CONTACTS: Lesley Crosson/Church World Service, (212) 870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin - 24/7-(781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net
CHURCH WORLD SERVICE EXPANDS U.S. FUNDRAISING APPEAL; AID TEAM ENTERING MYANMAR (BURMA)
"Food first, then shelter, following international NGO quality standards," says agency
BANGKOK/WASHINGTON - Wed May 7- With death tolls in Myanmar (Burma) predicted to reach as high as 80,000 following Saturday's devastating Cyclone Nargis, according to Associated Press reports, global humanitarian agency Church World Service announced this morning that its first fundraising appeal of Monday (May 5) surpassed its initial goal of $50,000 in less than a day and the appeal is now expanded to address the enormous scope of immediate aid needed for survivors.
Marvin Parvez, Church World Service's Acting Asia Pacific Regional Coordinator, will arrive in Yangon, Myanmar, on Friday (May 9). Other CWS team members will arrive at the agency's Bangkok offices today (Wed May 7) and as soon as their visas are cleared will follow Parvez.
"We anticipate that Myanmar's officials will now be more responsive in granting visas to aid workers, in view of the enormity of their country's situation" says CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr in Washington.
CWS's Parvez says the agency's initial funding and response is focused on â??food first- from $40,000 to $50,000 in food aid-- then shelter, in addition to necessary and clear assessments of actual needs and anticipated gaps in the broader response setting.â??
Parvez said CWS is particularly conscious of organizing food aid in a manner that â??doesnâ??t adversely affect local markets, in light of the current food crisis,â?? which was further inflamed in Myanmar just after the cyclone.
The agency has been in continuous contact with its local partners in Myanmar since the cyclone swept the country. â??In global disaster response work, local partners know best where assistance may be needed most, and they always have more effective networks,â?? says Derr.
CWS is also shaping its food aid and further responses according to international quality and accountability standards as set out by the Sphere Project [http://www.sphereproject.org/content/view/31/84/lang,English/] and the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP-International) [http://www.hapinternational.org/], Parvez said.
On Friday, May 9, the CWS regional office in Bangkok will host a coordination meeting of members of the international ACT (Action By Churches Together) Alliance who are intending to work in Myanmar, to look at how to best collaborate in their efforts and to review SPHERE and HAP standards and their application to the still-unfolding humanitarian disaster in Myanmar.
Parvez says CWS will promote adherence to the international aid standards among all of the aid community in Yangon, â??to help ensure the best quality of response and coordination by all of us, at all levels, in this particularly difficult situation,â?? he said.
International relief effort gained momentum on Wednesday, as the Myanmar regime authorized the United Nations to dispatch an air shipment of aid, and India expedited two planeloads of relief supplies.
In the U.S. yesterday afternoon, in response to this emergency, the Department of Treasuryâ??s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License Number 14, which authorizes certain financial transactions in support of humanitarian or religious activities by NGOâ??s in Burma.
Church World Service provides relief and recovery, sustainable development, and refugee resettlement and protection services worldwide and is funded through public donations, grants and by the support of 35 U.S. Christian denominations.
Contributions to Church World Service's Cyclone Nargis response may be made by: telephone, at (800) 297-1516; by mailing a check to Church World Service,
28606 Phillips Street, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515; or through secure online contribution at: https://secure.churchworldservice.org/catalog/display.php?sid=1.