All the Difference in the World – Guest Post by Lindsey Nobles

Today my dear friend Lindsey Nobles is guest posting about her newest adventure.  I’m so excited about what she’s up to but even more excited that it brought her back to Nashville! 🙂

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A month ago I moved back to Nashville to take a position on the Artist Relations team for Food for the Hungry {FH}, an organization goes to the hard places – places darkened by poverty, war and injustice – to bring hope and help to children, families and communities in the most impoverished countries around the world. During the interview process, I asked a lot of questions about the work that FH does in the field but I knew that to do my job well I’d have to see it firsthand. Last week I set off for Ethiopia with a team of FH staff members and several popular bloggers. I was blown away. Blown. Away.

Here are 4 things I appreciated about the way FH does development work:

FH’s work is child-focused. FH has a Child Focused Community Transformation model meaning that it assesses the health of a community by looking at the health of the community’s children. While FH works throughout a community, the organization’s introduction and key interfaces is through the children.

FH believes in relationships. This is Abraham. He is an FH social worker who serves 200 children and their families. But he loves each one of them like they are his family. How do I know this? Because I heard one of the 200 children he serves {and their mother} say he was like a father and mother to them. A father and a mother to 200 kids. Now that is an important job. But it speaks to the level of intimacy FH has with the communities it works.

FH assesses the assets and needs of a community and implements programs to best meet their needs and maximize their strengths. Child sponsorship funding allows FH to be more holistic in their approach. Your sponsorship helps lift up an entire community. I learned about FH’s Reforestation, Agriculture, Advocacy, Education, Hygiene, Malaria & HIV/AIDS Education and Prevention, and Food Security Programs. Programs that help serve the needs of children in the communities in which it works. This is a school library that FH was instrumental in helping rebuild so children would have access to books.

And most importantly, FH empowers those in need. We met 13-year old Teresa that merits her FH sponsorship with giving her hope for the future. One day, after she finishes school, she wants to be a doctor. When asked why others should sponsor kids through FH, she said because there are tons of kids in her community that deserve to have an education. And Teresa is right.

Consider sponsoring a child through FH. It can make all the difference in the world not only for a child, but for its family, and its community.

And if you let it, it will make all the difference in the world for you. 

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You can read more from Lindsey on her blog or follow her on twitter!  (You should really do both)