HOTLINE - week of September 19, 2005

Rita, a category 5 hurricane, is bearing down on the Gulf Coast, with its strongest winds projected to hit the Texas coast between Galveston and Louisiana. In addition to new damage likely to result, the powerful storm also jeopardizes fragile structures left by Hurricane Katrina, including the ruptured levee system of New Orleans.

Church World Service is coordinating with the interfaith community and is prepared to send emergency shipments of CWS Blankets and "Gift of the Heart" Kits to several distribution sites helping displaced people in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, based on the extent of damage and geographic area of impact.

Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, CWS is helping to meet immediate needs of the most vulnerable people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama; organizing for long-term recovery; providing training in trauma and spiritual care; and addressing relocation assistance for some 500 hurricane evacuees across the country.

Thus far, CWS is providing more than $880,000 in material assistance to shelters in the affected areas, including CWS Blankets, "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits, School Kits,and Heart-to-Heart Kids Kits. CWS has also provided essential medicines and antibiotics to treat some 20,000 people in Louisiana for up to three months. In addition, CWS is providing UNICEF-donated school and recreation supplies for use with young people who have been displaced by the hurricane in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Please visit our website at for answers to frequently asked questions about CWS Katrina response.

The best way to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina is cash donations. CWS is urgently seeking additional funds to assist families devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Contributions may be made online or by calling 800-297-1516. "Gift of the Heart" Kits – especially School Kits and Health Kits – are also needed.

Continuing violence in Iraq is causing extreme hardship for many Iraqi families and communities. CWS is helping to strengthen the capacities of local organizations, while providing assistance to displaced people and those whose lives have been severely disrupted by shortages of food, water, health care, electricity, and lack of infrastructure.

CWS and its partners are helping to address both the needs of Christian communities that have suffered discrimination and displacement, as well as predominately Muslim communities affected by the ongoing conflict. Some 4,082 families in Baghdad and 3,025 families in Mosul are receiving food packages and hygiene kits. The project is also helping to reconstruct and furnish schools for more than 5,400 students. In several villages in southern Iraq, where some 11,000 low-income people lack access to clean water, support is being provided for water and sanitation projects.

Earlier this year CWS completed the two-year "All Our Children" campaign, for which CWS provided more than $450,000 to address the health needs of Iraqi children.

Contribute online to the 2005 Iraq Relief and Rehabilitation.

Some 100,000 people in the northern provinces of Passoré and Oubritenga, in Burkina Faso, West Africa, are suffering drought- and locust-caused food shortages. The problems in Burkina Faso are part of a larger regional food shortage crisis in the northern Sahel region, which includes neighboring Niger, where some 3.5 million people are experiencing food shortages, and stretches across the continent from Senegal to the Horn of Africa.

Nearly all in the affected areas are subsistence farmers. Young men are leaving the area for work in urban areas, leaving behind the most vulnerable – women, children, and the elderly.

CWS is working to help provide some 3,000 extended families with millet, children’s formula, and medicines such as oral re-hydration tablets. Support is urgently needed for these efforts.

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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