“The idea that some lives matter less than others is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”
JUSTICE AND MERCY IN HARD PLACES.
2.1 billion people — one in four on earth — live in places marked by high or extreme fragility. In these hardest places, war, conflict, and persecution are uprooting lives, deepening hunger, and concentrating poverty on a massive scale. Violence in fragile states has forced more than 100 million people to abandon their homes to live in the borderlands, where they experience intense cultural dislocation, power asymmetries, and injustice. Fragile states and borderlands — where the rule of law is weak and people have lost their livelihoods — are fertile terrain for traffickers who operate without fear of prosecution.
Fragile states and borderlands are hard because they are afflicted with chronic war, corruption, persecution, poverty and trafficking, not because of their people. What is “hard” for many, is “home.” Their resilience is breathtaking, and is precisely what motivates us to help.
Click below to learn how we are serving in fragile states and borderlands:
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We are pursuing justice and. mercy in fragile states through We Give Together and One Million Thumbprints.
We Give Together accompanies local ministries in fragile states — the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and Middle East — where faith and compassionate action are woven together in partnership with the local faith communities. We Give Together offers three promises — capital, capacity, and community — in the spirit of accompaniment and humility.
One Million Thumbprints supports local partners helping to ensure survival for women and girls experiencing violence in war zones through emergency relief in the form of immediate food, clothing, and shelter. Because sexual violence is weaponized against women during war, emergency relief also includes rape or sexual violence treatment, trauma assistance and medical support. Our partners also train women leaders within their communities in conflict resolution skills and trauma care as a means of stabilizing their community and preventing future violence against the vulnerable. -
We are accompanying our neighbors in the borderlands through Rooted and Rising, a trauma-informed curriculum for strengthening individual and community resilience in former refugee, or New American, communities. It is evidence-based, grounded in neuroscience, and designed to be culturally adaptable across diverse contexts.
Through facilitator certification and organizational training, the curriculum team is training and equipping their communities with practical tools to turn stories of displacement into narratives of strength and flourishing.
We are also convening Love Thy Neighbor gatherings to feature people and organizations within and alongside borderland communities who are doing amazing things.
As we consider the daunting task of justice and mercy in hard places, we recognize pursuing justice and mercy without humility is dangerous. Humility requires those on the front lines to lead their own change. Voice and choice matter, and they matter a lot. Sometimes change begins by first changing how we understand change. Through our Love The Neighbor initiative, we have been convening virtual and in person gatherings in pursuit of the threefold virtues of justice, love and humility. Check out our values page to learn about our why and our people page to learn about our who.