The Invisible Victims of COVID-19 in India

When people in Hong Kong think of the pandemic, several terms come to mind: the safety of vaccines, the economic downturn, restricted gatherings and travel bubbles. To religious people, there are the added “religious gatherings”. Such events are undoubtedly the concerns of many of us in Hong Kong. However, for the poor living overseas, their main concern is not contracting the virus, but surviving. The safety of vaccines and travel restrictions are the least of their concerns.

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Rescue Girls from Red Light Area of India during COVID-19 Lockdown

(Ayesha [centre], coordinator of CEDAR’s Nepalese partner, Asha Nepal)

 

(Updated on 9 October 2020)

   

Our Nepalese partner recently told us that they rescued two girls from a red light area of India. The situation of the girls was very vulnerable so our partner carried out rescue even under the threat of COVID-19 and closing of borders.

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CEDAR aided 14,640 families affected by the flood in Maharashtra, India

(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]

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“Death Sentence” to the Climate-affected Poor – Resisting Disaster in India

 

Editor’s note: When we were children, we learned about “climate change” in our textbooks; but this expression is no longer an accurate description of the threat presented to the world nowadays. The term “climate change” has gradually been replaced by “climate crisis”, which indicates that the planet has entered an emergency state. In this issue of SHARE, “Climate and the Poor” was adopted as the theme to remind the Christian communities about the group of people who are hit the hardest by the climate crisis. In “Back to the Bible”, we pointed out that caring for the created world is crucial in our beliefs. We have an article on our supporter’s experience of choosing a lifestyle that reduces carbon footprints, and another article about life education for Ethiopian youths written by our staff.

 

[“SHARE” OCT – DEC 2019 ] FOCUS 

Written by: Edward Lai (Senior Communications Officer)

 

The world experienced the hottest month ever in July [1]. In fact, 2015 to 2019 may have been the hottest 5 years in human history. [2]

 

In recent years, the United Nations (UN) [3] has issued several warnings on the imminent peril of climate crises induced by human activities. Under the same climate crisis, the threats borne by the rich and the poor are totally different. As pointed out by the experts at the UN [4], the rich can use money to mitigate the impacts of global warming, but the poor are almost powerless. They are left to bear the brunt of rising temperature, such as drought, famine and infectious diseases. CEDAR has been carrying out disaster relief and disaster risk reduction in various developing countries in Asia and Africa. In India, especially, we witnessed the severity of the impact of climate crisis on the poor.

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Fear Not the Slander and Shadow, But to Break the Silence – Interview with Indian Anti-child Trafficking Activist

(Aashima Samuel, the National Director of EFIC@R, interviewed by CEDAR)

 

“In Indian villages, when we and church pastors advocated anti-child trafficking, some Hindi nationalists accused us of, or even attacked us for ‘brainwashing’ villagers to convert them into Christians. In fact, among them, there were traffickers slandering us to extinguish our anti-trafficking voice,” said Aashima Samuel, the National Director of Evangelical Fellowship of India Children At Risk (EFIC@R), CEDAR’s partner.

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Flooding in South Asia Displaced over 10 Million People CEDAR Calls for Donations to Help Victims in 3 Countries

(Updated on 30th August,2019)

 

Many countries in South Asia have been inundated during the monsoon season this year. Although the rain has eased up in some of the hardest stricken areas and water levels have subsided, up to 22 July, over 650 people had been killed and over 10 million had been displaced. In light of the severity of the disaster, CEDAR provided a grant of US$60,000 (around HK$470,000) to our Christian partners in India, Bangladesh and Nepal to provide emergency relief to the victims in the region. CEDAR would like to ask all of you for donations to support disaster victims to overcome the adversity.

Continue reading Flooding in South Asia Displaced over 10 Million People CEDAR Calls for Donations to Help Victims in 3 Countries