Emergency Disaster Fund provides food for Guatemalan villages.

A grant of $7,000 has been given from the General Board's Emergency Disaster Fund to provide food to three villages in Guatemala affected by Hurricane Stan and resulting floods and mud slides. Union Victoria, Chitaburuy Chimaltenango, and El Triunfo all have a relationship with the Church of the Brethren through mission staff working in Guatemala with the General Board's Global Mission Partnerships and Brethren Volunteer Service.

Funds will be handled and directed through mission worker Rebecca Allen and Latin America specialist Tom Benevento. Some funding will go directly to a community co-op. Additional grants are anticipated to carry out a larger response.

In an update on the villages, Benevento said that "they're doing okay" except for many people who have fallen sick with chest congestion from the moisture and mold after days of rain. Union Victoria families have returned to their houses following an evacuation that stranded them on a hillside sheltering under plastic tarps and tents for some time. The community is now focused on repairing a water turbine for coffee processing, and rebuilding the bridge that was washed out, said Benevento. The bridge is crucial to transporting the community's coffee crop.

It also has been difficult to get the funds to Allen and the communities through rural banks in the area. "It's more complicated than one would think," Benevento said, giving the example of the "fairly big trip" to a bank from an area where roads and bridges have been destroyed.

Source: 10/26/2005 Newsline
top