World Vision Sets $50 Million Goal for South Asia Disaster
Humanitarian leader will travel to region on Monday; relief supplies being airlifted
December 31, 2004
LOS ANGELES – World Vision, the Christian humanitarian organization, has set a $50 million goal to help the victims of the South Asia disaster, the largest single commitment in the organization’s 54-year history.
“This is the greatest human emergency of our time,” says World Vision International President Dean R. Hirsch, who will leave Monday, January 3, to survey damage and direct World Vision’s short- and long-term responses.
In addition, Hirsch said World Vision will send upwards of eight relief airlifts to the region over the next few days.
With long-term development projects in many communities devastated by the December 26 tsunami, World Vision staff began helping victims within hours of the disaster. Currently, the agency is providing food, blankets, tents and other emergency supplies in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.
“We have been in these countries for more than four decades,” said Hirsch. “We will stay in these stricken communities as long as it takes to help people rebuild their lives. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”
While many of the supplies needed are being purchased in the region, specific items will be airlifted from World Vision’s warehouses in Europe, the Middle East and North America. For example, five truckloads of food, tarps, blankets, generators and water containers are leaving World Vision’s Denver Global Positioning Unit to join an airlift leaving from Toronto.
Hirsch is hearing reports, both heartbreaking and hopeful, from World Vision staff in the region, the most dramatic from Sri Lanka:
· World Vision staff are working long hours, despite their own loses. Several have opened their own homes to the displaced, often taking in 100 people at a time. One staff member, who celebrates 21 years of service with World Vision today, also is grieving the loss of 16 extended family members. Another watched as his mother and daughter were washed away. Yet another lost his mother-in-law. Five staff members in one community alone lost their homes.
· Child advocates fear children are being abducted from hospitals and relief camps to be trafficked as domestic help or into the sex trades. The chairman of Sri Lanka’s National Child Protection Authority issued a statement emphasizing the need for proper legal procedures before orphaned children are removed from displacement camps.
· In areas where rebels have been battling the government for more than 20 years, the disaster is bringing a hint of possible peace. Both sides have laid down their weapons and are cooperating with relief efforts. However, the floods have also displaced landmines, creating an added danger for local residents and relief workers.
· Yesterday in Matara, some 7,000 people were buried in a mass grave. To facilitate identification, officials had the grisly chore of severing one finger from each body. World Vision provided a refrigerator where the body parts can be stored until family members are able to identify their loved ones.
Nonetheless, says Hirsch, World Vision will continue to work until these communities can get back on their feet: “World Vision has been working in this region for about a half century, and we’re not going anywhere. We’re in it for the long haul.”
World Vision has more than 22,000 staff in nearly 100 countries, including 5,000 to 8,000 permanent staff in Asia. It was founded in 1950.
For more information on World Vision’s response, or on ways the public can help, click here or phone 888-56-CHILD. Donations also can be mailed to World Vision, P.O. Box 70288, Tacoma, WA 98481-0288.
CONTACT: | Sheryl Watkins | (253) 815-2246 (office); | (888) 787-3056 (cell) |
| Brian Peterson | (407) 445-6484 (office); | (407) 491-2399 (cell) |
| Steve Quant | (253) 815-2652 (office); | (206) 910-5949 (cell) |
| Dean R. Owen | (253) 815-2103 (office); | (888) 734-8938 (pager) |
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