Grants support hunger relief in Sudan and Honduras.

The Church of the Brethren’s Global Food Crisis Fund (GFCF) has given two grants totaling $35,080 for a hunger program in Honduras and an agriculture project in Sudan.

In Honduras, a grant of $25,000 will support food security for Lenca Indian families. The allocation is going a new hunger program in cooperation with Proyecto Alden Global (PAG). The grant will underwrite development of family microbusinesses through the purchase of fish, pigs, cows, and chickens. Beyond those families benefiting at the outset, others will gain access to quality offspring and to the availability of livestock products at lower prices.

"Essentially the program seeks to improve food security and economic opportunity for Lenca Indian families living in remote areas of Cerro Azul Meambar National Park," said the grant request. "The goal is to reach 60 families a year over a two- or three-year timeline. Nearly three-quarters of the families in and around the park’s buffer zone live in poverty."

A grant of $10,080 has been received by the African Inland Church for the Agriculture Project for Sustainable Development in Sudan. The funds will purchase hand tools, spray materials, a variety of vegetable seeds, and mango and guava seedlings to be used in training 500 youth for gardening as an income-generating enterprise.

The project was "scouted out" by Global Mission Partnerships executive director Jay Wittmeyer. The African Inland Church is an indigenous evangelical body which has had a presence in southern Sudan since 1949. "The integration of agriculture with Bible school programs is a new venture of African Inland Church-Sudan," said the grant request. "Two of the church’s Bible schools in Eastern Equatorial State will train 500 youth for gardening as an income-generating enterprise. Directly aimed at alleviating poverty, the project focuses on marginalized and unemployed youth who have received little or no basic education.

"Upon meeting and talking with staff at one of the Bible schools...Wittmeyer discovered that the schools in their teaching of the Bible lift up peace, reconciliation, and post-trauma healing--themes crucial to the rebuilding of post-war Sudan," the request continued. "The intent for the students upon graduation, Wittmeyer learned, is that they return to their home villages and engage in farming on a small scale."

Source: 4/22/2010 Newsline