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2000-172
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

Episcopal Relief and Development board approves $2.2 million in grants

by James Solheim

     (ENS) At its recent meeting in New York, the board of Episcopal Relief and 
Development (formerly the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief) approved $2.2 
million in grants, the largest commitment of funds in a single meeting.

     The grants to Kosovo total $1.3 million. One of $679,000 to Mercy Corps 
International will help reduce very high rates of infant and maternal deaths, as 
well as birth complications. Infant mortality in Kosovo is five times the average 
rate for nations in the industrialized world and 80 percent of women in the area, 
which the project will serve, receive no prenatal care.

     The project will train local doctors, midwives and nurses in 118 villages in 
the western part of the province, and will also rehabilitate local health-care 
facilities and provide community health education.

     Another grant of $559,000 to Shelter Now International will help rebuild an 
area of Gjakove, an economic hub near the Albanian border where shops were 
systematically destroyed during last year's conflict. The project will aid 
reconstruction of about 80 shops. The restoration will hopefully stimulate 
further reconstruction in the old part of the city.

     A third grant of $60,000 to the International Center for Clubhouse 
Development will help meet an urgent need for community mental health service in 
Pristina, the capital of the province--the first community-based care for people 
with severe mental illness.

     Two grants for Turkey will focus on housing needs and mobile medical clinics 
in the wake of last year's devastating earthquakes.

     A major grant of almost $764,000 to the United Methodist Committee on Relief 
will support rehabilitation of housing in Duzce, a city east of Istanbul where 
many people are still living in tents. The money will provide housing for more 
than a hundred households, many of them headed by women. A grant of almost 
$84,000 to Mercy Corps International will pay for three mobile medical clinics in 
northeast Turkey where medical services have been severely stretched because of 
population shifts following the earthquakes.  

Additional grants were made to the following:

     Diocese of Mexico to repair two churches damaged by Hurricane Keith;

*Diocese of Jerusalem for two area hospitals treating victims of the current 
conflict;

*Diocese of Belize to repair hurricane damage;

*AIDSCARE in Chicago to provide housing for those living with AIDS;

*Partakers, an agency in Massachusetts that aids reconciliation between 
prisoners and society.

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of News and 
Information.