wfn.org | IOCC ASSISTANCE GOING TO KOSOVO COMMUNITIES IN NEED

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

INTERNATIONAL ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHARITIES (IOCC)

110 West Road, Suite 360, Baltimore, Md. 21204 Tel: (410) 243-9820 Fax: 
(410) 243-9824

Web: www.iocc.org E-mail: news@iocc.org

For immediate release

April 8, 2005

IOCC ASSISTANCE GOING TO KOSOVO COMMUNITIES IN NEED

     Baltimore (IOCC) Living in certain parts of Kosovo is a daily 
struggle one that doesn t get any easier with time.

     Six years since the NATO bombing campaign, and a year since the 
renewed violence against minority communities in Kosovo, residents there 
continue to suffer from a lack of security, mobility, services and, in some 
cases, proper shelter.

     This despite the efforts of the international community to help all 
ethnic groups in Kosovo coexist and build opportunities for reconciliation, 
stability and prosperity in the troubled province.

     International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) is responding to 
the nutritional and hygiene needs of minority communities in Kosovo through 
a new project that will provide more than 1,000 families with food and 
hygiene parcels and support the operations of a soup kitchen in Prekovac.

     IOCC has identified the Pomoravlje region and the Gnjilane, Novo 
Brdo, Vitina, Pristina and Gracanica enclaves as the most vulnerable areas 
because they host many displaced people. Within these enclaves, IOCC will 
provide assistance to people living in 10 isolated villages.

     Working through the local partner Majka 9 Jugovica, IOCC will provide 
a one-month supply of supplementary food and hygiene items to 1,000 
families of all ethnic groups living in private accommodations, as well as 
families staying in a shelter in Gracanica.

     IOCC s support of the soup kitchen will provide immediate, 
life-sustaining assistance to elderly and other poor people in the Novo 
Brdo region, and sustain the soup kitchen operations for six months.

     This latest project is the result of a detailed needs-assessment done 
in February and is accomplished with the support of longtime IOCC partner 
Vlade Divac and others. In December, Divac, star center for the NBA s Los 
Angeles Lakers, extended a challenge grant of $50,000 to IOCC for 
humanitarian assistance in Kosovo. IOCC matched the grant with the support 
of its Board of Directors.

     I would like to express my sincere gratitude to IOCC for all its 
efforts to assist the Church and minorities living in Kosovo, said His 
Grace Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, abbot of High Decani Monastery in 
western Kosovo.

     To learn more about IOCC humanitarian programs in the former 
Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, please visit www.iocc.org.

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For media inquiries, please contact IOCC Communications Associate Stephen 
Huba at 1-877-803-4622 or shuba@iocc.org.