Catch Up with RET (August 2024)

Welcome to?Catch Up with RET – our monthly newsletter that spotlights our work around the world and how we're making a difference on the lives of women, girls, and youth.

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Among other things, $50 can...

• Help a single mother in DRC send her children to school – for the entire year.
• Support a household in Niger for the entire month.
• Double the income of a family in Peru, providing them with more nutritious food and/or better educational opportunities for their children.

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Featured Photo

This month's featured photo comes from a recent mission to Katoni, a village in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Eveline has been a program participant in our BMZ-funded project in DRC, which has focused on helping individuals and their communities improve their agricultural techniques and harvests, create cooperatives to sell these goods, and improve social cohesion through local peace committees that are trained to resolve disputes before they spiral into larger conflicts.

The project has had a tremendous impact on Eveline's life over the last three years. It's allowed her to build her own house and take care of her family by providing more nutritious food and a stable income through her involvement with the cooperative. She's also seen a positive change in her community – no small feat in a region of DRC where insecurity is a major challenge. She told us she's extremely proud of the fruits that she's been able to grow (her papaya was overflowing with fruit when we visited!) and in spite of the decades of conflict in Congo, she has hope for the future of her community and her country.

Impact Story

Language is a tool for empowerment, and in Türkiye, our language training program is active across four provinces. Through an interactive approach with games, songs, activities, and practical lessons, this program is removing the language barrier and helping better connect host and refugee communities. Check out this video (Turkish with English subtitles) that takes a closer look at the program and the impact it's having on program participants.

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In Brief

We're on the ground in 14 countries. Here's what we've been up to in just a few of them over the last month...

• In Burundi, our two-day workshop brought together female leaders to address education barriers and build leadership and gender awareness. This effort supports Education Cannot Wait's goal of localizing and sustaining its impact. Read more here.
• In late July, our team in Belize held the closing ceremony for the Transportation Leaders Empowered through Education Awareness and Effective Policy Change on human trafficking in Belize Project (TLEAP). Read more about this impactful project here.
• We're making a difference in Diffa, Niger by boosting economic empowerment by supporting market gardening. More details here.
• How are we supporting local farmers across Lebanon? In July, we distributed agricultural sprayers to 160 Lebanese farmers in Harbta and Labweh. Read more on this project here.

Longer Reads

Here's a roundup of articles we posted last month...

• It's official! We're proud to announce the launch of a new multiyear project in partnership with Education Cannot Wait (ECW) in Ecuador. Says RET's country director in Ecuador, María Antonia Gonzalez: “Together with the Ministry of Education and the country’s education ecosystem, we’ll create a more resilient and inclusive education system.” Read more here.
• We shared Assifa's story from Niger and how her educational life was nearly upended with the arrival of her first period. Without proper support and information, she and her classmates have often found themselves on their own, disrupting their daily activities. Click here to see how this BMZ-funded project helped changed the narrative for her and others.
• In Colombia, RET and Action Against Hunger joined forces in late June to represent the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for the Defense of the Rights of Refugee, Migrants and Displaced Populations in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC WDN Coalition) in the Third Thematic Consultation of the?Cartagena+40 process focused on forced displacement and disasters. Read the full story here.
• Early in July, our teams across Latin America kept a close eye on Hurricane Beryl. Devastating storms like Beryl are becoming more common, reaffirming the need for the disaster risk reduction work we've done with governments and local authorities. Read more here.

That's it for this edition of Catch Up with RET, but before we close...

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CC: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency , Yield Giving , Lever for Change , Zayed Sustainability Prize , The Rockefeller Foundation , UBS Optimus Foundation , AGENCIA ESPA?OLA DE COOPERACION INTERNACIONAL PARA EL DESARROLLO - AECID , USAID , USAID - Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance , European Commission , European Commission - ECHO , 世界银行 , The World Bank Group , African Development Bank Group , African Union , African Union Development Agency-NEPAD , African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) , Education Cannot Wait (ECW) , Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies , Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) , Bloomberg Philanthropies , COMESA Secretariat , ECOWAS Commission