wfn.org | CWS - Myanmar Aid Provisions Reaching 1 Million Mark

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

Church World Service Myanmar Aid Provisions Reaching 1 Million Mark, 
Agency Shifting Focus to Immediate Farm Recovery, Food Security

BANGKOK/WASHINGTON, Monday, June 23, 2008- Global humanitarian agency 
Church World Service (CWS) reports that as of today, it has provided 
temporary shelter and fresh water supplies sufficient for nearly one 
million Myanmar (Burma) cyclone survivors.

As of Thursday (June 19), the Church World Service team based in 
Bangkok reported that its local partner in Myanmar had reached a 
total of 572 villages in the disaster-affected region and had 
provided supplies sufficient to serve more than 980,000 beneficiaries 
and had delivered 3,944 "water baskets." The water baskets, which 
capture rainwater, alone deliver the potential for 986,000 people to 
have clean drinking water. Each of the portable, lightweight plastic 
water container holds the equivalent of a day's clean drinking water 
for 250 people.

CWS says its local partner has also provided temporary shelter 
plastic tarpaulins for 41,374 households -- more than 25 percent of 
the total number of households (160,000) the United Nations has 
estimated to have received emergency tarps so far. *

CWS says its fellow INGO members of the Action by Churches Together 
(ACT) alliance have also provided food and other non-food supplies to 
survivors in the target communities served by the local partner as well.

Church World Service is continuing its U.S. fundraising campaign for 
Cyclone Nargis survivors and now is shifting to farm recovery and 
rehabilitation in the devastated Irrawaddy delta area, with focus on 
immediate agricultural assistance to ensure next season's crops and 
to build future food security.

"As with our recovery work following the 2004 tsunami, our model of 
'disaster relief' is really about building disaster risk reduction 
components into any of our emergency recovery and rehabilitation 
programs," says CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr. 
"We're turning our attention in Myanmar to that kind of holistic recovery now."

Farmers in the area have till the end of July to recover their fields 
and paddies and get rice seed in the ground for next season's crops.

Concentrating on some 11 townships in the delta already being 
assisted, CWS and its local partner plan to provide farmers with 
farmland needed rice seed stock, field preparation tools, and 
equipment to compensate for the significant numbers of work animals-- 
buffalo and oxen normally used for tilling-that were lost in the 
cyclone.  Additionally, CWS intends to provide capitol for hiring 
laborers from among those families who don't own farmland and need income.

"Because our philosophy is to work through local organizations- which 
helps people at grassroots levels build greater self-sufficiency and 
resiliency," Derr says, "with adequate support, CWS will be able to 
continue serving the Burmese people."

Cyclone Nargis cut a huge swath of destruction about 100 miles wide 
across 200 miles of the populous Irrawaddy Delta, killing an 
estimated more than 100,000 people and thousands of livestock and 
destroying homes, crops and property.  Estimates say over two million 
people were affected.

Contributions to the Church World Service 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: www.myanmarrecovery.org

> ###

* Bloomberg News, June 17, 2008, " Myanmar Cyclone Survivors Left 
Without Shelter, Aid Workers Say,"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHYSzGpbAPlw&refer=home

Media Contacts

Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net
Lesley Crosson, (212) 870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org