wfn.org | ELCA Responds to Tanzania Appeal

[ELCANEWS@ELCASCO.ELCA.ORG]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE NEWS BRIEF

August 8, 1997

ELCA RESPONDS TO TANZANIA APPEAL

More than half a million people face acute food shortages due to severe drought in Tanzania.  According to Action by Churches Together (ACT), no loss of human life has been reported, but livestock and wildlife have died and *the situation is getting worse day by day.*  ACT is a worldwide network of churches, including the Lutheran World Federation, meeting human need through coordinated emergency response.  ACT has issued an appeal for $2,682,000 to provide assistance in Tanzania.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has allocated $20,000 to send to Tanzania via ACT.  ACT calls drought *a creeping disaster* that takes time to cause damage.  Like other Southern Sub-Saharan African countries, Tanzania faces serious drought conditions that began in 1990 when the rains began to stray from a traditional pattern.  According to ACT, 1997 has brought a complete failure of short rains and delay of  the long rains.  In this prolonged drought cycle people have shifted their crop and planting patterns, ACT says.  Purchasing power is low and external aid is erratic.  Malnutrition among children under five is severe and older children have collapsed in classrooms as a result of hunger, ACT reports.  Communities who depend on the sale of livestock, milk and meat products are affected regardless of age, gender or occupation. In farming communities it is the poor who depend on annual and perennial crops who are severely affected.  Water sources have dried up as a result of large herds of cattle, goats and sheep migrating to them.  People are looking for water in the same places.  Consequently, springs and wells have been overdrawn and the environment damaged, ACT reports.  The Lutheran World Federation is a worldwide communion of 124 member churches, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  

For information contact: 
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html