Throughout the Mekong region, families face challenges every year in coping with hunger and poverty..
Throughout the Mekong region, families face challenges every year in coping with hunger and poverty. But many can also attest to care received from community members who came together during a time of crisis. After a major cyclone hit the region a few years ago, minority rural peoples were cut off from relief supplies due to flooding and lack of access to transportation. Most people were focused on their own safety and security. But a small group of caring individuals empowered by a view that others have value, sacrificed their own livelihoods to help. After gathering food and provisions on small boats they set out to reach the thousands trapped and ill. They thought no one would come. Yet with sacrificial love, families and communities were transformed. Now they also have an attitude of love and caring even for those who cannot return the gift of grace.

Thousands of lives were saved through food distribution, medical provisions and housing construction during such emergencies as a cyclone, a tsunami, rat infestations and a global food crisis. But it was not only the minority peoples who were the beneficiaries of these activities. Instead, they were the ones risking their own lives, resources and safety to assist others through their own sacrifices. None of this would be possible without a transformation in the minds and hearts of normal people acting in response to the love and truth they received through FH staff and partners.

WHERE

+ Democratic Republic
-- of Congo
+ Ethiopia
+ Kenya
+ Rwanda
+ Uganda

+ FH HISTORY:

For over twenty years, FH has been working among minority people groups in and around the Mekong Peninsula of Southeast Asia with extraordinary impact. This region is challenged with difficulties that go beyond the normal obstacles involved in poverty reduction such as inadequate clean water and sanitation, poor food security, elementary education, or the recurring instances of natural disasters.

Because of highly sensitive governments and their relationship with certain minority groups, addressing the well-being of families and communities has proven to be virtually impossible. These groups may be marginalized from the benefits of citizenship due to their religion or ethnicity yet dedicated staff, community leaders and partners in other organizations have worked exceedingly well together to bring about truly dynamic transformation..

+ regional HISTORY:

Archaeological discoveries show that Southeast Asia has been an important area of development - bustling with trading ports and canals as early as in the first century C.E. Extensive human settlement in the region may have gone back as far as the 4th century B.C.E. The region was mainly inhabited by the Khmer people prior to the 17th century with some Chinese and Vietnamese outposts.

During late 17th century, Vietnamese and Chinese settlements expanded deeper into Khmer lands. In 1698, Cambodia was invaded. Later Vietnam's boundaries were pushed far back. The area became Cochinchina, France's first colony in Vietnam in 1867 and later, part of French Indochina. Following independence from France, the Mekong Delta was part of the Republic of Vietnam, eventually becoming the country of Vietnam. The region faced many conflicts in the Indochina Wars from 1945-1979 including the First Indochina War and the Vietnam war sometimes referred to as the Second Indochina War..

+ FACTS:

+ Most people in the Mekong record a GDP of less than $1 USD per day.

+ The Mekong peninsula is home to 250 million people.

+ Human trafficking for the purposes of labor and sexual exploitation is widespread across the region and a key issue for all six nations in the Mekong area.

+ Facts From: UNICEF

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