The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently shared the results of its first year working with eight nongovernmental organizations to help alleviate the suffering of women and children in 12 countries.
The press conference announcing results of the year’s efforts felt different. It felt special in a higher and holier way. The Church is always working to do good and to serve the needs of individuals who face challenging situations. But this global initiative to improve the well-being and health of women and children is making progress that hasn’t been made before, with collaborations that have never existed before, to bless numbers of individuals who have not been reached before.
The numbers are more than a business calculation of return on investment. The numbers come back to individual children of Heavenly Father, whose lives are being changed for the better for a long time to come.
The Church’s donation of $55.8 million in 2024 had the goal to bless 12 million women and children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia. But the combined efforts of the Church and the eight other organizations ended up serving more than 21 million individuals — 75% more than the goal. The Church, consequently, has now pledged an additional $63 million to the effort.
When I spoke with Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson after the June 5 press conference, I told her that the one thing I didn’t see on the faces of those representing these organizations was any sign of tiredness. While their days, weeks and months of service had been long and stressful, everyone in the room radiated with a happiness and sense of fulfillment. They all were ready to get out of the momentary spotlight and back to the people they were serving.
“I feel this momentum building,” President Johnson said.
President Johnson said part of the reason the group got together was not to tout their shared success but to share some of the challenges and brainstorm how to overcome those challenges with one another’s wisdom and experience. They counseled together. That counseling is critical to helping more people over the next four years of this initiative.
“What can we do better? How can we improve upon this so that we can do the greatest good for the greatest number?” President Johnson said the groups were asking each other.
Dr. Winnie Mwebesa is the senior managing director of Save the Children U.S. I spoke with her after the press conference. The native of Uganda earned her medical degree from Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium. She then earned a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. And having worked with maternal, newborn and children’s programs around the globe, she said the Church’s efforts stand out because of the trust Church leaders have in those engaged in this project to work together for a common good.
“I think this is a reflection of the trust the Church has. … They trusted these organizations and what might come out of [the initiative]. We are seeing the fruits of the first year. And now there is even more pressure to do better,” she said.
Over the course of our brief, five-minute conversation, Mwebesa never stopped smiling. And she ended nearly every story with the same thought.
“It makes a huge difference,” she said, over and over again.
Not one to lean exclusively on the work of formal organizations, President Johnson said sisters serve in the capacities they can in the seasons of life they are currently living.
“What are you good at? Maybe you know how to plant a garden. Teach a neighbor to create a garden and share the produce. Do you know how to teach children to read? Find a child in your neighborhood who struggled this year to learn to read, and help them over the summer,” she said. “Everywhere there are needs.”
President Johnson said each sister in the Church can follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost in making the difference God has prepared them to make.
“Let prayer be the way you identify who needs you,” she said.
As we stood in the back corner of that room in the Relief Society Building, surrounded by dedicated, focused, educated, loving and hardworking individuals, President Johnson took one final moment to share her testimony of the way God is helping all His children to be blessed.
“What I know for sure is that Heavenly Father is aware of all of His children,” she said. “When I travel, I wonder how He manages all of it, … but I’m sure that He knows the needs of the one.”
— Jon Ryan Jensen is editor of the Church News.
