Emergency Disaster Fund grants go to Pakistan and Sudan.

Recent grants from the Church of the Brethren's Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) have been given for humanitarian assistance in Pakistan, and health care in southern Sudan.

An allocation of $40,000 responds to a Church World Service (CWS) appeal for assistance in Pakistan. The grant will assist in providing the basic needs of displaced families, mobile health services, schools for children, vocational training for adults, and special programs for women.

A grant of $7,500 responds to an appeal from IMA World Health, following up on a previous allocation of $10,000 provided in Sept. 2007. IMA received initial funding from a special Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) to develop basic health services in the Jonglei and Upper Nile States of southern Sudan. Additional funding from MDTF has been withheld for unclear reasons, and this grant will continue to support IMA's work in Sudan while efforts are made to restore the MDTF funding.

In other disaster relief news, the church's Material Resources program at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md., has begun its busy fall season. The program processes, warehouses, and ships relief materials.

"Boxcars containing Lutheran World Relief quilts, kits and soap have started to arrive from Michigan and Wisconsin--six so far," said a recent report. "We also received a piggyback trailer from Spokane, Wash., and several large donations from Pennsylvania." Recent shipments made on behalf of CWS consisted of blankets, school, baby and hygiene kits to Biloxi, Miss., for the homeless; blankets to Marion, Iowa, in response to flooding; and blankets to Pennsylvania for disadvantaged workers. IMA World Health orders of medicine have been packed for Cuba, Honduras, Kenya, Haiti, Nicaragua, Korea, Cambodia, Togo, Bangladesh, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Source: 11/18/2009 Newsline