{"id":6032,"date":"2025-02-26T04:09:40","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T09:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charlesconklin.com\/4cambodia\/?p=6032"},"modified":"2025-03-03T02:53:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T07:53:58","slug":"how-are-we-impacted-by-the-us-foreign-funding-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charlesconklin.com\/4cambodia\/2025\/how-are-we-impacted-by-the-us-foreign-funding-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"How are we impacted by the US foreign funding freeze?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few people have reached out to ask how we have been affected by the US government foreign funding freeze<\/a> and I thought it was worth writing about here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First<\/span>, we were not directly affected. The vast majority of Mennonite Central Committee’s support comes from Anabaptist church bodies and congregations in the US and Canada<\/a>, including church contributions, individual contributions, thrift stores<\/a> sales, and relief sales<\/a>. If you’ve supported MCC in any capacity – from volunteering at a thrift store to organizing my coins counts<\/a> – thank you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our second largest source of funding is from MCC’s account at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank<\/a>. MCC was one of the original founders of this program<\/a> that enables Canadian farmers – including many Mennonites – to donate fields of grain to address hunger and poverty around the world. The Canadian government then matches the farmers’ donations at ratios of up to 4:1. Finally, we have the grant from Brot f\u00fcr die Welt<\/a> that I’ve wrote about before<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MCC does not accept US government funding in Cambodia or Myanmar. To my knowledge we have never applied for it. Our mission is to follow Christ’s example of love and compassion by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. There are times and situations when that mission is incompatible with the political priorities of the day. For instance, during the 1980s MCC was one of only five American NGOs, all of them Christian, that went against an international embargo to witness in Cambodia<\/a>. Today Mennonite Central Committee seeks to demonstrate God’s love for all people in 45 countries around the world, including in sensitive contexts like North Korea<\/a> and Cuba<\/a>. We are a ministry of the church. So – thanks to God, the church, and you – MCC has not had to lay off staff or downsize programs due to the US government foreign funding freeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However<\/span>, the US government foreign funding freeze has directly impacted two of our local partners. <\/p>\n\n\n

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A recent photo from our project with a partner who had USAID Climate Change funding frozen. Our project is unaffected but three other projects were.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of our partners had recently been awarded three multi-year USAID grants to implement Climate Change resilient agriculture in vulnerable rural communities. Based on my reading of Chapter 9 of Project 2025<\/a>, it is very unlikely that this type of Climate Change funding will be restored and the partner has been forced to downsize. This has meant laying off staff, phasing out of communities, and backing out of agreements with the local government.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The returnee program Director orienting a new group of returnees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The other is the program that provides supports to returnees<\/a> to Cambodia from the United States. These returnees were refugees who travelled to the United States as children, most under the age of three, and who grew up there. For over two decades this program’s only consistent funders have been the US government (first through the US Embassy, later through USAID) and Mennonite Central Committee Cambodia. As I shared in a recent post<\/a>, this program has been incredibly successful with a high-employment rate and a recidivism rate of 7.5% which, compared to rehabilitation programs in the US, is unheard of. Many of the returnees were able to turn their lives around after hitting rock bottom thanks to the support of this program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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