|
In giving to the Global Food Crisis Fund, the Church of the Brethren’s program of hunger education and action, you help plant seeds and hope in some 20 developing countries. Your gift reduces malnutrition and infant mortality, augments the livelihood of orphans and returning refugees, and bolsters the independence and self-worth of the poor. In its approach to reducing hunger and poverty, the Global Food Crisis Fund teams with faith-based partners to strengthen grassroots initiative. Its grants seek to build local capacity, foster self-reliance, and advance sustainability. Foremost, the Global Food Crisis Fund bears witness to Jesus’ love and compassion for people who live on the margins.
Angola: Seeds, tools, wells for returnees After Angola gained independence, the country was devastated by three decades of civil war. Today a $20,000 Global Food Crisis Fund grant assists SHAREcircle in providing seeds and tools to displaced people now returning home. The program establishes demonstration plots, drills boreholes for wells, and trains teams in water management. In late 2006 SHAREcircle was awarded a $100,000 grant from USAID. It claimed as partners or donors Church World Service, CARE Angola, the Evangelical Covenant Church in Angola, Rotary Club International, UN World Food Program, and the Church of the Brethren Emergency Disaster Fund. In an earlier Global Food Crisis Fund grant of $20,000 for Angola, assistance channeled through Church World Service and the Angola Council of Churches provided seeds and tools to 6,000 rural families. In addition, the project trained 40 peace builders for leadership in 10 provinces.
In northern Armenia a large number of isolated rural women provide sole support to their families. A program of Heifer International is helping heads of households advance agriculturally and socially by forming a network of rural women’s unions. Global Food Crisis Fund is investing $10,000 in this effort. A previous Global Food Crisis Fund grant of $10,000 to Armenia assisted Heifer International’s work of rehabilitation and sustainable development for orphans who upon reaching adult status were left without job opportunities or a social net. Young adults are being equipped with modest living space, a small tract to farm, vocational training, livestock, and seed money.
Dominican Republic: Community development microloans A powerful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ is rendered through the small-loan community development work of the Church of the Brethren in the Dominican Republic. A current Global Food Crisis Fund grant of $66,500 makes possible loans to 470 borrowers in 16 communities, serving to stabilize and strengthen the lives of the working poor. Introduced by Global Mission Partnership workers Jeff and Peggy Boshart, the Community Development Program is currently coordinated by Beth Gunzel. The microloans are overseen by local committees in each community.
Teamed with the indigenous, faith-based, women-directed organization SELVA, an $8,400 Global Food Crisis Fund grant joins the New Day Community in an endeavor to protect the ecological balance of the rainforest and to uphold the traditional rights of the indigenous inhabitants.
El Salvador: Boosting productivity in 10 villages With Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Salvador as partner, a $20,000 Global Food Crisis Fund grant enables 10 communities in Usulután’s San Simon River Basin to boost agricultural productivity, market new produce, and conserve water resources. A previous grant of $33,000 to Emmanuel Baptist Church assisted campesinos in Valley Verde Farm Cooperative to purchase seed, diversify their produce, and reach new markets for vegetables and flowers. It also assisted coffee growers in finding new markets and supported the agrarian-based Youth for Peace Movement in La Barca.
Guatemala: Saving lungs and soil In Mayan communities across beautiful but impoverished Guatemala, a grant of $20,000 from the Global Food Crisis Fund helps families in the Ixtahuacán region construct wood-conserving, lung-preserving adobe stoves; build cisterns for storing water over the region’s five-month dry period; and reforest the steep mountain terrain. The reforestation halts erosion and improves soil nutrition, provides fruit-tree propagation and fresh fruit, and produces wood for fuel.
India: Promoting sustainable agriculture Over the past 10 years Global Food Crisis Fund grants have been the prime channel of Church of the Brethren support for the Rural Service Center at Ankleshwar. Founded by Brethren mission workers over 50 years ago, the center is a pioneer in promoting sustainable agriculture across western Gujarat state. The program centers on soil conservation, tree planting, land leveling, and biogas production. Since 1997, grants from the Global Food Crisis Fund to the Rural Service Center have totaled approximately $75,000. Idrak B. Din is the long-time director of the center.
