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Tag: Humanitarian Relief and Disaster Risk Reduction

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

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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,

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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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