MECC/ACT Activities
MECC/ACT staff and regional coordinators have been visiting the ravaged areas and listening to the people¹s needs. Surveys and assessments are mad e on the ground and plans of action prepared accordingly.
With the return of the displaced, the work has moved with the people to the damaged areas where efforts are focused. Food, non-food, water/sanitation were the main areas of intervention during the crisis period. Now with the end of the crisis phase in a couple of days, the MECC/ACT is entering the post-crisis phase, introducing two new sectors of intervention, namely psycho-social and mine education and de-mining.
While the first sector will include the creation of child friendly spaces for indoor and outdoor activities, training, pastoral care, educational assistance and scholarships to students, job development for the unemployed , initiation of mobile cooperatives to help farmers, youth exchange programs and other activities, the second will include Humanitarian Mince Action and Mine Risk Education, in cooperation with Dan Church Aid. Statistics provide d by the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center (UNMACC) show that ou t of 84 civilians killed in the South after the war, 82 were killed by cluste r bombs. According to the United Nations Relief Coordinator in Lebanon, there are 350,000 unexploded cluster bombs in the South, only 17,000 were demined and the rest are still near the houses, in the rubbles and around farms. Israeli military sources revealed that 1.1 million bombs were deployed through air strikes and the majority was thrown in the last 72 hours before the cease-fire. The need to clear the bombs before winter is an urgent matter, before rainfall, as bombs can move and be covered with mud, thus becoming harder to detect.
Middle East Council of Churches Office of International Ecumenical Relations P.O. Box 5376, Beirut, Lebanon
Guirgis Ibrahim Saleh, General Secretary
mecc@cyberia.net.lb or guirgissaleh@cyberia.net.lb
+961-1-353-938 http://www.mec-churches.org/