“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.

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.

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.

A sizeable crowd of people gathered inside Brethren Church of Christ to listen to the Sunday service. Van Hamusikili, 53, was one of them.

“Today’s message is about exercising dominion through Farming God’s Way,” Pastor Obert opened his sermon, much to the shock of all the congregants. The expected message was one of redemption from sin, not farming. At the end of the sermon, visibly angry men and women approached Pastor Obert, expressing their displeasure with the day’s message. “We expected messages of salvation, but he preached Farming God’s Way in church. We felt he had been demonically possessed to confuse and mislead us,” Van says.

In the community of Los Planes, located in Marcala, Honduras, we met Abel Lopéz who is 44 years of age. He proudly showed us his huge coffee plot where he has over a 1000 coffee trees. This season has been better than any he can remember. He says, “This has been the best harvest I've ever had, thanks to the support of the World Vision THRIVE program; I've been able to care for each of my coffee trees and increase my production to be able to sell it and make an earning to support my family.”

As many people know, micro-finance is the "canary in the coal mine" for any rapid changes in the economic well-being for people who live at "the bottom of the pyramid". On May 5th, The Economist published an important article on micro-finance. As the article lays out, because the responses to Covid-19 have decimated the poor whom we serve, micro-finance institutions and micro-finance as an activity around the world are under siege.

Killion, aged 51, and his family struggled with life. Born and raised in Mng’ona village in the Chilenje community, he accepted the status quo of being a villager. Poverty was part of life. He never produced enough maize (corn) to last all year round due to poor farming practices. As a family, they were sleeping in a grass-thatched house that would leak during the rainy season. “Life was difficult. We lacked food especially during the lean periods. We used to sleep in a grass-thatched house.

Thanks to Covid-19, most of the world is getting an up-front-close and personal course in disaster management.  One of the keys to good disaster management is understanding risk.  World Vision does a lot of work in communities that have to manage risks that come from various sources - hurricanes, earthquakes, famines, floods – or even from a pandemic.

I have tried to organize a set of links for people interested in knowing what is happening in various countries - without having to go search them out. The realities the people living in extreme poverty are often significantly different than we might think.

“I enjoy spending time with my mother and showing her what we learn at school,” says 12-year-old Theonile. Anne Marie cherishes the moment her daughter Theonile arrives home from school each day. She is proud that Theonile is studying hard.

Anne Marie Mukandekezi, 38, is a mother of six and a resident of Gishubi village in Gakenke district in the Southern Province. She has always been a farmer but could only produce enough food for her family.