wfn.org | Church World Service Moves New Africa Initiative Forward

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Church World Service
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: 212-870-2252/2227

CHURCH WORLD SERVICE MOVES NEW AFRICA INITIATIVE FORWARD

November 1, 2002, NEW YORK CITY - The international, ecumenical humanitarian
agency Church World Service is moving forward plans for a new Africa
Initiative through which CWS and its partners will seek to bring increased
attention and resources to the struggles faced by the majority of Africans.

Built on the foundation of the agencys decades of emergency response,
community development and refugee assistance work in Africa, the new
initiative will supplement, not replace, CWS already extensive, existing
projects and partnerships.

The Africa Initiative will extend over at least five years and aims to
target new resources for maximum impact on a few significant issues.  It
will work with African national councils of churches and other partners to
build, improve and expand their humanitarian services, institutions and
leadership.

Church World Service is the $70 million a year, global humanitarian agency
of the 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member denominations of the
(U.S.) National Council of Churches, and works in more than 80 countries.
CWS has broad U.S. grassroots support - particularly through its nearly
2,000 annual CROP WALKS, which last year raised more than $17 million to
fight hunger in the United States and around the world.

The CWS Africa Initiative will target three particularly vulnerable
populations: 1) children; 2) people living with HIV/AIDS, and 3) uprooted
peoples, including refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons.  It
will focus on three root causes of hunger and poverty affecting these
vulnerable groups: 1) violence, conflict, peace and reconciliation; 2)
water, health and food security, and 3) globalization and poverty reduction.
And it will give specific and intentional attention to the needs and rights
of African women and girls, who long have faced discrimination and violence.

One component of the Africa Initiative that is generating particular
interest is the concept of schools as Safe Zones.  Said the Rev. John L.
McCullough, CWS Executive Director, we would seek to promote schools as
safe zones where children could be secure from violence, receive one hot
meal a day, and pursue education.

The concept of schools as Safe Zones was sparked by a presentation that
CWS staff had heard in March 2002 by former U.S. Sen. George McGovern - now
the United Nations international emissary to the hungry -- about his vision
of expanding the U.S. school lunch program internationally.

The Rev. McCullough noted that the United Nations stated goal of cutting
world hunger in half by 2015 could be met if you just focus on children.

Church World Service Develops Africa Initiative/November 1, 2002/Page 2

CWS is developing the new Africa Initiative in extensive consultation with
its African partners -- most recently, at its September meeting in Nairobi,
Kenya, with the general secretaries and chairpersons of the sub-regional and
national ecumenical councils of 31 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Our ecumenical partners heralded the meeting in Nairobi as an historic
opportunity to meet in such numbers to discuss future plans and priorities
with an agency such as CWS, said the Rev. McCullough.	Participants in the
Nairobi meeting were really excited about the Safe Zones concept, he
reported.

They would collaborate continent-wide to press their governments for
legislation declaring schools as safe zones, free from violence, civil
conflict and abuse.  We want to press the governments - and the new Africa
Union -- to declare education a universal right of children.

The Africa Initiative in general - and the Safe Zones component in
particular - also will seek to engage corporations, especially those that
have been taking resources from the continent.	We will encourage them to
reinvest in communities there, the Rev. McCullough said.  The first
priority for reinvestment should be the schools.

The Africa Initiative also sets out to strengthen the voice of our partners
in the international arena, said Kirsten Laursen, CWS Deputy Director for
Programs.  CWS has the unique opportunity to facilitate representation of
our partners concerns, on, for example, the New Economic Partnership for
Africas Development (NEPAD) - a major 21st century initiative for engaging
the international community in partnership with Africa for Africas
development.

The CWS meeting with partners in Nairobi in September included a panel on
NEPAD and its impact and our partners appreciated that.  It was their first
opportunity for such a discussion, Ms. Laursen said.

The CWS Board of Directors reviewed the evolving initiative at its fall
meeting, held October 22-23 in South Bend, Ind., and gave its unanimous
support.  Formal launch of the Africa Initiative is set for January 2004.
Throughout 2003, CWS will work to enlist U.S. denominational support and
will hold a series of follow-up planning meetings with African church
leaders.

Church World Service already is following up on a July 2002 delegation visit
to West Africas Mano River Region - among the Africa Initiatives
geographical cornerstones -- by launching several new projects related to
truth and reconciliation in Sierra Leone; demobilization and reintegration
of soldiers, including child soldiers, and increased support and care of
refugees and displaced people.	Ecumenical council leaders from Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia will visit the United States in March 2003.

CWS Emergency Response Program staff recently met with partners in Angola to
discuss an expanded CWS presence, and Immigration and Refugee Program staff
went to Kenya and Tanzania earlier this month to pursue expansion of
services to refugees.

In May 2002, U.S. composer Tim Janis performed two concerts with local
musicians in South Africa to benefit HIV/AIDS ministries of two CWS
partners - the Sinikithemba Christian Care Center in Durban and the South
African Council of Churches.  And on December 1, World AIDS Day, the
Durban-based Sinikithemba HIV+ Choir will join Janis in concert at The
Riverside Church in New York City - launching a two-week East Coast tour to
benefit CWS HIV/AIDS ministries across Africa.	(Phone 800-297-1516 or visit
www.churchworldservice.org for details.)

-end-