of Sierra Leone, the whole world needs a Good Neighbour Scheme. Let's start one.

Rains and Floods

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, DR Congo... All countries in East Africa that have been badly affected by the failing rains for the last six seasons. Drought has caused serious problems, crops have been depleted, hunger and poverty have increased.

Now, at last, the rains have come. Helped by el Nino, they are heavier than they have been for years. That's good, right?

Well, no. Not entirely. Not if you're one of the 22 people who have been killed in Kenya alone since Christmas, due to the floods that the sudden rains have brought. Not if you're one of the people whose homes have been washed away by the deluge. In rural areas, many homes are made of mud. They are solid enough to stand for an average twenty years, provide shelter from the elements and withstand the normal amounts of rain that can be expected to fall. But they can't withstand the heavy rains they've been subjected to, or the flooding.

Nor can some of the homes in the slums of Nairobi. In Kibera slum, home to over one million people, dozens of houses have been washed away. The houses are made of wood and corrugated metal, and they're built so close together, they're almost on top of one another. Against the forces of nature, they stand no chance.

Our picture shows dwellings in a Nairobi slum. They're typical of the homes found there.

Is it a cyclical weather pattern? Or climate change? Who knows? But then, to the people of East Africa, cause is not their greater concern right now. Effect is.

The rains come to Kenya

Kenya has been suffering a time of drought. For six seasons, the rains have failed, and life has grown progressively harder for the people. But now, when the rains finally come, they do not bring with them joy and good times.

Thanks to el Nino, an atmospheric phenomenon in the Pacific ocean that affects weather across the whole world, the rains in Kenya have been heavy and brutal.

To an extent, the people prepared for the onslaught. In the northern district of Soy, where World in Need has opened a primary school, the Nancy George Academy, the people planted beans instead of the more customary maize, since bean crops are more able to withstand heavy weather without being destroyed. But there is only so much preparation one can do.

Many of the buildings in this part of Africa, including half the classrooms at the Nancy George Academy are made of mud. The mud is trodden smooth in big pits until it is like clay, then packed solidly over wire frames, where it hardens. A mud hut can last twenty years. But it can't fight el Nino.

World In Need's East Africa director, Robert Mulumbi, wrote to tell us that the heavy rains had hit the school and washed away the walls of the mud built buildings, leaving just the brick built ones standing. The mud buildings included not just the classrooms, but the school's nursery and kitchen, and the staff room. All will have to be rebuilt, and until they are, the children will have to squeeze into the remaining classrooms.

It will be uncomfortable for the children until the new school buildings are erected. It will be worse for those whose homes are also made of mud. They, who had so little, will have lost everything; home, possessions, shelter, swept away on the wind and rain.

Please pray for them.

Happy New Year

We wish every one of you a Happy, healthy, prosperous, peaceful and trouble free New year