Recently about 100 unaccompanied and separated refugee children, both boys and girls, who live in three CWS-supported group homes in Jakarta started new classes in the group homes. It was an exciting time not only for the students, who were ending a two-week break and were eager to resume learning, but also for five new volunteer teachers who were joining eight veteran teachers who have been volunteering their time for a while. All 13 teachers are refugees too and, until a few months ago, three of five the new teachers were themselves living in a group home.

Maxi Taneseb and Fince Yane Baifeto live in a small village in West Timor with their three children. Because of their poverty and ambition to live better, the family joined CWS in Timor Zero Hunger activities in January 2017. With CWS support, they started to improve the way they grew vegetables and raised chickens, and they also started working towards better access to clean water and a family toilet – something they did alongside others in Noemuke village who also wanted to improve their economic status for better food security and their children’s health and nutrition.

Henra Rante Allo is a 40-year-old member of the Disaster Preparedness Team (TAGANA is the Indonesian acronym) in Tana Toraja District of South Sulawesi – a team that was created by the Ministry of Social Affairs several years ago as part of a nationwide program designed to support community volunteers for disaster preparedness and response. Henra’s TAGANA tasks include helping evacuate and shelter people from disaster affected areas, and then doing rapid needs assessments to address damage.

To continue helping villages in Maubin Township in Southwest Myanmar, the CWS team once again worked with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (www.cawst.org) further strengthen sanitation in flood-prone villages where CWS has been partnering with families for several years to help them affordably improve sanitation in schools and at home.

Our team in Myanmar has been partnering with villages in Maubin township in southwest Myanmar for years. Many communities here are flood-prone and face deep poverty, so our team has helped them prepare for and mitigate flooding, improve child nutrition and improve sanitation in schools and at home.