Wendell Brock - Wednesday, January 26, 2011
By Jayme Mendenhall

Rebecca Douglas visited India in 2000 and observed a depth of suffering that was palpable. The worst of what she saw was the Leprosy beggars. When she returned to the United States, she was so haunted by images of suffering people that she knew she had to act. She called four close friends, and around her kitchen table they quietly formed Rising Star Outreach. It was incorporated and received its 501(c)(3) tax-free status in March 2002. Rising Star Outreach takes a three-pronged approach to ease the suffering and eradicate the cycle of poverty associated with Leprosy:

1. To teach the children from the colonies pride in their Indian heritage and to provide them tools necessary to break the generational cycle of dependence on society and instead become productive members of that society.

2. To encourage ostracized families to work toward independence by providing loans for small businesses and structural improvements.

3. To address the physical ravages of Leprosy's bitter attack and screen for new cases through mobile medical units.

The first official Rising Star Outreach children's home was rented and opened in April of 2004 with 27 children from the Leprosy colonies. The success of the home was stunning, and in 2005 a second children’s home was rented and opened for 32 additional colony kids. Now officially recognized by the Indian government, Rising Star has been commended for the high standard of care and excellence maintained in the school as the children prepare to enter mainstream society. They have since been able to build their own facility on 13.5 acres. This beautiful new facility currently houses and educates 180 children K-10, with a new grade added at the bottom each year.

While Rising Star was happy to have finally found a way to successfully care for the children of Leprosy victims, the suffering of their families who remained behind in the colonies could not be ignored. There needed to be a long term approach to lift the Leprosy afflicted out of their poverty. This was not an easy task in a country where the Leprosy-afflicted are shunned from society and considered untouchables. Banks refuse to lend to them.  The beggar’s life has been the only way to survive for thousands of years for someone afflicted with Leprosy.  

In June of 2003, Rebecca met Padma Venkataraman while working in the colonies. Padma is the daughter of India’s former president and is well known for her pioneering work facilitating micro-financing projects in Leprosy colonies.  Her idea was a simple one, but it took a lot of effort to convince the people it could work. Finally, a group of 4-5 women decided to give it a try.  Each month they would each commit to contributing the (US) equivalent of ten cents into a pot until they had accumulated $5. Then one of the women would take this loan and buy an iron, or some chickens or something with which she could start up a small business. As the business grew, she could pay back the loan.  When another $5 was gathered, then the next woman could take out a loan and the process would continue and grow. Gradually, the others in the colony saw the success of the women and want to take out loans too; and gradually, the colony became self-sufficient!  For the first time in known history, those afflicted with Leprosy have a viable alternative to begging and are rising above the stigma of their disease.

As the colonies began to improve their economic situation, the primary challenge they faced was the lack of consistent medical care. Access to hospitals was difficult, both logistically and due to the social stigma. Rising Star Outreach responded to this problem with the initiation of a Mobile Medical Unit in March 2005. Finally, severely deformed Leprosy victims' problem of being unable to leave the colony for adequate medical care was resolved. Run completely by a team of excellent Indian doctors, the unit travels to the colonies and provides leprosy screening, medicines for treatment, wound and ulcer care, and medical treatment for non-leprosy related ailments such as TB, typhoid fever, and diabetes.

Rising Star Outreach has now grown into a nationally recognized force in the fight against Leprosy. They have clarified their mission to focus on one specific objective: to help the Leprosy colonies become thriving, self-sufficient communities. Using these three methods, Rising Star expects to see the Indian Leprosy colonies converted into thriving, self-sufficient communities by the year 2020. Rising Star Outreach typically has about 1,000 loans out to leprosy-affected patients. These loans are constantly being repaid and re-lent. They also have around 3,000 loans out to victims of the 2004 tsunami; the average loan is between $20-$100. Rising Star plans to duplicate this program in other Indian states and in other developing countries where Leprosy continues to destroy families and lives.

The success of Rising Star Outreach to date has truly been a miracle. It is one that they attribute completely to the kindness and generosity of concerned people all over the world and the loving hand of God.

• for providing shelter, food, health care, and education for children of leprosy-affected persons by building and running children's homes.
  
• to fund the schools for the children. Donations fund not only the building of the schools, but running them as well. Teachers, teaching supplies, books, and uniforms are all part of the school costs.
• to provide micro-loans for small businesses as part of the economic rehabilitation of the leprosy-affected.
• to improve the living conditions of the leprosy colonies through targeted improvement projects.
• to run mobile medical clinics to the leprosy colonies that provide wound care, leprosy-screening, leprosy treatment, eye care, and treatment for other diseases affecting the colonists.

To learn more about Rising Star Outreach, or to donate, go to   http://www.risingstaroutreach.org/.