An arid climate aggravated by severe drought fuels food insecurity in West Timor. Global Food Crisis Fund grants totaling $20,000 assist Church World Service in distributing seeds and tools and in conducting food-for-work enterprises.
In the course of 16 years of civil strife, Liberia’s agriculture was devastated and its rural population dispersed. Recent steps to resettle and reintegrate the internally displaced population prompted Liberia Church Aid to ask Church World Service and its partner churches for seeds, tools, and training to rebuild the country’s food capacity. A $5,000 grant from the Global Food Crisis Fund is enabling Liberia Church Aid to launch a three-year community agriculture program that at the outset is distributing tools and 3 million packets of seeds to 150,000 farm families. The program has the personal and enthusiastic endorsement of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia and the first-ever democratically elected woman president in Africa.
Drought and a massive infestation of desert locusts intensified food security and acute malnutrition in parts of Niger. Even in years with normal rainfall and adequate harvests, UNICEF reports 262 out of every 1,000 children in Niger die before the age of 5. Both to provide emergency food assistance and to replenish seed stock for planting, the Global Food Crisis Fund provided two grants that totaled $18,000. The grants were channeled through Church World Service, which is teamed with Lutheran World Relief, Swiss Interchurch Aid, and Action by Churches Together (ACT) in helping Niger achieve food insecurity.
North Korea: Farm rehabilitation in three counties In a witness of engagement and reconciliation, donors to the Global Food Crisis Fund over the past decade have contributed over $700,000 to food relief and agricultural development in North Korea. The more recent grants have been directed to a three-county farm rehabilitation program that encompasses 24,000 acres along the southwest coast. Dr. Kim Joo, agricultural research specialist, is consultant to the Global Food Crisis Fund and overseer of the program. The 2006 grant was $50,000.
The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement by the government of Sudan and Southern Sudanese in 2005 opened the way for three million displaced people to return to their home areas. Many were uprooted for decades by the civil war that began in 1955. Once back home, the returnees are in need of long-term food security and gainful employment. In partnership with ACT Alliance and Church World Service, a $20,000 grant from the Global Food Crisis Fund helps equip subsistence farmers with seeds and tools, introduces new crops, and trains workers in the use of appropriate technology.
Prolonged drought in Tanzania in 2006 dried up rivers forcing Maasi villagers in the north to walk up to 30 kilometers a day in search of water. More than 3.5 million people were put on the verge of starvation. A Global Food Crisis Fund grant of $4,000 assists partners Church World Service and the Christian Council of Tanzania in distributing over 2,000 tons of maize to the most vulnerable—the elderly, expectant mothers, the disabled, women-headed households, and families affected by HIV/AIDS. The program also is replenishing the seed stock of farmers.
To assist Church of the Brethren congregations in launching a growing project for Foods Resource Bank, the Global Food Crisis Fund annually offers 15 $1,000 start-up grants. The participating group obtains donated or rented acreage; solicits seeds and fertilizer from agribusiness enterprises in the community; plants, tills, and harvests the crop; and markets the produce and invests the proceeds in Foods Resource Bank to underwrite sustainable agricultural projects in developing countries. Brethren growing projects are supporting food security development in eight countries. The largest is the Totonicapán program in Guatemala for which the Church of the Brethren is the lead sponsor and where BVSer Marni O’Brien is on a two-year assignment.
An international advocacy effort based in New York City seeks to mobilize religious and humanitarian agencies in promoting social pensions to reduce the weight of poverty upon the elderly in poor countries. At a relatively modest cost a small cash payment based on age does much to alleviate hardships. Currently 18 countries have a social pension plan in place. A Global Food Crisis Fund grant of $2,500 helps promote the adoption of social pension programs around the globe.
The reclamation of Zhomba gulley in the Gokwe District of central Zimbabwe is an agroecology project of Heifer International and others. A $12,000 Global Food Crisis Fund grant is helping rehabilitate the environment and lift the rural people of the area out of long-entrenched poverty. In an earlier grant of $20,000 the Global Food Crisis Fund joined with Heifer International in providing livestock and training for community-based groups in Zimbabwe’s Midland Province. For more information how you can support GFCF, contact: Global Mission Partnerships
Back to Global Mission Partnerships Home Page © 2006 Church of the Brethren. All rights reserved. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
United States: Start-up grants to growing projects