“I was scared of losing my children to malnutrition,” says Charlotte Ka-bili, a 19-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which neighbors Zambia. Charlotte is an adorable young mother of three, two girls and a boy, ages 6 months to 6 years. She lives in a refugee settlement in Northern Zambia with over 14,000 Congolese nationals who fled their country due to civil war.

“I never ever thought that I would one day run away from my own country and become a scrounger in another. I had big dreams for myself and my family,” she says.

“When our first three coronavirus positive cases were detected and declared by our Bangladesh government, our program community people in the slums became very afraid of COVID-19. The first time they heard of the coronavirus, [they had] no details,” says Mili, who implements World Vision’s Child Protection project in the slums of southern Bangladesh. “Their apprehension gradually reduced when World Vision started working in partnership with the parents and a child forum.”

On July 7, 2020, World Vision released a major report called Out of Time. World Vision gathered field-level data from 24 countries. We surveyed 14,000 households in Asia, over 2,400 small business owners across Africa, and more than 360 Venezuelan migrants across Latin America.

World Vision's assessments show that COVID-19 is already affecting parents' and caregivers' ability to meet the needs of their children. Our assessment confirms that projections made by the UN and other global agencies about the impact of the pandemic on the extreme poor are already happening.

Seated on the ground, 13-year-old Ivy eloquently reads a book in her mother tongue as she leans against the wall of a small mudbrick house in southern Zambia’s Moyo community. In the day’s twilight, the sun pleasantly beams onto her face in beautiful gold.

Ivy has mastered reading despite now having to learn on her own due to the impact of the coronavirus. Ivy and about 100 other children in her village used to meet at a reading camp—established with the help of World Vision—where they learned to read, write and play.

The wave of fear remains as the coronavirus continues to impact many lives all over the world. Forty-two-year-old Florence Hachiyona of the Moyo community in southern Zambia likens the COVID-19 era as “facing a double-edged sword.”

“After hearing what the coronavirus can do and that it had reached Zambia, fear besieged me. I started [having] sleep-less nights. I thought it was over for me. Being HIV positive already, I fear contracting another virus because I would die faster and leave my children alone to suffer,” says Florence, a mother of four.

There is so much to lament in our world today – a global pandemic, economic downturn, social/political/racial tensions. We face our own humanity and mortality on a daily basis. We know of people with serious health issues and we fear for them this deadly spreading virus. We know people who have lost jobs. We know those who suffer from isolation, anxiety, and depression.

We feel the malaise in our own souls as well. The unknown is becoming greater than the known. We cannot predict our schedules, our safety, our health. Trips have been cancelled indefinitely. Jobs are virtual and virtual feels distant. School for our children is not something we can count on. The experts disagree on so many things, and we don’t know what we don’t know.

Just after 5 a.m. in the Mweebo community in southern Zambia, Nelly Mulavu began her lonely trek through the middle of thick bush to fetch water from the only stream in area. This was her first daily morning chore.

Suddenly, a strange man appeared from the bush, a few meters away from where she was standing. “The man looked suspicious,” says Nelly later. “My heart froze in fear. I wondered if the man could be up to something, knowing deep down in my heart what had happened to several other women in the past.” Almost immediately he grabbed her, and a serious battle ensued between the two.

Karla, 14, and her father, Pastor Pedro, live in La Palmas, Honduras. Together they are making a difference in the lives of children in their neighborhood. “I’m part of the youth club [called] ‘Building friendships.’ This club is supported by the World Vision project, Fostering Hope at Home, where we work with children and teenagers on topics that will change their lives,” says Karla. “Due to the lack of a strong income, many parents spend most of their time working, leaving their children by themselves at home. This makes them an easy prey for gangs that unfortunately rule the neighborhood,” she says.

National Director, World Vision Rwanda
Thunderbird School of Global Management (’05)

“Careers don’t take straight lines.
Be patient with the twists and turns in your career.”
— Sean Kerrigan

For Sean Kerrigan (‘05), the path to becoming the National Director for World Vision Rwanda has been one of twists, turns, humility, patience, and persistent optimism. He grew up on the edge of the Amazon jungle in Shell, Ecuador where his father was the only surgeon in the Eastern half of the country and his mother was a nurse. He describes a “wonderful childhood”, running around the jungle with his 4 brothers and keeping monkeys and parrots as pets. From Ecuador, his family moved to Kenya where he completed his secondary school education and then eventually came to the United States for his degree in Chemical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (‘00).

Eight-year-old Alan runs quickly to the field, bends down and picks a big, beautiful carrot. His father, Gerardo Rodriguez (46), opens the irrigation system to water his crop, including the carrots, which is Alan´s favorite vegetable. Little Alan and his family live in the community of Cerro Verde, located in the high region of Marcala, Honduras. Every morning after breakfast and a good cup of coffee, Gerardo walks through his fields to check the vegetables and determine if they are ready to be sent to market. At the same time, Alan says goodbye to his mother Mirna and walks to school with other children from the community.