wfn.org | NCC/CWS HARTKE ELECTED TO AIUSA BOARD

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email:  news@ncccusa.org    Web:  www.ncccusa.org

80NCC7/7/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LINDA HARTKE ELECTED TO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA BOARD

 NEW YORK - Linda Hartke, Director of Programs and
Operations for Church World Service, the humanitarian
response ministry of the National Council of Churches, has
been elected to the national board of directors of Amnesty
International USA.

 Amnesty International, recipient of the 1977 Nobel
Prize for Peace, works for the release of prisoners of
conscience (those who have neither used nor advocated
violence) and for the end to torture, executions and
"disappearances" worldwide.  The group has 400,000 members
in the United States.

 Hartke was one of six board members (of nine
candidates) elected in June through a national balloting
process.  She will serve a three-year term, through 2002.

 Her CWS post is a senior executive position within an
internationally recognized non-governmental organization,
which works in more than 80 countries including the United
States.  CWS works primarily through local partners around
the globe, but is operational in a number of countries,
including Cambodia - where Hartke was CWS Country Director
from 1992 until June 1997.  Based in Phnom Penh, it is the
largest of CWS's overseas programs, with a $2.5 million
budget and 75 staff.

 Hartke is a member of Our Saviour's Atonement Lutheran
Church in New York City, and has served on national and
regional boards of her denomination, the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, and its predecessor, the
Lutheran Church in America.

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