What's Happening Now

It wouldn’t be easy-- as running from wars and terrorist pursuits never are.  But when the family head and only provider has already lost a leg by a land mine in the Iraq/Iran war,  fleeing ISIS from their hometown in Anbar Province, Iraq to Kirkuk and on to Kurdistan with a family of eight members in 2015 was seemingly impossible. A son, Jasem, 28 years old at the time, was brain-impaired from his youth and couldn’t walk or communicate clearly. To get from place to place at home he had to crawl.

"The humanitarian situation in Nigeria remains one of the largest crises in the world today. Urgent assistance is needed to curtail the spread of COVID-19 in the most populous country in Africa, especially in overcrowded camps for internally displaced persons. Now is the time for all stakeholders to take coordinated action."

"The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a social and economic crisis that is rapidly exacerbating an ongoing nutrition insecurity in Nigeria...there was concern (over the) nutrition situation in Nigeria before the COVID-19 pandemic. Stunting and wasting rates were 37% and 7% respectively."

In Mexico City, Conscience International volunteer, Dr. Sandra Kiehnle Rodas, left, gives a “thumbs up” and suits up in PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to work with Covid-19 patients at the Red Cross tent hospital.

In Chimaltenango, some 35 miles west of Guatemala City, Conscience International Program Director for Latin America, Dr. Jurguen Kiehnle, is partnering with "Mi Especial Tesoro" (My special treasure), an NGO that is providing education to 150 low-income children. Most of them are Kaqchikel or K'iche (two Mayan ethnic groups).

Working in a provisional hospital set up to provide care for Covid-19 patients in Guatemala City, Dr. Juergen Kiehnle, Conscience International Program Director for Latin America, is serving side by side with local doctors, volunteering to work rotations, and establishing partnerships with doctors, nurses, firefighters and other NGOs in order to “expand the impact of our work.”

In Guatemala, firefighters are the first line of defense against the Covid-19 virus, and while government-operated fire departments are supported with government funding for equipment, the Bomberos Voluntarios, volunteer firefighters who work for free, are hard-pressed to find funding for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), making their job of responding to emergencies a high personal risk.

In Venezuela, a country with one of the weakest health care systems even before the Covid-19 pandemic, with cases and deaths increasing and a government that has until now virtually ignored the plight of its people who are starving from lack of food, Conscience International is on the border--purchasing food and supplies outside of Venezuela for delivery to vulnerable families inside the country despite that government’s constraints on outside aid.