wfn.org | ADRA Continues Responding To Southern

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Africa Flooding

March 5, 2000
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland

ADRA Continues Responding To Southern Africa 
Flooding

Maputo, Mozambique.    The Adventist Development 
and Relief Agency (ADRA) continues to respond to 
the flooding in southern Africa. ADRA is already
providing relief materials in Mozambique and 
Zimbabwe, and is gearing up to respond in 
Botswana.

ADRA Mozambique is refocusing its efforts to the 
Xinavane region in response to a personal appeal 
from the Provincial Governor of Maputo. "In a 
meeting with the governor, he made a special 
appeal to ADRA to provide assistance to this 
region," says Curtis Hesse, ADRA Mozambique 
director.

"This area is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of 
Maputo, where more than 28,000 people had their 
homes and all their possessions washed away, and 
who are stranded out in the open."

As a result, ADRA is planning to airlift by 
helicopter approximately 22 tons (20 metric 
tonnes) of food by early next week with the 
governor's assistance, according to Hesse. "A 
road should be open into the area in about a 
week," he says. ADRA Mozambique may also 
distribute a good portion of the 8,000 family 
kits they were assembling for the northern areas 
to the Xinavane region. The kits contain three 
blankets, two cooking pots, a tarpaulin, two 
mosquito nets, and a 20-liter (5.2-gallon) jerry 
can container).

ADRA Mozambique already delivered US$25,000 of 
food aid in the areas outside Maputo and Motola. 
The Eastern Africa Division (EAD) of the Seventh-
day Adventists funded the relief.

ADRA Zimbabwe is responding to the flooding of 
the Limpopo River in southern Zimbabwe, which 
sent a massive deluge of water down into already-
flooded Mozambique. ADRA sent a truck loaded with 
five tons (4.5 metric tonnes) of food, clothing 
and blankets to Beitbridge, on the border of the 
two countries. ADRA staff set up a distribution 
point there with local authorities at a Seventh-
day Adventist church. ADRA Zimbabwe also raised
US$5,000 from local donors, which was matched by 
the EAD. The funds will be used for further 
relief efforts.

Botswana is also suffering from serious flooding 
throughout the southern part of the country, 
according to Nick Brightman, ADRAšs Eastern 
Africa regional vice president. Remote Area 
Dwellers are seriously affected, and the 
Adventist church in Botswana is planning its 
response to them. More than US$5,000 has been 
raised, which the EAD matched.

"Although ADRA does not have an official office 
in Botswana, the Adventist church members there 
are volunteering through our ADRA office in 
Zimbabwe," says Brightman. "Many church members 
there are playing a responsible role in this 
relief response."

ADRA, is an independent, humanitarian agency  
created with the specific purpose of individual 
and community development and disaster relief in 
more