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Country Summaries

Bolivia
Bolivia is the poorest and most indigenous nation in South America. Its a high- altitude, landlocked nation with a wealth of natural resources and a dearth of development.

Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is in Francophone West Africa and was ranked #176/177 countries in the 2007/2008 Human Development Report.

Cambodia
Cambodia in Southeast Asia, is one of the poorest countries in Asia and the world. Still recovering from the violent Khmer Rouge regime and a genocide that took between 1.5 and 3 million lives and current government corruption, many Cambodians suffer from conditions of poor sanitation, weak law enforcement, an undeveloped education system and severe environmental degradation. Unfortunately, the very friendly Cambodian people rely heavily upon international aid, NGOs, and missionaries to help meet very basic needs.

El Salvador
El Salvador is located in Central America. To the north of the country sits Guatemala, to the east and south rests Honduras, and to the west lies the powerful Pacific Ocean. El Salvador, or ‘The Savior,’ is a small country, roughly the size of New Jersey; yet, what is lacks in size it makes up in personality. It is a country known for its compassionate people, strong families, and welcoming households. From the arrival of the first Spanish conquers in the 16th century to today, El Salvador has been marred by extreme inequality and political unrest. The civil tensions reached a breaking point in the early 1930s when Farabundo Marti led a group of peasants in an uprising; an uprising against decades of inequality, marginalization, and elite oppression. The uprising was quickly quelled, although the tensions continued to be exacerbated throughout the 20th century. In the late 1970s the outcry for justice and equality, in a starkly polarized setting, once again led to uprisings throughout the country. The various resistance movements united under the title of the FMLN, in response to the brutality of the military’s crack-down. For over a decade the US supported the Salvadoran military in their efforts to promote privatization and quell resistance; however, after the murder of six Jesuits, their cook, and her daughter at the University of Central America the universal outrage at the brutality of the Salvadoran military forced the US to pressure for a peace treaty between the government party ARENA and the resistance force, turned party, FMLN. A Peace Accord was signed in 1994 ending the 15 year civil war.

Republic of Ghana
Former colony of: Britain
Name under colonization: The Gold Coast
Capital: Accra
Government: Democracy
Date of independence: March 6, 1957 (First African colony to gain independence)
Official language: English
Total population: 23 million
Major exports: gold, cocoa, timber

Tanzania
Tanzania is the largest country in East Africa and home to over 120 ethnic groups. Over 75% of the population lives in rural areas. Agriculture forms the basis of the economy, accounting for half of the GDP and involving more than 80% of the workforce. Nearly 20% of Tanzanians live on less than one U.S. dollar per day, and 80% of the poor live in rural areas. The landscape of Tanzania is varied, with the semi-arid areas of Dodoma and Singida in the center and fertile areas in the northern and lake zones. The country is rich in natural resources including gold, diamonds, tanzanite, natural gas, coal, iron ore, and phosphate. It is also the home to such spectacular sites as Mount Kilimanjaro, the islands of Zanzibar, and the Serengeti. Despite Tanzania’s natural beauty and bountiful resource base, the nation is facing serious challenges. Aside from the devastating effects of a growing HIV/AIDS pandemic, as evidenced by a national prevalence rate of 7 %, other challenges include prevailing poverty, recurrent drought, and soil degradation.

Uganda
A landlocked country in East Africa, Uganda is a former British colony, the geographically diverse “pearl of Africa,” and ranks 154th out of 177 countries on the human development index (HDI). Uganda is bordered by Sudan on the north, Kenya on the East, Tanzania and Rwanda on the South, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the West. Without access to the sea, Uganda is highly sensitive to flux in neighboring countries. For example, political instability in bordering countries causes problems around refugees and security of imported commodities such as oil.

Sample Projects

Ryan Arbow, Tanzania
I went to Tanzania and worked with Catholic Relief Services in Dar es Salaam. Below I have included a brief country profile and a list of what I worked on. Let me know if there is anything else that you need. Completed projects include: Created the 2007 Annual Public Summary of Activities (APSA); Worked with colleagues on the allocation of the Regional Small Project Fund; Was a member of the HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Committee; Created/Updated promotional brochures and material for CRS projects in Microfinance, AIDSRelief and Agro-enterprise; Visited 30 families of OVC in order to assess living situations with local faith-based volunteers at Shaloom Care Center; and Created/Updated the new CRS Tanzania website (set to be published next month

David Bernica, Cambodia
I interned with Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia and had the opportunity to work on a number of projects ranging from editing an anti-human trafficking activity manual (Solidarity Can Stop Human Trafficking) for rural communities and researching a CRS sustainable fishing project. With the latter of these, I visited five pagodas and interviewed Buddhist monks and community leaders about a sustainable wild fish management system that CRS had helped establish in 2004 and 2005. The largely successful project develops pagoda land, provides a protected pond for fish during the dry season and spawning season, and unites community members together in recognizing the benefits of natural resource sustainability. I then wrote a promotional report designed to attract donors so that CRS can expand this effective system throughout the country. (Nearly 50 such communities have appropriate ecological locations throughout Cambodia.)

Lucas Franco, El Salvador
My job with CARE International was to look for avenues in which those income streams could be invested communally, such as school projects or water projects, or individually, such as bank accounts or bonds, both in an effort to leverage the development potential of regional remittances. My ultimate goal was to look for ways to ease migration pressure, since migration drains a country of its most valuable resource; its people.

Camille Hogan, Burkina Faso
I spent a winter quarter in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso working with Catholic Relief Services. I worked specifically on the School Gardens and Fields Pilot Project in the Agriculture and Education departments. The project focuses on having gardens and fields on the school campuses that are grown by the students and parents. The student's mothers cook that food for the students' school lunches. The project is designed for food sustainability and to provide new agricultural techniques to the students and parents. My tasks included: constructing a questionnaire to evaluate the program; interviewing the administrators, teachers, and Parent Teacher Associations in ten village schools (with translations from Mooré to French); and creating a report with evaluations and future suggestions for the project.

Allison Johnson, Bolivia
I worked with the Centro Vicente Cañas, under the auspices of the Catholic Church. We researched the effects of migration on community development in Cochabamba, Bolivia. My work included literature review, research design, surveys and interviews.

Joshua Lee, Republic of Ghana
Scope of Work: Joined the Food for Education department to research the impact of the School Feeding and Take Home Rations program in village schools in rural northern Ghana. Tracked attendance records of boys and girls in grades 1 through 6 from the last four years to see if these programs increased attendance consistenly. Interviewed students, teachers, and parents to hear their insights about the importance of education, how these programs have helped them and hear ideas for future programs.

Micaela Pelland, Guatemala
I was an intern in Guatemala City for Catholic Relief Services. I worked with the Migration department, and researched and wrote a 40 page Human Trafficking in Guatemala report that was going to be used for background and research material for future CRS proposals related to Human Trafficking. In addition to this, I carried out interviews with specialists in Guatemala City on human trafficking, and added the information collected from the interviews in the report. Unrelated to my report, I went on several visits to the countryside to visit CRS program sites.

Katherine McFerson, Uganda
I mainly worked in western Uganda, a mountainous and cooler area of the country. I worked in a field office of the CRS Uganda Country Program, researching and creating project briefs (brochures) for various programs. Producing the briefs required field research, meeting with program managers, extensive research of CRS documents, collecting success stories, and traveling to the other offices and project locations around the country. I also acted as a general assistant to my office, assisting coworkers with field work, such as visiting and assessing projects, editing documents, and acting as a representative for CRS at various functions put on by partner organizations such as Masses, meetings and trainings.