HOTLINE - week of April 04, 2005

Church World Service and its Indonesia response team have expedited emergency and medical supplies to people affected by the March 28 earthquake that hit the Indonesian islands of Nias, Simeulue, and Sumatra.

CWS is providing 500 family tents, 1,000 aid packages – including items such as cookstoves, pots and pans, spoons and forks, glasses and plates, buckets, sarongs, bed sheets, underwear, and sanitary supplies – as well as 35 Interchurch Medical Assistance medicine boxes (each of which provides medicines for 1,000 people for up to three months), and a water purification unit with a 25,000 liter/hour capacity.

CWS is coordinating response with partners Yayasan Tanggul Bencana of Communion of Churches in Indonesia (YTB) and Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU). YTB is providing rice, baby foods, mineral water, and instant noodles for the affected areas. YEU is providing emergency medical services. A CWS staff team is assessing recovery needs on Nias.

CWS is continuing to respond to needs following the Dec. 26 tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and has provided assistance to partners working in India, Thailand, and Somalia.

Some 1,800 women in 15 villages along the Gambia River are working to improve their food security through dry season gardening, with the help of CWS and our partner the Association of Farmers, Educators, and Traders (AFET). The women are part of a three-year project to clear land for dry season gardens and develop sufficient water sources for irrigation.

Gambia's rural population traditionally depends on grain crops cultivated during the rainy season. One season of poor rainfall can lead to severe food shortages. In each village, the women are clearing about 12 acres of land for gardens, and growing food to benefit themselves and more than 6,000 family members.

AFET is helping to dig three wells per garden, install protective fencing around the gardens, and provide the women with seeds and tools. The women, in turn, clear the well sites, lift sand from the wells, and provide sand, gravel, and fencing poles.

The women are learning about vegetable cultivation, crop diversification, and storage techniques, along with good nutrition practices. By staggering planting, the women can harvest crops throughout the year. The women are also learning how to store popular crops like onions so they can sell them when they can get a better price.

The women's irrigated vegetable gardens are helping to fill the food gap by enabling them to produce more food during the dry season and earn income by selling surplus vegetables in the market. Families can pay school fees and buy school lunches for their children with the additional earnings. And, the women can sustain the program themselves because there are few additional resources required for them to keep growing vegetables.

April 7 is World Health Day. Clean water and hygiene is essential to good health. Since 1976, CWS has worked with Vietnamese communities to improve their health systems by helping to construct wells, water systems, and latrines, and providing nutrition training and school feeding, teacher and health workers training, and rural clinic support.

In Ha Tay district, more than 13,000 pre-school and primary school students, their teachers and parents are participating in a project to provide clean water and toilet facilities, and to learn about hygiene. Though some schools have wells, very few have running water, suitable toilet facilities, or water filters, making the children vulnerable to disease because of unsanitary conditions. The children also have very little understanding of the relationship between hygiene and good health.

Teachers in Ha Tay are taking part in training, using materials produced by CWS, and the students are participating in games, plays, and competitions that illustrate the need for good hygiene.

Your prayers and support - and your participation in CROP WALKS and the TOOLS & BLANKETS Program - make possible these and other life sustaining programs. For information on how to get involved, please call your Church World Service/CROP Regional Office toll-free at 1-888-CWS-CROP, that's 1-888-297-2767.

For information about free loan videos, please call 1-800-297-1516, ext. 338, or e-mail us at: videos@churchworldservice.org.

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