wfn.org | UMCOR receives $6 million for Armenia work

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Sept. 26, 2000  News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212)870-3803·Nashville,
Tenn.   10-21-71B{433}

By Lesley Crosson*

NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has
entered into a partnership with the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) to bring improved health care and social services to
impoverished people in Armenia. 

Announced Sept. 22, the partnership brings a $6 million USAID grant to help
fund the UMCOR initiative. While more than a million people already have
been served by UMCOR ministries in Armenia, the new grant allows the agency
to further expand its witness.  

Under the partnership, several organizations, including UMCOR, will work
together to create a system that responds to the immediate health and social
service needs of poor people and begin to develop a framework for continuing
efforts by the Armenians themselves.  

A key component of the program is its sustainability, according to USAID
administrator J. Brady Anderson. "If the things we do in Armenia are not
going to be taken up by the people, we're fooling ourselves," he said.
"We've got to build the capacity of the people."

UMCOR has been providing food distribution, micro-loans to women, and health
care, education, and training in Armenia since 1994.  Formerly part of the
Soviet Union, the independent nation has been trying to build its economy
since the collapse of communism.

The Rev. Paul Dirdak, UMCOR's chief executive, noted the new partnership
"allows us to share God's love in a way that empowers the people of
Armenia."    

Pointing to the ancient roots of Armenia's indigenous church, he continued,
"Generations of adherents have served one another in mission but the last
century has been particularly harsh as wars and Soviet domination wreaked
deep havoc in the country.  Recovery is a major challenge, but establishing
this partnership with as young a Christian church as ours affords us both a
great opportunity for growing faith and witness."

The new initiative targets the most vulnerable populations, including single
parents and children, the disabled, homeless or institutionalized, and
impoverished women and children, who will be given vouchers for school
lunches and for free meals at subsidized cafeterias.  Impoverished families
also will receive food staples like oil, sugar, flour, bread and processed
cheese through an extensive distribution plan.

Although the vouchers are primarily meant to ease the affects of poverty for
very poor families, they also will be sold to others who are able to pay,
with proceeds from the voucher sales going to purchase medicine locally.

In a significant departure from a medical system that now concentrates on
curing illness and disease after it occurs, the medical component of the
UMCOR initiative emphasizes preventative medicine and regular visits to
primary health care providers.  The homebound elderly and others who are
unable to travel to health facilities will receive care from doctors and
medical teams sent into communities.  Each community also will have a
critical care recovery center and a medical insurance fund costing
participants less than one dollar a month will be offered.

As part of UMCOR's food security project, rural farmers will be given seeds
for planting, as well as pregnant sheep, cows, and other livestock.  The
farmers then would be required to give seed from the first crop and
offspring from the animals to other farmers to help them get started.

Contributions to UMCOR's work in Armenia can be made to Advance  #250225-8.
Checks, earmarked for "Armenia," can be dropped in church collection plates
or mailed directly to the agency at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York,
NY 10115. Call (800) 554-8583 to make a credit card donation.
#  #  #
*Crosson is director of public relations for the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries. 

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United Methodist News Service
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