HOTLINE - week of September 03, 2007

Hurricane Felix slammed Nicaragua and Honduras on Tuesday, Sept. 4, with 165-mph winds and driving rains. Flooding is expected to cause significant damage, as more than two feet of rain could fall in some areas yet this week. Mudslides are expected--especially in central Honduras where deforestation is a serious problem.

Poverty is endemic in Central America. Most Nicaraguans live below the poverty level. Many Miskito indigenous people did not evacuate and remain isolated along the Honduras-Nicaragua border.

Governments are still assessing damage, but relief agencies anticipate housing losses to be steep: In Nicaragua alone, half the nation's housing may be damaged.

In Nicaragua, Church World Service partner Accion Medica Cristiana (AMC) pre-positioned relief supplies for distribution. And, partner CEPAD, the Council of Protestant Churches in Nicaragua, has been in contact with many member churches in the affected areas and is assessing needs.

Church World Service expects to support partner recovery efforts in the region.

Over the past two years, Church World Service, with the help of member denominations and other partners, has helped thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane survivors on the long road to recovery.

Today, Church World Service continues to use a $4 million grant from Habitat for Humanity for family home repair along the Gulf Coast, helping to repair 443 homes damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Another 202 are to be completed by spring 2008.

Early on Church World Service used its expertise in refugee assistance to help people displaced to ten states to find services, jobs, housing, and schools in their communities. Church World Service has also supported 44 local long-term recovery organizations; provided trauma care through Interfaith Trauma Response Trainings and Spiritual and Emotional Care Response teams; shipped more than $1.25 million in donated material assistance, including CWS Blankets, CWS Hygiene and School Kits, and Emergency Clean-Up Buckets; provided more than $500,000 for new computer equipment, books, library equipment, and other supplies to hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast schools; and gives support for programs for young survivors, including the Special Olympics of Louisiana, the Youth Empowerment Project of Turning Point Partners for young people released from juvenile facilities, and the Asian Youth Empowerment Project in New Orleans, through Boat People SOS.

Church World Service is assisting recovery efforts in the flood-affected states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin, with a focus on providing training for recovery groups and grants to support long-term recovery projects.

Summer storms--including the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin--dropped massive rains, bringing major flooding across a broad swath of the central U.S. Storms felled trees and power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity just as sweltering heat followed in the storms' wake. Flood-caused sewage spills threaten contamination in many communities.

The flooding in and around Coffeyville, Kansas, was noteworthy. A damaged refinery poured 1,700 barrels of crude oil into the floodwaters, affecting houses and businesses in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma.

Church World Service has provided protective Tyvek suits and hats, rubber gloves, respirators, and goggles for use in clean-up efforts along the Oklahoma/Kansas border, allowing residents and volunteers to safely reclaim lost possessions and muck out homes.

Monetary contributions for flood-related needs in the U.S. are urgently needed.

As most of the wildfires that have ravaged parts of Greece are brought under control, Church World Service joins people of goodwill in offering prayers of sympathy and support for the victims and survivors, individuals and communities alike, who have suffered in the catastrophe. A forecast of more hot weather and strong winds is fueling fears of new or rekindled fires in the region, where scores of people have died, at least 4,000 made homeless, and some 500,000 acres burned.

Church World Service works with partners in many parts of the world to promote literacy--particularly among women.

For example, through a multi-year program in Angola, more than 10,000 women are learning to read and write, while becoming involved in action planning around critical issues such as health and hygiene, environmental protection, economic self-reliance, and conflict resolution and peace-building. A similar literacy effort is underway in Mozambique.

In the Dominican Republic, sugar cane cutters are participating in a food security program and reaping the benefits of basic educational services for their children and themselves.

And, in Laos, some 600 ethnic minority students are learning to read and use basic math, while taking vocational training in such areas as blacksmithing, welding, gardening, fish-raising, animal husbandry, weaving, tailoring, handicrafts, and carpentry.

To read about other CWS-supported educational projects, visit www.churchworldservice.org/Development/education.html.

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.

Back to top