Wendell Brock - Tuesday, July 06, 2010AIDS has taken many lives, and  to the children in a small orphanage in Uganda it has turned their lives upside down as they learn to cope without their  family, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters.

The St. Paul and Rose Orphanage is currently taking care of 27 children.  Paul, the owner of the orphanage was only able to pay for 20 of the children which left 7 of them at home for a semester. Schooling in Uganda is expensive for the people, costing $50 (in U.S. currency) for one semester, and $1350 for all of the children in the orphanage to attend for only one semester.

Paul doesn’t want people to donate money so all of the children may attend school, because once one semester is over who is going to be able to pay for the next? Even if he receives more donations for many semesters to come, those donations will eventually come to a close. 

Children with the dental kits we handed out after showing them how to properly care for their teeth.

Instead, he would rather develop a micro-business that he and the children can work together to create a steady income for the children’s school fund every semester.  Running a micro-business will provide the children with a great economic education, which will strengthen their abilities to care for their own families later in life.

He has asked a team of young adults that have come to Uganda to help out with the AIDS victims to assist him and his children in building a chicken coup so the children will have an opportunity to sell the eggs at a market nearby. The team of young adults would absolutely love to help this orphanage out, but they don’t have enough funds to build it. But Paul didn’t give up. He asked the team to try to cut the project in half, “only do half as big of a coup”, but the team wouldn’t even be able to afford that small of a coup. It broke their hearts to have to turn down this sweet man’s request to help better the lives of orphans in Uganda, especially because with having a chicken coup these children will learn a valuable and practical skill in Uganda by caring, and taking care of chickens.

But this chicken coup is only the beginning of Paul and Roses dreams and aspirations for their humble orphanage.  "We have children show up on our doorstep every week asking for a place to live and the best we can do is give them some food before turning them away." Paul and Rose say. They want to be able to expand their orphanage so they are able to house more orphans.

Even though a chicken coup seems like a small little project, it will turn out to be what changes many children’s lives. Through this many children will be able to go through school, and eventually find work to take care of, and support their future families. Eventually Paul and Rose will be able to expand their orphanage and change many other children’s lives as well. But there is no way that any of this will be able to happen without donations to start on one chicken coup.  

The chicken coop will cost $1,500 USD to build it large enough and strong enough to withstand the elements and wild animals.  That will also supply them with a small flock of chickens to start out with as well.  All extra funds will be used for school kits we will send to the orphanage.

Learn More At: http://carrieinuganda.blogspot.com/2010/06/childs-prayer.html

Wendell Brock - Wednesday, May 12, 2010


I like to think that The Beatles were right; we all do want to change the world - for the better!

But, if simply wanting something to happen was all that was required, poverty would be nonexistent and every child would have an education.

The reality is that these problems are widespread. And while charity isn’t new, we need new ways to optimize and implement charitable solutions so that it doesn’t just relieve, but solves the problems.

Esther Duflo, founder and director of MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab, is using economics and statistics to determine what types of aid have the most impact. Basically, she’s asking how groups can get the most bang for their buck.

Malaria Bednets
In a recent TED Talk titled “Social Experiments to Fight Poverty”, Duflo gives the example of bednets to prevent malaria in Africa. If people must pay for them, will they? If they’re given bednets for free, will people value them enough to use them? (Duflo includes a slide of bednets being used as fishing nets.) And if people will later be asked to buy additional bednets, will they if the nets had previously been free? It’s a fascinating look at how people are motivated.

Getting Kids to School
At CREED, we are concerned with education and development. Duflo’s talk addresses the problem of getting kids to attend school. One great need is providing school kits. She studied possible options to motivate children and their parents to attend school. Some options included:

• hiring an extra teacher
• providing school meals
• providing uniforms
• awarding scholarships

Duflo discovered that for every $100 a charity or government spends in one of these areas, a child will attend school between 1 year (free uniforms) and 2.8 years  (free meals) longer. It’s better, but it’s not great.

Unexpected Results
However, if a group spends $100 on deworming children who live in places where intestinal worms are a problem, they will see an extra 28.6 total years of schooling for the group children that are dewormed. And if a group uses $100 to educate children and their parents on the importance of schooling, they will have a return of 40 additional years of school. These are bona fide changes and a far better return on their investment.

Deworming and simply talking with parents may not be the obvious choices when trying to keep kids in school. But they’re far more successful than giving children the same matching shirt and shorts to wear.

Small Steps
Educating kids won’t instantly transform their society, but it will provide a clear path forward. At the end of her talk, Duflo says, “There is no silver bullet. You cannot helicopter people out of poverty.”

But we can make small, lasting changes that will transform society. Applying results-driven, empirical evidence to charity is helping this along.

Duflo’s discovery of deworming’s educational benefits led to the founding of Deworm the World. Just last year, this group dewormed 20 million children.