Kibera was my first experience of urban slums and sparked a personal interest in the development of slums and the contribution the model of slum living is making to some progressive modern city planners who are thinking about how cities should be built for the future.
It is estimated that 1 billion people live in slums worldwide and it is projected [...]

TEAR Fund NZ’s senior Programme Officer is currently in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. He is there serving our partner, Tearfund UK, and will be acting as the Director of their Disaster Response Team as they go about establishing their work in the area over the next few months. Ian has kindly agreed to share his experience through regular blog [...]

With the major rescue efforts being called off in Haiti and those resources being diverted to the continuing provision of emergency relief and care, alongside efforts to stabilise the country another pressing problem is becoming of increasing concern, child trafficking.
Child trafficking in Haiti was already a problem with several NGO’s noting a sharp increase in the number of children being [...]

It’s time to enter the discussion about Pat Robertson’s comments relating to Haiti.
The comment from the infamous televangelist that has caused much furor in the media and around the internet can be viewed over on Youtube. In the clip, Pat Robertson makes a connection between Haiti’s poverty and suffering and a “pact with the devil” that was supposed to have taken [...]

While in India, I had the opportunity to talk to a few young people living in poverty who have New Zealand sponsors.
I asked one young guy (11 years old) what he would wish for if he could have one wish and know without a doubt that it would come true. The circumstances that young man lives in could only be [...]

The following is a slideshow of images I captured during my time in India. It’s by no means all of them, but represents a good portion of the pictures I captured of children.

Note: Give yourself a pat on the back if you can guess the song line I have mimicked in the heading of this post. Does anyone want to [...]

Her Eyes, originally uploaded by made2serve.
Yesterday I got back from India. I was there with one of our International Programme Officers, Jared, to look at the work of ASHA in Delhi and Saahasee in Mumbai. Both of these organisations are partners of TEAR Fund NZ. If you help support our work, then you also help support theirs.
After seeing their work, [...]

Frank catches up with Jared, one of our Programme Officers, about his recent trip to Nepal to examine the work we support there.

Here’s a travel blog on my recent trip to Niue. My wife and I were only there for a one week holiday, so don’t expect anything profound, inspiring or well informed. If you’re familiar with my articles you wouldn’t be expecting that anyway.

The following video is of Hans Rosling making a TED presentation demonstrating through various data tools, how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. It is extremely interesting.

Lawyer Jonny Moses talks about his work for the UN in Tanzania, prosecuting suspects from the Rwandan genocide.

I was intrigued by this map that was sent to me recently clearly showing the distribution of the worlds wealth and population.
The fact that 14% of the worlds population enjoy 73% of the wealth while the remaining 86% are left with only 27% of the goodies was no surprise. The fact that when it comes to the 50 cities in [...]

They don’t wear eye-patches or peg legs and you won’t find any parrots perched on their shoulders, but they are no less pirates for that.
Twenty-first century piracy Somali style is a far cry from the swashbuckling, sea dogs of old but, in recent months, they have captured both the headlines and the public’s imagination.
Their high seas hijackings have also forced [...]

In this episode of the Podcast we talk to one of the people from our partner organisation in the Philippines, the Center for Community Transformation (CCT). CCT primarily works in micro-enterprise around the Philippines but has now also started a ministry working with street dwellers in Manila. We chat with Maricar about this work.

TEAR Fund has many generous donors who are engaged with various parts of what we do, whether it be child, sponsorship, micro-enterprise, community development, disaster relief or our peace and reconciliation efforts.
I was a TEAR Fund supporter long before I became the Education and Campaigns Manager. My wife and I support a number of TEAR Fund initiatives including child sponsorship, [...]

Al Jazeera reported this today:
Developing countries face a financing gap of $270bn to $700bn this year as trade income dwindles and rich nations vie for capital to deal with a global slump, the World Bank says.
Resources of international financial institutions would not be sufficient to meet their needs as more and more emerging and developing countries are hit, the World [...]