Long-term presence in Nigeria Makes Success Plain

CRWRC Newsroom | November 4, 2009

With just a bit of tell-tale gray around the temples, a glance at John Orkar tells you that he is a strong, vibrant 60-year-old. Although he's older than many in his native country of Nigeria, it would be a challenge for most young people to keep up with Orkar’s speaking schedule as he travels through North America this month.
 
Dr. Orkar (seen on the left in this photo), a development consultant with CRWRC for 26 years, is booked at colleges, churches, and schools in Chicago and the Midwest, California, the East Coast, and across Canada, talking about the challenges of poverty, the environment, and AIDS in his country—and celebrating the success in which he shares a significant role.
 
“Because of unrest, drought, and floods, there is a place for relief aid in the developing world,” Orkar says. “CRWRC’s focus is to give help to those who need it, and then get beyond relief, transitioning people into development programs that teach them to sustain themselves—by providing a loan for a pig, or a sewing machine with which to earn a living.”
 
CRWRC is the 47-year-old relief, development and justice agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America whose committed staff, like Orkar, work in the world’s poorest countries. CRWRC partners with local churches and faith-based organizations to bring about economic, physical, spiritual, and community-based change. Orkar says that the East Kambari area of Nigeria is just one example of a transforming community.
 
In Kambari, just 200 km from the Sahara, children die before their fifth birthday at a rate double the national average (40%). The land, which receives scant rainfall, consists of a thin layer of clay over bedrock. The people are industrious and hard working, but “they have serious challenges that make their lives difficult and short, their health tenuous, and their productivity low,” Orkar explains.
 
Over the last seven years, through local and international partnerships, Orkar has helped 150 communities drill sustainable water boreholes. Integrated with other development programs, the people of the Kambari are seeing progress, not only in the availability of potable water, but also in immunization rates, lower mortality rates, better nutrition, and increased literacy.
 
In all, CRWRC has worked with 13 denominations and “graduated” five independent, national-level partner organizations: Orkar is confident in their abilities. “Our work has produced people who know how to empower communities and serve them as well,” he says.
 
Orkar says that adding a business development focus to CRWRC’s income earning programs in 2002 has helped create an even more stable, integrated approach to development among its partners in Nigeria that not only “teaches a man to fish” but “helps him buy the pond.”
 
It is a legacy he believes will continue to transform lives and communities for many years to come.

Click here for John's latest newsletter.
 
Dr. John Orkar is available for interview by members of the press, by calling 616-401-3918, from November 3rd through November 30th. Speaking engagements include locations in South-central New Jersey; Chino, Calif.; Ontario and Alberta, Canada; locations in West-central Michigan, and Chicago, Ill.
 
Call Beth DeGraff, CRWRC Media Contact for exact dates and locations, or to schedule an interview at cell, 616-648-7821 or 1-800-55-CRWRC.