HOTLINE - week of November 13, 2006

November 12-18 is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week--a nationwide effort to bring awareness to the problems of hunger, homelessness, and poverty.

CWS CROP Hunger Walks share this goal of helping people to understand hunger, its causes, and related issues, and to provide resources to help alleviate hunger here in the U.S. and around the world.

Up to 25 percent of CROP Hunger Walk donations go back to local communities in the U.S., where they help to support food banks, soup kitchens, and other hunger-related initiatives.

Around the world, CROP Hunger Walk funds are supporting food security projects to help people provide for themselves and their families.

For example, in the Dominican Republic, some 996 families (about 6,663 people) in 24 communities are learning to increase and diversify their food production, with the help of CWS and partner Social Service of the Dominican Churches. Most of the families are Haitian or Haitian-Dominican. They are gaining greater access to farmland, learning about soil management and better growing techniques, establishing seed banks, and learning how to better sell market surpluses.

In Serbia, fifty families in Rasinski District are forming a cooperative and improving their food security with CWS-provided family greenhouses, seeds, small tools, and technical assistance. The families are working to ensure that they have enough food to feed themselves year-round, as well as cash income by selling excess produce in local markets when prices are highest. Seedlings grown in the greenhouses will be sold to other local farmers at prices lower than they would have to pay on the open market.

Representatives of seven U.S. African-American denominations have returned from a visit to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, where they met with faith leaders and Israeli and Palestinian officials, in a trip hosted by CWS. The delegation conveyed the support of the black churches for the churches in the Middle East, and vowed to work to focus attention on the deteriorating situation in the Holy Land.

More on this story.

Life is slowly returning to normal for children at Souane Elementary School after the traumatic 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

For 20 days students at the public kindergarten-through-sixth-grade school could not use their building because it was "very badly damaged" in the fighting, says Farid Hamra, a construction specialist for Church World Service partner International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC). "Most of the schools were hit directly," Hamra says.

Souane School is open again, thanks to IOCC assistance with repairs, including electrical and sanitary work, painting, and aluminum maintenance.

Today the children at Souane "are doing okay. They are singing, even when they hear airplanes," explains kindergarten teacher Oussama Mzanniar.

Souane is one of 23 schools that the CWS partner is committed to restoring in four districts in South Lebanon--Marjeyoun, Hasbayya, Bint Jbeil, and Tyre. The organization's commitments also include non-food relief supplies to 2,900 vulnerable families and water and sanitation projects in 30 villages.

Ten-year-old Hussein Sultan is proof that the relief effort is working. He was injured when an unexploded bomb went off while he and friends played near a home in the Souane area that was destroyed in the fighting. Though Sultan spent a number of days in the hospital being treated for shrapnel in his lungs, he is now back with the other children at Souane Elementary School.

Much is improving, but at the same time most agree there is still considerable work left to do, particularly in terms of psychological healing in areas closest to where the fighting took place. Many say activities like art, movies, and plays will go a long way toward helping the children forget.

At Aaitaroun Elementary School, another school being repaired near the Israel-Lebanon border, where some of the most intense fighting occurred, the students "are not fully recovered," reports principal Khalil Haider. "They are not feeling safe. They have a strong fear. If we can provide a small smile, it will give a lot to a depressed student," he adds.

In addition to IOCC, CWS partner, Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) is distributing food, blankets, hygiene kits, cooking utensils, heaters, and other relief supplies, and repairing schools. With the help of Norwegian Church Aid, another CWS partner, MECC is also re-establishing water supplies.

Church World Service is helping to support the work of these partners.

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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