wfn.org | UMNS# 04508-United Methodist mission agency commits $100,000 to

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United Methodist mission agency commits $100,000 to Sudan 

Oct. 29, 2004	 News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*  New
York {04508}

By Linda Bloom*

NEW YORK (UMNS) - Expressing continuing concern about the people of Sudan,
the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries has designated $100,000 to
assist with the humanitarian crisis there.

The board's relief agency, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, also has
dispatched an assessment team to the region of Darfur in western Sudan.
Jennifer Poitras and Ali Aamoum, international relief and development
professionals, arrived Oct. 21 in Khartoum and will spend three weeks
exploring how to expand UMCOR's involvement in delivering aid.

In a conflict that has been labeled as genocide by some, more than 1.2
million people have been driven from their homes in the Darfur region since
2003, and as many as 70,000 have died.

The Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries, said the information and statistics being gathered about
the situation in Sudan have not resulted in sufficient political action.

He told United Methodist News Service he hopes the $100,000 grant can be used
"to really focus the denomination, more than it is at present, on the crisis
there."

Taken from the agency's program development fund at Day's request, the money
was approved by board directors at the October annual meeting and will
support programs that promote child protection, income generation for women
and safe returns to rebuilt villages. 

United Methodist donations already have supported UMCOR assistance in the
region. Currently, the agency is working with an international ecumenical
alliance in Chad refugee camps holding 130,000 Sudanese.

Gifts can be designated to UMCOR Advance No. 184385, "Sudan Emergency."
Checks can be dropped in church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR
at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can
be made, toll free, by calling (800) 554-8583.

Other grants approved through the program development fund in October also
have a focus on children or on people immersed in crisis or just emerging
from crisis, Day said. 

Those grants include:

7	$165,000 for the partnership fund program, which strengthens ministry
planning among churches in Latin America/the Caribbean and the Philippines.
	
7	$90,000 for continuing work in Haiti, a Caribbean nation devastated
by flooding and tropical storms, political violence and extensive poverty.
	
7	$100,000 for a coordinated approach to reconstruction in the African
nation of Angola, in consultation with United Methodists there and U.S.
churches that have formed partnerships with Angolan churches.
	
7	$100,000 for street children ministries in Latin America -
especially, Day said, in the smaller cities where the problem does not
receive as much attention.
	
7	$50,000 to strengthen successful, longtime ministries along the
Mexico-U.S. border.
	
7	$30,000 to support interaction among Christians and Muslims in
insular parts of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
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