From Sewing Sanitary Napkins to Three-layer Face Masks

Posted on by Cedar Fund

(Theit Theit Shwee sewing face masks made by cloth [photo from CEDAR’s partner])

　

“Kacha…Kacha…” Theit Theit Shwee, a woman from the slum area of Myanmar, sat in front of a sewing machine and sewed the fabric. She carefully wrapped the two white bands and sewed them with the fabric and finished making a three-layer cloth mask. This has been her daily job, making cloth masks with other women in the community center of CEDAR’s partner.

Continue reading From Sewing Sanitary Napkins to Three-layer Face Masks

Uprooting Poverty: The Perspective of Christian Faith

Posted on by 施達基金會

[“SHARE” OCT – DEC 2018 ] FOCUS ~ Christian Response to Poverty

Written by: Raymond Kwong (CEDAR’s Chief Executive) and Jady Sit

In recent years, the international development sector began to emphasise the importance of human inner transformation for uprooting poverty. For instance, Cornell University Professor Kaushik Basu, who serves as the chief economist of World Bank from 2012 to 2016, shared in a public lecture, that no matter what kind of models of poverty alleviation is, one of the key factors to its success is whether people are willing to let go of some of their own interests or economic benefits and seek higher purposes, with which human being in general are common, and so, he advocates strengthening values education in society. This is about changing hearts and minds.

Impoverishment is a consequence of mankind’s broken relationship with God, with each other, and with the rest of the Creation. This broken relationship does not limited to the poor, but also to the non-poor. That is to say, for the sake of ending poverty, inner change has to happen with both the haves and the have-nots.

Continue reading Uprooting Poverty: The Perspective of Christian Faith

A Life with Hope, Untangled from Underage Marriage

Posted on by 施達基金會

In Bangladesh, arranged marriage is seen as a blessing to the family of young girls, who are often below the legal age of marriage.

Rainy is an Indian girl living in the slums of Bangladesh. Her family is of the lowest caste and could only sustain themselves by doing corpse clearers and janitorial works. They were forbidden from interacting with their community and the women in the family were not allowed outside. Rainy’s parents believed that arranging a marriage for her is a blessing to the family, and was conceivably grateful when they found a man in a rich family proposing to Rainy when she was 15, who recalled, “I was only a kid at the age of 15, I didn’t want to get married yet.” Despite her obvious reluctance and concerns, Rainy’s parents proceeded to arrange for the wedding ceremony. Fortunately, SATHI’s staff visited them in the process and explained to them the drawbacks and unlawfulness of underage marriage, which consequently led them to give in and cancelled the marriage.

Rainy is one of the few lucky girls in Bangladesh who escaped the fate of arranged marriage at a young age, who subsequently finished her high school despite the demeaning tradition.

Continue reading A Life with Hope, Untangled from Underage Marriage

Free Again—The Lydia Project in the Slums of India

Posted on by 施達基金會

If you put sheets of raw materials into grinders, weigh them and put them into molds, so on with a total of 22 steps, you would have produced the pads necessary for every woman during her menstrual period. Pushpa was able to learn these steps and sustain her family by selling self-made pads with the help of the Lydia Center in New Delhi, India.

Continue reading Free Again—The Lydia Project in the Slums of India

Evilness under the Mist: Slums in Rio de Janeiro

Posted on by 施達基金會

With great expectation from the world, the Rio Olympics has just officially opened today, even though in the past year the society experienced various social problems, which strike the domestic stability of this BRICS member. From the government corruption scandal under the Rousseff administration, triggering massive demonstrations all over the country, which was followed by the outbreak of Zika virus. All these crises have badly affected to the world’s impression of this country and many have lost confidence towards the governance of the state. In fact in recent years, Brazil has constantly been criticized for building up all sort of “vanity projects”, such as hosting the World Cup and Olympic Games. Meanwhile the deep-rooted social problems and conflicts have been ignored, especially the problem of slums and related crimes.

Continue reading Evilness under the Mist: Slums in Rio de Janeiro

Supporting A Young Bangladeshi Girl’s Ambition

Posted on by 施達基金會

Jannatul, “The Garden of Heaven,” is the name of a girl who possesses the same transcendent glow in her life, pursuing her dreams despite social and sex limitations of her culture.

Continue reading Supporting A Young Bangladeshi Girl’s Ambition