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OCA represented at Church World Service Board of Directors’ meeting

Getting water is a major task each day for the people of Darfur, as here outside Zalingei. (Credit: Paul Jeffrey/ACT-Caritas)

SYOSSET, NY [OCA Communications/ Arlene Kallaur, OCA Representative Board Member] — The Orthodox Church in America has been a member of Church World Service [CWS], the humanitarian aid arm of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA for 60 years now. In its earlier days, it helped to settle many refugees in the aftermath of World War II, many of whom were Orthodox Christians fleeing communist lands. Fr. Leonid Kishkovsky is the other OCA representative to the CWS Board. He also serves on its Executive Committee.

At its bi-annual meeting, the Board of Directors heard updates on on-going programs that provide relief and hope around the world, as well as engaged in discussions and plans for future actions. At the meeting in March, we heard reports on, among other programs:

  • Water for All in Africa Sixty percent of the world’s children, the majority in Africa, do not have access to clean drinking water. This causes many serious diseases, often leading to death. The diseases are curable, especially if there is clean water. CWS is helping African communities obtain and manage their own water supply. By drilling bore holes to reach fresh water and teaching Africans to lay pipes to their villages, it not only cuts down on the number of miles each day that women have to carry the water, it also enables the young girls, who also carry the heavy water buckets, to have a chance to go to school.

  • Safe School Zones CWS and partners have funded 10 schools as a model program in three provinces in Kenya that provide a safe and secure environment for learning, free from all forms of violence, exploitation and pollution. The school compounds, often located in slum areas, are demarcated with fencing and a gate. They provide adequate toilet and sanitation facilities. Several include dormitories, especially for girls, so that the children do not have to walk the many miles to school each day, and girls can feel safe from being raped along the way. Such a program can be a stabilizing force in the community and in the society at large. Its standards are hoped to be replicated all over Kenya by the year 2015.

  • Strengthening Family and Community Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Sub-Saharan Africa In 2005, over 12 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 18 lost one or both of their parents due to HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that by 2010 the total number orphaned by any cause, including famine, disease, conflicts and HIV/AIDS will exceed 50 million children. Ninety per cent of the orphaned children are cared for by extended families. Some of the programs developed by CWS and other faith based agencies to help the extended families who are poor themselves, include education, training, providing medicines to treat HIV/AIDS infections, offering small loans to help women and older children to start their own small businesses in order to survive and regain some self-respect.

    • We heard reports from a CWS delegation that visited Israel in the Fall of 2006 where Christians, most of whom are Palestinian, are under siege from both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims. Christians presently represent only 1.5% of the total population. Many are applying to leave the country because of the conditions so that the Holy Land without Christians living there may become a reality in the near future. Those that the CWS group met with, including the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, expressed gratitude for their presence. They wished that more groups would come to see the reality of the situation and report it back to their communities at home. Moral support is especially needed.

    CWS supports the Christian Council of Churches in the African country of Guinea. Bishop Gomez representing that Council and the US Ambassador from the Sudan, His Excellency John Ukec Lueth Ukec, were both with us at the meeting and gave accounts of the crises in their lands, especially in the region of Darfur. Presently, though they are a minority in those countries, the Christian leadership has been sought out to serve as mediator and advisor in helping to determine solutions to their problems. CWS supports their efforts and also provides humanitarian assistance to these regions. A CWS visit to Sudan and Darfur is scheduled toward the end of this year.
    Member communions are invited to send participants.

    CWS continues its Immigrant Refugee Resettlement Program, its continued work in rebuilding homes demolished by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. In a number of relief efforts, both in the US and abroad, CWS and International Orthodox Christian Charities have become partners.

    Two concrete ways that individuals and parishes can respond to overcoming disasters and great poverty in so many communities around the are world are

    To make up “Gift of the Heart” Kits—health kits, school kits, baby kits. Visit: www.churchworldservice.org or www.iocc.org.

    To join a CROP Hunger Walk or sponsor a CROP walker in you local area. (Twenty five percent of the proceeds remain in the local community for hunger-fighting efforts.) Visit: www.churchworldservice.org/CROP or call 1-888-297-2767. Many CROP Hunger Walks are held in the Spring. CROP Hunger walkers who would prefer to donate their gathered funds to the work of IOCC, can do so by writing “IOCC” under Donor Designation.

    For more information, contact Arlene Kallaur at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) , tel: 516-922-0550.