Over the years, I’ve grown to love a country in Africa: Burundi. Last year my daughter and I went to work with Friends of Hope Africa University, an NGO that seeks to empower both a rural hospital, urban clinic and University. We have worked on filming some stories that are being used to create awareness. As you plan out holiday spending, gifts and year-end giving, consider partnering with this amazing group of leaders in the poorest country in the world. This year, the focus of their Giving Tuesday efforts are:
- Outpatient Feeding Program: Parents of over 300 children who have been identified as significantly malnourished come from miles around the local area twice a week to receive specially developed food to supplement their child’s diet. Supporting this initiative helps get kids healthier quicker and on the path to recovery.
- Inpatient Feeding Program: Unlike the hospitals many of us are used to, in many of the hospitals in the developing world family members are responsible to feed and care for the needs of hospitalized patients. Understanding the challenges of the communities served by Kibuye Hope Hospital, a program was launched to provide warm and nourishing meals two times every day for inpatients and their caretakers.
- College of Agriculture: The feeding of malnourished children and patients at the hospital are meeting short-term urgent needs. But HAU is prayerfully exploring big plans to address long-term nutritional challenges by launching a new School of Agriculture to help address the needs of the country to feed it’s people.