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UMCOR opens mission in Sudan

 


UMCOR opens mission in Sudan

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Kirsten Schwanke-Adiang

A crowd of displaced people greet visitors outside the Sudanese Church of Christ near Khartoum.
Feb. 8, 2005

By Linda Beher*

NEW YORK (UMNS) — The United Methodist Committee on Relief is now providing direct relief and rehabilitation in the embattled Darfur region of Sudan.

Opened in early February, the mission’s priorities include providing emergency aid and development services in water, sanitation, and agriculture. The initial work will be concentrated in South Darfur, on the western side of Sudan in northeastern Africa.

A staff of three will oversee the operation. They are:

  1. Sashi Chanda, formerly with Save the Children in Angola, who has degrees in theology and rural development;
  2. Michael Tredway, a United Methodist layperson and retired military officer from Raeford, N.C., who has extensive experience in humanitarian aid and security issues; and
  3. Frederick Opuni-Mensah, a liaison for UMCOR in Washington since 2004, and formerly with the American Red Cross and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency.

UMCOR also will continue its work of many months with a coalition of other humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to Sudanese refugees fleeing from Darfur into the neighboring nation of Chad.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS file photo by Kirsten Schwanke-Adiang

Children walk through the Jaborona Internally Displaced Persons� Camp outside Khartoum, Sudan.
The Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, of which UMCOR is a part, said he was pleased the agency can now offer direct services. "Working out the details of this new venture has been slow and complex. The success of our efforts is testimony to the diligence of UMCOR in all that it does in relief and rehabilitation."

Day noted that the 2004 United Methodist General Conference, the denomination’s top legislative body, gave his agency a mandate to provide assistance and work for peace in Sudan.

A major step toward peace in southern Sudan occurred in late January with the signing of an accord between the government in Khartoum and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement. United Methodist mission leaders welcomed the accord as a positive sign of eventual peace in all of Sudan. The southern area includes several United Methodist congregations.

Approved as a registered service provider inside Darfur in January, UMCOR has found need for a humanitarian mission that will restore farmland and provide seeds, tools and technical training in South Darfur, where few agencies are working. Emergency supplies, such as soap, buckets, cooking utensils and plastic sheeting, will also be supplied to people in refugee camps.

Jim Cox, the agency’s international operations director, pointed to the acute need for services to children. He said that the 2004 harvest provided even less than a short harvest the year before. World Food Program figures indicate that 22 percent of children under age 5 are malnourished.

Donations to the mission in Sudan can be earmarked for UMCOR Advance No. 184385, “Sudan Emergency,” and dropped in church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. To donate using a credit card, contributors may call toll free, (800) 554-8583.

*Beher is executive secretary for communications at the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.  

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