One Great Hour of Sharing: Missions

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One Great Hour of Sharing
Together We Make a World of Difference

"...love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 22:39

Here are just a few examples of how your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing are making a difference in the lives of neighbors in need.

Tsunami Recovery

Photo: Hege Opseth/DCA-ACT

With support from One Great Hour of Sharing, Church World Service is providing family shelter kits, emergency medical supplies, food, water, cooking utensils, CWS Blankets, Health, and School Kits, and other essentials to survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami, especially in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. CWS is also providing trauma recovery care and livelihood restoration assistance in Indonesia, and support to partners to meet recovery needs in India.

Sudan

Sudan mother and child

Photo: Bjarne Ussing/DCA-ACT

Asisa Ateib, 30 years old, a refugee from Korney in West Darfur, Sudan, sits with her baby in her tent at Mile Camp, in eastern Chad. Recounts Ateib, "I fled from my village when I saw the Janjaweed militia attacking the neighboring village. I heard the machine guns and bombs, and I could see the light from the burning houses in the dark night. All my five children survived, but two of my brothers were killed during the attack, and my husband is not with me anymore," she says.

Asisa Ateib and her children are just six of the some 1.2 million people uprooted by militia violence and ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of western Sudan. With support from One Great Hour of Sharing, Church World Service is helping to meet the emergency needs of 500,000 of the most vulnerable of these uprooted people, including a supplemental feeding program for 50,000 malnourished children.

Afghanistan

Photo: CWS

Tens of thousands of Afghans who were refugees in Pakistan have now returned to Afghanistan. There they are receiving needed health care through the Mansehra Health Program, which is supported in part by Church World Service and gifts from One Great Hour of Sharing.

Afghan refugee Mullah Mohammed is a community health worker with the Mansehra Health Program. On his rounds, he observed the link between infant diarrhea and the indigestible clarified butter and honey that babies were being fed. Through advice and training, he is helping families adopt practices that promote health, while discarding those that don't. Health workers like Mullah Mohammed have helped break down traditional barriers and alleviate suspicion of modern medicine.

The participation of women as female health workers has been even more crucial, particularly in eradicating harmful birthing practices. Through their role as health workers, women are also finding new standing in the community.

Fresh Water For Palestinian Families

Photo: CWS

Palestinians in the West Bank suffer from a permanent water crisis due to Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian access to the limited water resources available. The World Health Organization's recognized minimum of domestic water consumption is 100 liters per capita per day. The current domestic water supply for Palestinians is only 57-76 liters per capita per day, making it virtually impossible for families to meet their daily water needs.

Church World Service, in conjunction with the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches, is helping to improve the access and use of water resources for 50 families in the West Bank, as well as provide employment opportunities for at least 900 skilled and unskilled laborers through a Water Cistern program. The program is also helping to improve the status of women and children by reducing the time, risk, and effort spent collecting water.

Each family receiving a water cistern provides a modest cash or in-kind contribution to assist in covering the actual cost of the cistern. A family's contribution is typically the provision of unskilled labor and/or food for the hired laborers.

Two types of cisterns are being provided. Pear-shaped cisterns, which only require digging with compressors and then plastering of walls, can be built by unskilled laborers. Rectangular cisterns are required in areas where the rock is either very soft or very hard. Built of reinforced concrete, with the upper layer (slab) of the cistern used as a catchment area, rectangular cisterns require more skilled labor, and costs more.

Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing help make such projects possible.

Angola

Photo: IERA

Thirty years of civil war in the African nation of Angola displaced some four million people, left over half a million dead, and littered the countryside with an estimated one unexploded landmine for each of Angola's 12 million people. This unexploded ordnance limits the free movement of people and goods and impedes food production, while putting thousands of Angolans at risk of injury or death.

In a groundbreaking program, Church World Service is helping 26 landmine survivors - 19 men and 7 women - to acquire skills in trades such as computer processing, carpentry, and sewing, with an eye toward reintegrating them into the job market and social environment of their communities. The survivors are also overcoming some of the trauma and stress of their injuries by joining in provincial programs and networks of landmine survivors and displaced persons.

Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing help make such programs possible.

Bosnia

Photo: Ronda Hughes/CWS

Working with the Informal Village Group of Vukovsko and Ravno, Church World Service is helping to alleviate poverty and ensure income security for returnees and locally vulnerable people in remote villages of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The provision of livestock is the key - in this case, sheep, because this is an area well-known for its sheep production before the war. Initially, three to six families (with a total of 15 to 30 family members) are receiving approximately 20 sheep per family, along with limited veterinarian assistance and business training. Local farmers experienced in raising animals are carrying out the training.

Families receiving the sheep will pay back 100 percent of the donation in-kind (via offspring of the sheep) for distribution to other families, the beginnings of what is anticipated to be a long-term, self-revolving project.

Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing help make such self-help programs possible.

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