HOTLINE - week of October 24, 2005

“With each tent provided, a family is being saved,” says Colonel Zakeer, of the Pakistani Army. Temperatures are dropping, which will make survival next to impossible for those people living out in the open, fears Zakeer. Applauding CWS efforts in response to the earthquake, Col. Zakeer said that so far CWS had been the largest donor of shelter and food packages in the Battagram area of Pakistan.

The death toll in Pakistan is now estimated at some 78,000. As many as three million people are homeless. In India, more than 1,300 people were killed and some 150,000 made homeless. The situation has been made worse by ongoing aftershocks, heavy rains, mudslides, and the approach of winter weather.

In Pakistan, CWS is helping to provide shelter kits (family-sized tent, ground sheet, plastic sheet, two iron poles, and four blankets), as well as family food packages (wheat flour, rice, lentils, cooking oil, sugar, tea, salt, a matchbox, and soap), to some 22,000 of the worst-affected families. Items are being delivered to remote villages by Pakistani Army helicopters.

CWS is also setting up two field clinics – one in Azad Kashmir, one in the North West Frontier Province -- to provide assistance for some 100,000 people. Basic health care is also being provided through the CWS clinic in Mansehra, which has assisted Afghan refugees in the area for more than ten years.

In India, CWS is helping to support the efforts of our partner Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action to assist some 10,000 quake-affected families with heavy wool blankets, clothing, and other emergency items. Five hundred of the most vulnerable families whose homes were damaged or destroyed are receiving family-size tents for temporary shelter, along with housing reconstruction kits.

Updated October 24, 2005...

At this writing (10/24), Hurricane Wilma – at one point the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded – has brought intense rains and winds to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and Cuba, and made landfall this morning near Cape Romano, about 22 miles south of Naples, in southern Florida, as a category 3 storm with winds of 125 mph.

Meanwhile, CWS continues to assist people recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

CWS has provided more than $1.4 million in CWS Blankets, "Gift of the Heart" Health, School, and Kids Kits, and Emergency Clean-up Buckets, medical supplies, and UNICEF recreational/educational kits to assist uprooted families and individuals in ten states. CWS has also provided seed grants to ten local long-term recovery programs in four states, and is supporting trauma care for both caregivers and survivors.

Working through affiliate offices in ten states, CWS is assisting families and individuals who have relocated to new areas. Your help is urgently needed to support these vital hurricane recovery efforts.

In recent weeks, Central American countries have been hit by a number of natural disasters. Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Stan devastated parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico in early October. Also, the crops of some 49,000 people in northeastern Nicaragua have been totally destroyed by a plague of rats and worms.

CWS is assisting the efforts of partners in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to help families impacted by the disasters. Partners in Guatemala are providing food, water, medicines, hygiene items, and other assistance to people affected by severe flooding.

In Nicaragua, 168 families are receiving seeds to plant 73 acres of sorghum and 146 acres of corn, to be harvested in January. Another 600 families will receive food assistance, and partners will assist the government to apply rodenticides.

In El Salvador, more than 3,000 families affected by Tropical Storm Stan are receiving food, non-food items, psychosocial care, and assistance with clean-up.

Some 3,000 small businesses are being created or enhanced through a CWS-supported program of the Organization of African Instituted Churches. The goal is to improve the incomes of small business owners – women, men, and youth -- in five regions of Kenya. These most vulnerable people in Kenya typically earn less than $1 per day. Many of the households are landless, headed by single mothers. Many are living with HIV/AIDS, and/or taking care of orphans or other vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS.

One hundred small business enablers are learning about management, community savings, and credit schemes -- so they can, in turn, pass their knowledge along to 3,000 self-help group members. In addition, 300 women in ten self-help groups are receiving small grants of $100 each to develop their businesses. The project includes peer learning exchanges.

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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