The Church World Service response: 'This is about human integrity.'

(Note to readers: The following has been excerpted from a longer report from Church World Service, received on Sept. 6. The Church of the Brethren supports the work of Church World Service through grants from the Emergency Disaster Fund and the work of Brethren staff in New Windsor, Md., who prepare shipments of relief materials.)

As Church World Service (CWS) disaster response specialists were deployed to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas this past weekend, CWS executive director and CEO John L. McCullough returned from a tour of post-Katrina Louisiana.

McCullough, an African American, says CWS is intent on collaboration with and harnessing the strength of African American churches and policy leaders on behalf of New Orleans' poor blacks, first devastated and now evacuated and scattered around the country. "This is not a problem about gas and oil, but about humans and human integrity," he said.

"In one week, we are seeing a new version of the Trail of Tears," said McCullough, "only this time due to natural disaster, in which New Orleans's poor survivors who had little resources to begin with have finally been rescued but are being transported en masse to temporary shelters in Houston and Dallas, from San Diego to Cape Cod. Others are scattered in homes and temporary shelters elsewhere in Louisiana."

"These people's lives are shattered, many have lost family, been separated from family or children during evacuation," said McCullough. Our assignment, he said "is helping these people rebuild their lives, find new homes, recover from the trauma, and know that they are important, that they are not abandoned."

CWS is one of the first agencies called by FEMA in times of national disaster, along with the Red Cross and Salvation Army. In addition to providing emergency aid and material resources, CWS specializes in helping establish community-based, longterm recovery assistance organizations to serve vulnerable populations. CWS's global experience in refugee resettlement and in working with uprooted people in conflict countries will especially be called upon in this US disaster.

Linda Reed Brown, CWS associate director for Domestic Emergency Response, said Katrina's aftermath "requires new roles for Church World Service, our disaster response staff, and the interfaith organizations who will be serving in this current refugee situation."

"We're essentially responding to three different disasters," said Brown. "Normal hurricane response in the northern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and other affected states; extreme hurricane disaster along the Gulf Coast shoreline; and the almost unprecedented New Orleans refugee crisis. Even in Mississippi and Alabama, where more traditional response work around flooding and wind damage is in order," she noted, "those areas too may be affected by the refugee situation."

"There are a reported 109,000 persons registered at Red Cross shelters in outlying areas of New Orleans. But there are also hundreds of unofficial local shelters across Louisiana alone, including civic buildings and many churches," Brown said. "We are concerned about the capacitation of temporary shelters in the region and how long can they or will they operate." Officially, there are no shelters south of Interstate 10, but in actuality communities are full of them. These temporary shelters need help with next steps.

In a meeting convened by the Louisiana Interchurch Council in Baton Rouge, McCullough stressed that cooperation and not competition among faith groups "will help consolidate their role as advocates for survivors who are coping with an unimaginable disaster in destruction and scope."

Staff of CWS are in south Texas and assisting Houston Interfaith Ministries in providing relief for survivors now at the Houston Astrodome; in Louisiana helping the Louisiana Interchurch Council in assessing outlying areas of New Orleans; and in Mississippi, helping to revive previously established recovery structures along the Gulf Shore and assisting in the coordination of long-term recovery organizations active in other areas of the state. CWS estimates as many as 20 recovery organizations may be organized and resourced to carry out long-term recovery in Louisiana, Mississippi, northwest Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

Responding to immediate emergency needs, Church World Service delivered relief supplies valued at $99,381 to Baton Rouge Sept. 5, which included 5,000 Gift of the Heart Health Kits and 5,000 blankets. Some 135 Gift of the Heart Health Kits and 100 blankets were shipped to Houston Interfaith Ministries, an ecumenical alliance of dozens of churches, to assist a United Methodist church in Victoria, Texas, housing 200 displaced persons. Some 1,500 CWS blankets were shipped to Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition. Over the Labor Day weekend, CWS readied a shipment of 20 Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) Boxes containing enough essential medicines and antibiotics to serve 20,000 persons for up to three months. Fifteen boxes will go to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, La., and five boxes will be used at the Baton Rouge River Center Shelter.

"When the Mississippi River flooded in the summer of 1993, the people of Bangladesh sent to Church World Service in the United States a cargo shipment of burlap bags and tea," said CWS North Carolina regional director Joseph Moran. "The Bangladesh people had seen photos of people in river communities frantically filling burlap bags, and of church volunteers serving them hot drinks and were deeply moved. What was remarkable about this," added Moran, "was that two-thirds of the country of Bangladesh lies below sea-level. Their own country gets flooded every year during monsoon season, resulting in the deaths of thousands at a time. Something happened this past week," said Moran, "that reminds us that the world is a caring place."

Source: 09/08/2005 Newsline
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