(CISR, 2000, Page 2) Then in 1980, O’Neill happened upon a man named Ellsworth Culver who was Vice President of the, “Food for the Hungry” organization. With a shared interest to help people in countries affected by disasters, they collectively started Mercy Corps in 1982. Throughout the years, Mercy Corps has done a ton of work. This includes helping 175,000 emigrant persons in the war torn countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Croatia, providing $3 million worth of goods in Honduras and Nicaragua to the affected families who were hit by Hurricane Mitch, or recent assistances to people hit by massive earthquakes in Haiti and China, just to name a few. Fast forwarding to today, “Mercy Corps helps over 16.7 million people across world and provides over $1.95 billion in relief assistance.” (Org Hub, 2016) Not only that, but they also play a big role in delivering basic needs (food, water, shelter), education, loans, and health care all around the world in the times of calamity. Duly noted in their mission statement which is to, “Alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.” (cite https://www.mercycorps.org/about-us/our-mission) This paper will take a more in depth look into what Mercy Corps has done and continues to do in order to …show more content…
They believe that by building these transferable and market-driven skills through education, then people are more likely to acquire a constructive, equitable, and sturdy job. As stated earlier, one of the things Mercy Corps works towards is a market-based program in education, which means they take the jobseekers current skills and teach them skills that employers and companies are demanding from employers. This way the individual can have more options for jobs and be more qualified in the areas of need. Mercy Corps also helps individuals once they start to transition into the job scene. This is shown by them linking either the person or business they may be working with to reliable, supportive resources, such as trade groups or formal/informal financial services. This way once they get their start, they can in a sense “fly” on their own, or as Mercy Corps refers to it, “understand entrepreneurship”. In this area, Mercy Corps instills that if the individual wants to be a successful self-employed worker or entrepreneur, then they must: have access to appropriate services, demonstrate businessman-like actions and concepts, and operate in an environment that will push them to grow. Finally, in education Mercy Corps stresses that technology is a huge topic for the youth, so they tend to involve that as much as possible. This means many of these kids are learning from Massive Open Online Courses