Resources: Organizations

The following list represents some of the organizations that participated in the Faith & International Development Conference at Calvin College, January 31-February 2, 2008.  The student-run conference drew over 500 students and 60 presenters from all over the world. We'll be adding more organizations to this list after the conference.

HOPE International
HOPE International is a Christ-centered non-profit organization focused on alleviating physical and spiritual poverty through microenterprise development. Working in 13 of the poorest, least-served countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean, HOPE’s ministry helps individuals in need escape poverty and become self-sufficient by providing small business loans and biblically-based business training.

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
CRWRC helps Christians free communities from poverty's suffering in 30 countries worldwide. Through relief aid, CRWRC responds to disaster survivors with food, medicine, and volunteer assistance. Through community development CRWRC trains communities in agriculture, health, income earning, literacy, and leadership. Through education, CRWRC helps people develop and enact a Christian perspective of poverty, hunger and justice. CRWRC's mission is to help people transform, as God's imagebearers, to be self-sufficient, to meet their own needs and the needs of their neighbors. CRWRC multiplies its efforts in partnership with 120 national Christian churches and agencies.

Vestergaard Frandsen Inc.
Vestergaard Frandsen is an international company specializing in disease-control products. Among its products are the long-lasting, insecticidal mosquito net PermaNet® and instant microbiological water purifier LifeStraw®. Vestergaard Frandsen’s unique business model, Humanitarian Entrepreneurship, reflects its belief that business is for profit and profit is for a purpose. Maintaining profitability while simultaneously achieving humanitarian responsibility has made us a leader in our field, and a partner in global efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goals.

Partners Worldwide
Partners Worldwide is a faith-based international ministry serving God in alleviating poverty through job creation initiatives.  We do this by engaging Christian businesspeople to use their knowledge and experience to mentor, equip, and encourage small and medium businesses for creating jobs and transformin g lives around the world. 

Association for a More Just Society
The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) is a Christian nonprofit organization, motivated by God's call to "act justly and love mercy," dedicated to promoting justice in Honduras and elsewhere and to raising awareness in North America about justice issues. AJS is a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. AJS oversees and funds initiatives including those carried out by Honduran organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ).

ECHO
ECHO's vision is to bring glory to God and a blessing to mankind by using science and technology to help the poor.  We exist to help other individuals and organizations be more effective as they seek to help struggling farmers and urban gardeners in economically challenging situations.  Services include suggesting new options, providing trial packets of seed and information on new crops or or better varieties of existing crops; seeking solutions to agricultural problems; offering paid internships, for-credit courses, guided self-study opportunities, specialized workshops and conferences for agricultural and nutritional workers and students preparing for such work.  Our subtropical farm in southwest Florida is designed to serve as a textbook for those who study with us as well as to provide seed for underutilized tropical plants. 

International Aid
International Aid is a Christian, non-profit relief and development agency that has been involved in healthcare programming for more than 25 years.  International Aid is committed to improving global healthcare by making quality health services available to the world’s most vulnerable populations, particularly women and children.   These services include:  community-based healthcare programs; product delivery of healthcare supplies; disease control by providing testing and diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis;  sustainable medical equipment solutions, by training hospital administrators and medical equipment technicians and providing equipment support; and safe water solutions by providing International Aid’s HydrAid™ BioSand Water Filters to help reduce incidence of waterborne diseases in developing countries.

Bread for the World
Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.   By changing policies, programs and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, we provide help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which we live.   God's grace in Jesus Christ moves us to help our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state or the next continent.  Food is a basic need, and it is unjust that so many people must go without enough to eat.   We can end hunger in our time.  Everyone, including our government, must do their part.  With the stroke of a pen, policies are made that redirect millions of dollars and affect millions of lives.   By making our voices heard in Congress, we make our nation's laws more fair and compassionate to people in need. For 34 years, our work with churches, campuses, and groups across the country has equipped and energized people of faith for advocacy and has helped bring about significant change in national legislation affecting hungry people in the United States and around the world.