Did you know there are 33.3 million people currently infected with HIV? Did you know that 2.5 million of those people are children? Did you know that the poorest parts of the world are disproportionately plagued by this devastating – but preventable – disease?
Cross International Catholic Outreach may be listed among the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Top 100, but we’re still a pretty small fish in the ocean of humanitarian orgs. So when we landed a $4.8 million grant in late ‘08 from a whale—the US government—to help fund an AIDS project in Haiti, we did a happy dance. Frankly, it was our first government grant.
This weekend, many Americans will express thanks for their freedom as they celebrate Independence Day. The idea of freedom means different things to different people: freedom from want, freedom from oppression, freedom to succeed, freedom to say and do as we please.
Child Mortality on the Rise First the good news: ten African countries are only half as poor as they were two decades ago. Now the
About an hour outside Cusco, Peru sits Hogar Mercedes de Jesus Molina, a rural orphanage for 19 girls run by the Marianita Sisters. The sisters also run a feeding center, providing nutritious meals five days a week for about 90 needy children from the surrounding neighborhood.
In honor of World AIDS Day, Pope Benedict XVI recently gave a talk at St. Peter’s Square: “The Church never ceases to strive to combat AIDS through her institutions and personnel dedicated to that task. I call upon everyone to make their contribution, with prayer and tangible assistance, so that people affected by the HIV virus may experience the presence of the Lord Who offers comfort and hope.