Witness to history
Sep 21, 2012
World Vision photographs document the most tragic crises of the past six decades. Today, many of these places have seen healing and recovery, thanks to the work of nongovernmental organizations. Sept. 22 marks World Vision’s 62nd anniversary of serving children, families, and communities in need. — Jane Sutton-Redner
© 1952 World Vision Archive
Korea, 1952: World Vision founder Bob Pierce reported on the Korean War as a United Nations war correspondent, filing stories for the American Christian press. His description of people’s struggles and needs helped fuel World Vision’s early fundraising efforts.
© 1979 John Kubly/World Vision
South China Sea, 1979: Aboard World Vision’s ship, Operation Seasweep, a crew member recognizes one of the just-rescued as his cousin. Seasweep assisted families fleeing war-torn Vietnam by boat, giving them medical care and helping transport them to refugee camps.
© 1985 Steve Reynolds/World Vision
Ethiopia, 1985: Near a World Vision feeding center in Sanka, people rise with the dawn after sleeping outside all night, hoping to find relief from the famine that gripped the country.
© 1990 David Ward/World Vision
Uganda, 1990: In southern Rakai, siblings Teopista, John Bosco, Rosemary, and Felistus pose near their parents’ graves. As AIDS devastated rural communities, World Vision began special programs and child sponsorship to help thousands of orphans.
© 1991 Bruce Brander/World Vision
Romania, 1991: World Vision President Bob Seiple provides the human touch for a child in the Leagunul Pentru Orphanage in Cluj-Napoca. After communism ended, the world discovered that many of the children living in oppressive, understaffed institutions had been abandoned by their parents.
© 1994 Robby Muhumuza/World Vision
Rwanda, 1994: A team of World Vision journalists arrived in the country weeks after the genocidal violence began. Amid scenes of massacres, they found these young survivors taking refuge in the Gahini Missionary Hospital near Kigali.
© 1997 Todd Bartel/World Vision
Peru, 1997: Abilia Acuna Loila’s grief is still fresh as she recounts the murder of her daughter by Shining Path rebels five years earlier in Ayacucho Province. World Vision was forced to reduce operations in Peru during the worst of the violence in the early 1990s, including suspending child sponsorship.
© 1998 Jon Warren/World Vision
Honduras, 1998: Sponsored child Angelica Elizabeth López, 3, survived the storm but lost her home to Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than 9,000 people across Central America.
© 1999 John Schenk/World Vision
Kosovo, 1999: Ethnic Kosovar families fled from Serb attacks on their village near Istok, many trekking over mountain roads by foot. NATO bombing helped end the conflict a few months later, allowing people to return home.
© 2005 Jon Warren/World Vision
Uganda, 2005: A boy at World Vision’s Children of War Rehabilitation Center in Gulu uses a toy gun to reenact his experiences as a captive of the Lord’s Resistance Army. For more than 20 years the rebel group terrorized northern Uganda and forced children into combat and sexual slavery.
© 2005 Jon Warren/World Vision
United States, 2005: World Vision President Rich Stearns takes in the destruction in Waveland, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina. World Vision opened a 40,000-square-foot distribution center in North Texas to provide cleaning products, building materials, and other supplies for affected families.
© 2005 Kevin Cook/World Vision
Indonesia, 2005: The city of Banda Aceh was devastated by the tsunami triggered by a massive earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004. More than 120,000 people died in the disaster here. World Vision and many other humanitarian organizations helped Aceh rebuild.
© 2010 Jon Warren/World Vision
Haiti, 2010: Jenny Cherry, 4, wails in pain at a makeshift hospital in Fond Parisen, where many victims of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake were treated. The catastrophe killed an estimated 220,000 people and destroyed the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding area. World Vision continues to help communities recover and return to normalcy.
