In Today's Hotline: Read how UMCOR is responding to needs around the world:
In Today's Hotline:
SRI LANKA: NEARLY ONE MILLION PEOPLE AFFECTED BY FLOODING
HAITI: UMCOR REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO RECOVERY
HAITI EVENT: ONE YEAR OF RECOVERY: WEBCAST
EVENT: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS
SRI LANKA: NEARLY ONE MILLION PEOPLE AFFECTED BY FLOODING
Nearly a million people have been affected by severe flooding in Sri Lanka since monsoon rains began to pelt the island nation on December 26. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which has a program office in the hardest hit area, Batticaloa, is preparing to respond.
About 967,000 people have been affected, including nearly 200,000 who have been displaced from their homes, says the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Most of them—93 percent—are located in three districts: Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee, in the east.
UMCOR has had a program office in Batticaloa since 2004 and currently is running a livelihoods program in 16 villages of the district. All of the villages have been flooded and some 2,500 families displaced.
The monsoon has provoked mudslides as well as floods; it has submerged main roads and washed away 200 reservoirs in the three affected districts. The 52,283 families that have been displaced by the flooding are waiting out the emergency in 493 temporary relocation centers.
Your help is urgently needed. Please give to Sri Lanka Relief and Development, UMCOR Advance #3020630.
HAITI: UMCOR REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO RECOVERY
On the occasion of the first anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that devastated the Caribbean nation, Melissa Crutchfield, UMCOR executive for International Disaster Response, renewed UMCOR’s commitment to walk “hand-in-hand” with the Haitian people “on the long road ahead” to recovery.
“We pledge to work with you to strengthen the livelihoods, shelters, education, and health of the Haitian people; we commit ourselves to stand beside you as we navigate the holistic recovery of body, mind, and spirit, so that all Haitians may not just survive but thrive,” Crutchfield told a gathering led by the Protestant Federation of Haiti, in Port-au-Prince.
The Haitian government again revised the death toll from the quake. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said that more than 316,000 had been killed in the disaster.
General Board of Global Ministries leaders Bishops Bruce Ough and Janice Huie, Thomas Kemper, and Cynthia Harvey traveled to Haiti last week to meet with Eglise Methodiste d’Haiti (EMH, Methodist Church of Haiti) and renew their promise of solidarity and ongoing partnership.
One hundred percent of your gift to Haiti Emergency, UMCOR Advance #418325, supports the people of Haiti on their “long road” to recovery. Read more about life in Haiti a year after the disaster.
HAITI EVENT: ONE YEAR OF RECOVERY: WEBCAST
You are invited to participate, via webcast, in a discussion of the progress of recovery in Haiti, a year after the earthquake. UMCOR is hosting the event on Monday, January 24, at 12:30 p.m.
Featured speakers will be Melissa Crutchfield, UMCOR executive for International Disaster Response, and Thomas Dwyer, executive director of UMCOR’s nongovernmental field offices.
Visit http://www.umcor.org for more details.
EVENT: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women, ages 25-34. Learn more at the African American Women’s HIV/AIDS Conference to be held March 3 – 5, 2011, in Columbia, South Carolina.
The conference, which is sponsored by The United Methodist Church Global AIDS Fund Committee, will mobilize faith communities into action and focus on HIV/AIDS-related issues that specifically affect African-American women.
Read more and register by February 11.
And, please pray for those who are hungry, displaced, sick or in poverty because of these and other natural and human-made disasters, and for the workers who minister to them.
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