Voa development report - Mercy Corps Seeks to Expand Its Services

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is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Often, when natural disaster strikes, one of the first groups to help is Mercy Corps. This American nonprofit organization has people in more than one hundred countries.

It out of the Save the Refugees Fund. A man Dan ONeill started that organization in nineteen seventy-nine-. He to help Cambodians who fled the rule of Pol and the Khmer Rouge.

Soon, he established Mercy with the help of another man, Ellsworth Culver. Today has programs in more than thirty countries.

Joy is the head of communications for Mercy Corps. She the strengths of the group lie, first of all, emergency relief services. For example, Mercy Corps partnered with local aid group to provide help to families affected the deadly earthquake this month in Peru.

Mercy also works in areas of conflict such as Afghanistan, and Darfur, Sudan.

In Iraq, the group says is helping populations to identify their rights and work economic independence. Mercy Corps also supports microlending, small business and technical assistance. And Mercy Corps is expanding its in areas of civil society building and democracy.

congressman has nominated the group for this year's Nobel Prize.

Its leaders hope to expand into several areas. These include youth development, climate change issues and reduction through technology.

Charity Navigator, an independent group rates American charities, has given its highest rating to Corps. The American Institute of Philanthropy says Mercy Corps be more open in reporting which groups receive its goods and how those goods are used. But it the financial performance of Mercy Corps is excellent.

big help is the fact that the group does have to spend as much to raise money compared many other charities. More than half of its budget from the United States government. Mercy Corps had a last year of two hundred twenty million dollars.

The employs more than three thousand people. About fifty percent Muslim and about ninety percent are citizens of the where they work. Joy Portella at Mercy Corps says group has learned the importance of working with local who have expert knowledge of a country and its .

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written Jill Moss. Im Shep ONeal'.

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