NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
April 17, 2002
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.
In this news release:
-
Aid With International Backing Reaches Hard-Pressed Palestinians
-
Fair Trade Coffee on PBS Farm Show This Weekend
-
Voices For Peace in Colombia Will Soon be Heard in America
AID WITH INTERNATIONAL BACKING REACHES HARD-PRESSED PALESTINIANS
Baltimore, April 17, 2002 -- Christian agencies backed by international support are managing to provide some humanitarian assistance to Palestinian communities under Israeli military control. Trucks accompanied by international relief agency representatives reached Bethlehem this week and similar missions are planned for the cities of Tulkarem and Ramallah today and Friday.
The Lutheran World Federation in Jerusalem has joined with Catholic Relief Services, the Mennonite Central Committee and others to provide food, blankets, quilts, health kits and medicines for people whose communities are still occupied, under curfew and cut off.
Aid workers allowed to visit the besieged areas say a massive and sustained relief operation is needed. However, each effort to help must overcome serious obstacles. LWF staff report that trained monitors from DanChurchAid and Icelandic Church Aid are required to negotiate passage for relief trucks through Israeli military cordons.
"Their presence really changes the soldiers' behavior, making it much more likely the aid can get through to the people who are suffering," said the LWF representative in Jerusalem, Craig Kippels. "These international personnel really help facilitate humanitarian services to the West Bank."
Packages of basic foods and bottled water are being distributed where local emergency committees gain access to help from outside. The local committee of the Middle East Council of Churches brought 20 metric tons of food and water to Ramallah last weekend, for distribution at a Greek Catholic and an Episcopal Church there.
The refugee camp in Jenin, scene of heavy fighting for two weeks, is like an earthquake zone, one aid worker told the New York Times yesterday. Hundreds of homes are flattened and thousands are homeless there.
Needs are great well beyond recent battlegrounds. After 18 months of conflict, about half the Palestinian population is now living on less than two dollars a day.
LWR has assisted Palestinian refugees since the 1940s, working with LWF and other groups. LWR also advocates a just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the governments involved.
To contribute: Donations may be made by credit card via 800-number, on-line or by check. You may designate your gift: Middle East Crisis. Please consider making an unrestricted donation, which will enable LWR to use your gift where it is needed most.
Lutheran World Relief
P.O. Box 17061
Baltimore, MD 21298-9832
1-800-LWR-LWR2
FAIR TRADE COFFEE ON PBS FARM SHOW THIS WEEKEND
Baltimore, April 17, 2002 - This weekend the public television program "Market to Market" will explore how a change in the way coffee is being bought and sold is benefiting small farmers. The LWR Coffee Project is part of the story.
"From food co-ops to restaurants to church basements, consumers are heeding the call to buy with the farmer in mind," says the producer, Iowa Public Television, of the program that airs the weekend of April 19.
The program is broadcast in twenty states, including Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas. (See local listings for times in your area or visit <http://www.lwr.org/coffee/tv> for information.)
World coffee prices have been at record lows for more than a year. Fairly traded coffee is allowing an increasing number of low-income farmers to keep farming. Some 2,000 parishes participate in the LWR Coffee Project which promotes fair trade for small farmers.
VOICES FOR PEACE IN COLOMBIA WILL SOON BE HEARD IN AMERICA
Baltimore, April 17, 2002 - A special Lutheran World Relief program for Colombia, "Voices for Peace in Colombia," is bringing a delegation of five Colombian peacemakers to meet with congressional and church leaders in the U.S. for two weeks beginning April 28. The group will visit Washington, D.C., Minnesota and South Dakota.
"Voices for Peace in Colombia" is a program to stop the forced expulsion of Colombians from their homes as a consequence of counter-insurgency operations, to support peacemaking by the country's faith-based groups and to encourage changes in U.S. policy in order to promote peace and reconciliation in Colombia.
A 20-year conflict in the Latin American country has made an estimated two million people homeless. Twenty people die each day in political violence. A massive U.S. program appears to be making the conflict worse.
