Mercy Corps is a global non-governmental, humanitarian aid organization operating in transitional contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social and political instabilities.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,849 |
In 1982, the organization's founders, Ellsworth Culver and Dan O'Neill, chose the name of Mercy Corps to represent the broader international activities of the organization that has since been focusing on delivering durable, long-term solutions to a range of humanitarian and development issues.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,850 |
Mercy Corps delivered its first development program in Honduras in 1982.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,851 |
Mercy Corps incorporated the Conflict Management Group founded by Roger Fisher in 2004.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,852 |
Mercy Corps International is the organization's main branch of operation.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,853 |
Mercy Corps accepts contributions from both individual and institutional donors.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,854 |
Mercy Corps Northwest operates domestically within the United States with focuses in primary economic development.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,855 |
For former prisoners seeking re-integration into the community in Portland, Oregon, Mercy Corps Northwest operates the Reentry Transition Center that offers joint business and social reentry training curricula that assist ex-offenders with managing independent and successful lives after being released from prison.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,856 |
For example, Mercy Corps establishes partnerships with local farmers or agribusinesses to stimulate local market exchanges in Uganda, with the ultimate target to not only help farmers gain market competitiveness, but make affordable food choices more accessible for local populations living in deprived conditions, including incoming refugees within Uganda and from neighboring countries in crisis.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,857 |
Mercy Corps offers a number of agriculture-oriented programs in various countries, often delivered with water conservation and disaster prevention focuses.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,858 |
In Timor-Leste, for example, Mercy Corps seeks to build "market-based incentives to mitigation activities" so that local farmers are able to exercise different types of farming practices with different weather-resistance characteristics.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,859 |
In Niger, Mercy Corps jointly delivered the "Sawki" Program with Africare and Helen Keller International.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,860 |
From 2009 to 2013, Mercy Corps has delivered a SECURE program in Timor-Leste that seeks to relieve and prevent agriculture related damages caused by extreme rainfalls by connecting local blacksmiths who are able to produce effective small and medium-sized metal silos to broader rural farming populations.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,861 |
In collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Mercy Corps provided local farmers with subsidies for local farmers to purchase silos, while the FAO provided training and material assistance for blacksmiths to produce.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,862 |
Mercy Corps has been operating in post-conflict Uganda since 2009: as the state approaches societal recovery, it has been facing a range of development challenges, one of which being the production under-capacity of the farming sector.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,863 |
In parallel of training programs for the farmer communities that seek to improve land-capacity, growth and cultivation capacity and production efficiency, Mercy Corps has been facilitating various actors within the domestic market chain to promote better access and more extensive availability of financial services and market platforms to ensure the continuous operation of the agricultural supply and demand chains, with the broader objective to encourage sustainable food security.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,864 |
Mercy Corps has been facilitating programs that deliver micro-financial services to individuals in different community contexts to promote long-term, self-sustainable economic growth.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,866 |
Internationally, Mercy Corps offers microcredits to people living in transitional or developing contexts through its networks of affiliations with banking sectors across the globe.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,867 |
Example, in Indonesia and the Philippines, Mercy Corps announced the Maximizing Financial Access and Innovation at Scale initiative that would the establishment of Bank Andara, a commercial bank that would partner with a broad network of microfinance institutions in the region to provide access to microfinancial services to, reportedly, 12 million Indonesian and 5 million Filipino nationals living in poverty through innovative strategies.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,868 |
Mercy Corps implemented similar actions in the Philippines to provide technical and research support to other 359 Filipino microfinancial institutions that provide durable financial capacity-building services.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,869 |
Mercy Corps has created two tool kits as one of the many elements of its deliverance of programs that encourage inclusive education for children with disabilities in Jordan, including various worksheets, plans, exercises and checklists to aid targeted disabled student populations with better managing their curriculum.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,870 |
Mercy Corps has facilitated linkages between gender dimensions and positive aspects of long-term market development.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,871 |
Mercy Corps hence implemented the Adolescent Girls in Northern Nigeria: Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Opportunities Profile program to identify key challenges and barriers for adolescent girls to initiate economic activities and gain a stable revenue to pay for their tuition and living expenses.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,872 |
In North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mercy Corps delivers the Emergency Assistance to Conflict-Affected Populations program to provide first-hand emergency aid to internally displaced populations in the region created by related domestic instabilities.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,873 |
Rather than relying on the traditional physical cash-transfer methods, Mercy Corps partnered with the BPI Globe BanKO to offer a range of electronic financial services that can deliver emergency recover aid to typhoon survivors.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,874 |
In May, 2017, Mercy Corps publicly announced that it had commenced the investigation of two staff members in its refugee program stations in Greece after receiving a call through the complaint hotline with regards to the "serious misconduct" of addressed workers.
| FactSnippet No. 1,141,875 |