wfn.org | CWS Trip to Bosnia

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

77NCC7/2/99  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MULTI-ETHNIC, INTERFAITH STAFF, PARTNERSHIPS MARK CWS BOSNIA WORK
Stories from CWS Executive Director's Recent Visit to Refugee 
Camps, Rebuilding Projects

 July 2, 1999, NEW YORK - Church World Service work in Bosnia 
models cooperation across ethnic and religious differences at the 
same time as it wrestles with the deep divisions in the region.  
So reported the Rev. Dr. Rodney Page, CWS Executive Director, 
following a mid-June visit, during which he kept an eye on how 
the Bosnia experience might soon inform rebuilding and 
reconciliation efforts in Kosovo.

Church World Service - the humanitarian response ministry of 
the National Council of Churches, with 35 U.S. Protestant and 
Orthodox member communions - works cooperatively in Bosnia with 
Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim groups along with the 
Red Cross/Red Crescent, Swiss Labor Federation and Bosnian 
ministries of Agriculture and of Labor and Social Care.  

Its Bosnia program is part of a multi-faceted, region-wide 
CWS response anticipated to reach $3.4 million by late summer.

 The CWS Bosnia staff includes Muslim and Christian, Serb and 
Croat, who "work together and even pray together.  Our staff 
represent the diversity of the region and are working for 
building up of the whole region," said Dr. Page, who traveled 
with Dr. Rhonnie Hemphill, Director of the CWS Community 
Education and Fund-Raising Program, Elkhart, Ind., and two CWS 
donors: the Trull Foundation, Palacios, Texas, represented by 
Colleen Claybourn, a Presbyterian who chairs the foundation's 
board, and Dr. S. Huw Anwyl, Senior Minister and Chief Executive 
Officer, Shepherd of the Hills, a partnership of the United 
Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), 
Laguna Niguel, Calif.

 They visited three refugee camps, each accommodating between 
1,000 and 1,500 people, near Sarajevo.  The camps house recent 
refugees from Kosovo along with other refugees from the region, 
including long-term refugees from the Bosnia/Herzegovina 
conflict.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) carries 
primary responsibility, and Church World Service has provided 
bedding, health and school kits, and baby food to the crowded but 
"clean and well-ordered" camps and to "collection centers" that 
offer more permanent housing for Bosnians awaiting reintegration.

 The group continued on to witness several reintegration 
"success stories" - people who have benefited from CWS micro-
enterprise loans.  "We were heartened to see how these projects 
are bringing hope, life and new beginnings for people," Dr. 
Hemphill said.  

 Loan recipients repay in-kind, not in cash.  The group met:

- a man who makes "beautiful, double-paned doors and windows, 
which are in high demand in Bosnia as they rebuild," Dr. Page 
said.  "He is paying back his loan by supplying orphanages, 
churches and homes."  The business had a humble beginning in the 
man's home, and now employs 20.
- a fish hatchery, which paid off its loan by donating fresh fish 
through the Red Cross/Red Crescent to area homes for the elderly.
- a factory making chalk, a prime ingredient in whitewash, 
plaster and dry-wall paint.
- a small chicken farm, which paid off its loan in eggs donated 
to the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

 The CWS group also delivered "Tools of Hope" to a village - 
half Croat, half Muslim - outside of Mostar.  The scythes, axes, 
sickles and wheelbarrows "allow them to begin farming again."

 While at the village, the CWS group heard the story of two 
neighbors, a Serb and a Muslim.  When as part of another micro-
enterprise project a hog was offered to the Serb, "he declined, 
because he thought it was disrespectful of his Muslim neighbor," 
Dr. Hemphill recounted.

 Added Dr. Page, "We heard that Muslims and Serbs who were 
together in one refugee camp had to be separated when tensions 
flared.  On the other hand, we heard stories of Serbs protecting 
Muslims and of Muslims protecting Serbs.  There is bridge-
building going on between religious and ethnic groups.  Many of 
our projects help in that work because they aim not only to 
restore self-worth and economic success, but to restore 
community."

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