Food prices in Afghanistan have soared over the past few months.  People turn to desperate means, digging through rubbish containers in order to feed their families.  Unable to find work, a 40-year-old man sold his 11-year-old daughter for US$2,000.  “For too many days I stood next to roads and asked people for work,” said the man.  “Because I am illiterate, no one will give me a job.”  War and poverty have perpetuated illiteracy.  Schools are slowly becoming a priority again in northern Afghanistan.  However, the pressures of immediate hunger are often too demanding.  Vulnerable is the hope of a generation of formally educated Afghanis.

Orus, a desolate village in Northern Kenya, is home to the Pokot people.  During a two-year drought, the village diviners had traveled to the mountains with their best animals to sacrifice and plead to their gods for rain.  A young, enthusiastic missionary among them told them of the greatness of Jesus Christ.  “Can your God send rain?” the people asked him.  The missionary responded that Jesus was able, but that the people first needed to repent of their sins and then to pray in Jesus’ name alone.  Days later, as the missionary returned from a nearby village, Pokot people greeted him with news of rain.  During the Sunday service, an old diviner stood among the congregation and proclaimed, “Truly it is Jesus who has power with God.”

Vitamin A doses save the lives of more than 30,000 children annually in the impoverished nation of Bangladesh.  The supplements increase children’s resistance to disease, as well as improving their chances for survival, growth and development, according to UNICEF.  In Bangladesh, infections such as measles and diarrhoea contribute to more than one-third of deaths among children under five.  A vitamin A capsule, costing only one taka [US $1 = 69 taka] can increase a child’s chances of survival by up to 25 percent.  Bangladesh’s child mortality rate (under five years of age) was 69% per live births in 2006. Child rights activist and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have successfully provided vitamin A doses to 19 million Bangladesh children.