For years, FCF Project Partner Family Care Association Nigeria has undertaken extensive medical programs throughout most of the country of Nigeria. In late 2009 Family Care undertook a two-year Malaria Control and Prevention program in 7 States, which is coupled with a Free Rural Medical Aid program.

Relief efforts underway, and insights from humanitarian aid teams on the ground

A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border on October 8th reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened apartment buildings. The immediate death rate topped more than 80,000 people in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, with Pakistan bearing the brunt.

Charity may begin at home, but should it stop there?

If we could reduce the world's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this

Try taking this quiz and see how you do.

Five hundred miles (800 kilometers) of coastline was wiped out when the wave struck, and essentially everything within two miles of the shore was destroyed, in some areas even further inland depending on the lay of the land and in relationship to the mountains.

When the many hundreds of thousands were first left homeless after the tsunami, the Red Cross /Crescent provided tents for the tsunami refugees. Soon thereafter, the local government built barracks, wooden structures which can house 20-30 joint families. (See example of a barracks in photo below.)

Two years after the devastation of Aceh province by the tsunami, only 30% of those left homeless have gained access to permanent housing. The clean up alone -- for the most part getting rid of all of the debris left when the tsunami flooded half the city of Banda Aceh and drastically altered a 500-mile shoreline of villages -- has been a massive and successful undertaking.

Two years after the foundations of Aceh were shaken to the core by an undersea earthquake, then pummeled by an unforgiving wave, the province is confronting dual demands: to rebuild homes and roads while delivering on the promise of a peace accord signed after three decades of separatist fighting.

The Asian tsunami, the largest humanitarian undertaking in history, replete with challenges and lessons.

Genuine concern and giving from the heart while also using your head.

Completed programs, and insights from humanitarian aid teams in Aceh

Banda Aceh, and Aceh Besar

Completed programs, and insights from humanitarian aid teams in South India

January 3, 2005 through September 1, 2005