CWS Appeal: 2006 Earthquakes in Yunnan Province, China
October 24, 2006
More than 38,000 families in the Yanjin and Daguan Counties in China’s Yunnan Province - two of the poorest areas of the country - require continued assistance in rebuilding their lives following July and August earthquakes and a series of aftershocks that caused widespread damage to housing, crops, and infrastructure. The relatively low magnitude, but shallow quakes (5.1 and 4.7 on the Richter Scale) killed 23 persons, injured 37, destroyed 1,400 homes and damaged another 38,000.
The poor people who lived in houses constructed of stone and earth mostly
on hillsides in the mountainous terrain still need relief supplies (i.e.
clothes, quilts, tents) as winter approaches as well as help rebuilding
and repairing their homes.
Emergency Appeal
Church World Service is issuing this appeal to support an Action by Churches Together (ACT) appeal for a program to be implemented by The Amity Foundation.
The Amity Foundation, created in 1985 by Chinese Christians to promote education, social welfare, health, rural development and conduct emergency relief and rehabilitation services, proposes to:
- Provide 15 kilos of food rice per person to 5000 in 1,600 homeless, evacuated, and severely affected families
- Provide one quilt per family up to 3000 families
- Help rebuild 500 houses
- Help rebuild five school buildings
- Help repair four clinics/hospitals
- Help rebuild three potable water systems
- Train 5000 persons in disaster preparedness
Beneficiaries will be primarily women, children, and elderly and disabled persons in:
- Farmer families made homeless by the earthquakes
- Families evacuated from houses unsafe for living because of damage
- Families who lost at least two-thirds of their crops
Contributions to support this emergency appeal may be sent to your denomination or to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. Contributions may also be made by credit card online, or by calling: 800-297-1516, ext. 222.