Lurking on the Reuters website I happened upon a video about a sixty year old farmer who lost his wife to the ever worsening crisis in The Horn of Africa. I clicked the play button expecting to see something along the lines of “Famine crisis in Horn of Africa” followed by maybe a link to one of the hundreds of aid organisations doing their part to curb the crisis there; but instead I was met [...]

The following article is written by David Tan, a year 12 student from Rangitoto College. As part of the College’s Gateway programme, David is getting some work experience at TEAR Fund. What the heck is “development”? It’s an important question. I wonder what happened to the $45 cheque I gave to TEAR Fund last month… it’s a lot of money for an unemployed seventeen-year old teen. I want lives to be transformed and dreams to [...]

Senior International Programmes Officer – Ian McInnes – talks about his role administering TEAR Fund’s aid effort in Haiti and the situation there.

Note: In this article we are not referring to humanitarian intervention where the definition relates to armed intervention into one state by another state as a means to address human suffering, we are referring to the recognition of extreme poverty and it being addressed by agencies outside of those affected by the poverty. As the world of international development continues to increase its understanding of the practice of humanitarian intervention through many years of trial, [...]

Forget the arguments and cynicism about aid.  The need in Haiti is massive and urgent.  Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world.  Its infrastructure is completely inadequate to cope with the effect of a 7.0 magnitude quake so close to its capital.  Rapid, effective foreign aid is vital. It’s hard to get an accurate picture of what’s happening.  Communications are disrupted, reports sketchy and varying considerably but it’s likely the death toll [...]

August 19th is World Humanitarian Day. The focus is on aid workers who sacrifice their own well-being to serve the humanitarian cause and offer their lives to assist others. Too often there are headlines reporting the kidnappings or deaths of those who are doing their utmost to help others. Let it be known that aid and development work can sometimes be extremely dangerous, but those dangers are often not recognised by the general public who [...]

For those interested, here is a link to the speech Murray McCully gave outlining the wider changes to NZ Aid that some of us have been waiting for: Murray McCully: New Priorities for New Zealand Aid. The major announcements have been visible for some time – NZ Aid will be brought back completely into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and it’s focus will move from poverty alleviation to economic development.

With the ever growing awareness of humanitarian issues around the world related to aid and community development, there is a corresponding desire growing amongst many people to get themselves directly involved in humanitarian work. Because of this, many people are specifically looking for humanitarian jobs. Because the aid and development sector is so large and growing at an alarming rate with new organisations popping up all the time, many people have no idea where to [...]

TEAR Fund is committing $80,000 to bring relief to the displaced millions following the worst flooding in 50 years, in India’s state of Bihar. TEAR Fund’s partner in India, the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (EFICOR) is experienced in disaster relief, having responded to most of the worst disasters to hit India over the past three decades. A team is already assessing the situation and will provide much needed water, shelter, medicines and [...]

When many of us picture aid and charity to developing nations, I think we often picture the heady times of the 80′s and the aid that poured into Ethiopia due to the work of people like Bob Geldof and Live Aid. We were bombarded with images of poverty and rightly the world’s heart was moved, resulting in one of the biggest outpourings of aid and charity that the world has ever seen. Aid in the [...]