When Raymond Khaled John Al-Hajana, a 12-year-old refugee from Sudan, was ready to start school in Egypt in 2016, he did not have enough education to go to class with youth his own age.
Instead, he needed to learn skills and information that children are taught in early primary grades.
Like many Sudanese refugees who had lost years of schooling to war and conflict, he was just too old to start his education in Egyptian schools.
But in Egypt, St. Raphael Center for Basic and Secondary Education, with support from MCC, provides a rare opportunity for Al-Hajana and other Sudanese students to catch up.
 
MCC - Relief, development, and peace in the name of Christ
https://mcccanada.ca/stories/forced-home-still-learning

AMCC has been supporting local interfaith partner ACCORD – a community maternal and child health program which began in 2018, adapting a care group model of women’s support groups that MCC had started using in Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia.
 
The project grew rapidly. It now covers 37 villages and reaches 17,003 participants in Burkina Faso, primarily through twice-monthly meetings of 330 mothers’ care groups.
 
MCC - Relief, development, and peace in the name of Christ
https://mcc.org/stories/saving-babies-lives-mending-relationships​

We at MCC Thrift are so grateful that 1,898 people took the Thrift First pledge this year. If each participant thrifted just five items (instead of buying them new), then together we saved:

• 9,490 pieces of clothing from the landfill
• enough water to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools
• the carbon emissions equivalent to driving from Vancouver to Montreal and back – 114 times

 
Thank you for supporting MCC Thrift over the past year. Whether you shopped, donated, volunteered or participated in another way, we're grateful to have you part of our community. Wishing you a Happy New Year!
​https://mcccanada.ca/sites/mcccanada.ca/files/media/common/documents/yourthriftguide04092021final.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thrift_Consumer_eNewsletter_December_2021_CA&utm_content=Thrift_Consumer_eNewsletter_December_2021_CA+CID_0e49e1e2afe530ae84d82beb65feb7d0&utm_source=CM&utm_term=download%20this%20free%20guide%20full%20of%20tips
 
(Note from Jan: On Tuesday at the MCC Thrift Store on Grantham, our daughter Anna found a record she’s been looking for, for years!)