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Sandra Basgall turned seventy a few weeks ago. But there’s no easy chair in sight for this Colorado-born CRS staffer. Sandra’s an advisor on monitoring and evaluation for the Central Africa Region, lives in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is still very much in on the action. She’s lived in 15 different US states and 6 different countries, but home is wherever she lays her hat. “I don’t look back and think ‘oh I wish I was there again’. I just look forward and think ‘where am I going to go next and what am I going to do next?’”

Posted on May 7, 2012 by John Rivera

BALTIMORE, MD, May 7, 2012 — Catholic Relief Services (CRS) will mark the achievements of a 4.5-year, $23.8 million project to fight diseases that could have devastated the critical cassava crop in east and central Africa with an event on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 in Washington, DC.

By Autumn Brown

Seeing Salvacion Pacatang walk around the office as the area coordinator working with Catholic Relief Services’ partner, the Diocese Social Action Center, you would never guess that her life had been turned upside down only a few months before. She is a survivor of Typhoon Sendong, the cyclone that ravaged her community in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines on the night of December 16, 2011—killing many of her friends and neighbors and sweeping her home out to sea.

Unrest and uncertainty are continuing in the West African state of Mali, as rebel separatist forces have taken control of the northern desert region. Interim civilian power has been restored in the capital, Bamako, after last month’s military coup, but Mali’s political future is still unclear. Violence in the north continues and many thousands of people are still fleeing their homes – either to move further south or to cross the borders into neighboring countries. CRS remains committed to serve the people of Mali and to continue its relief and development work there.

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Kim Pozniak

Catholic Relief Services in Mali today announced the temporary closure of one of its field offices in the town of Mopti as a result of an ongoing rebellion that intensified amid a military coup last month.

With increased rebel movements reported in the Mopti region and to ensure the safety of our staff, CRS made the decision to close its office there for a period of one week, pending improved security in the area.

By Laura Sheahen,

“When the bombing was bad, we didn’t go to school. We were in the bunker,” says 10-year-old Anthony.* “I put my fingers in my ears to shut out the shelling.”

Huddled in a hole dug quickly in the ground, with sandbags to protect them from blasts and tree branches screening their “bunker” from view, Anthony and his mother waited hours with their neighbors until the bombing stopped. Across northern Sri Lanka, thousands of children were doing the same thing, over and over, day after day.

Seven leading aid agencies call on donors to act now to prevent humanitarian disaster

Niamey (Niger), March 21, 2012 – A new study has found that between 70 and 90 per cent of people from communities in western and eastern Niger fear their food stocks will run out before the next harvest, creating an imminent ‘hunger gap’. All families surveyed said they had already reduced the amount of food consumed each day because they did not have enough to eat.

With hundreds killed this week in fresh ethnic violence in South Sudan what is the situation like in the world’s newest independent nation? The U.N. says some 350,000 people were displaced because of intercommunal violence in South Sudan last year, an impoverished country which is awash with small arms following decades of conflict .

Many in the United States are learning about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army through an internet video that has attracted tens of millions of views. Catholic Relief Services has been working for years to help the victims of Kony and the LRA.