NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
October 16, 2003
In this news release:
- Colombian Women Visit Midwest to Help End World's Longest War
- Java Justice: Church Aid Groups Working Together for Nicaragua's Coffee Farmers
- Two Tv Shows and One ‘Crop for Christ'
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2800.
COLOMBIAN WOMEN VISIT MIDWEST TO HELP END WORLD'S LONGEST WAR
Baltimore, October 16, 2003 - A delegation of local peacemakers from Colombia is visiting the Midwest to ask for help in ending their country's intractable civil war. Three grassroots ambassadors, part of Lutheran World Relief's “Give Peace a Place in Colombia” campaign, are urging Midwest Lutherans and others to use their power as citizens to help change U.S. policy toward the strife-torn Latin American nation.
The three women are Yanith Giraldo, a local community leader and mother from a family uprooted by war, Irma Rodriquez, a human rights lawyer forced to flee her homeland after threats to her life, and Amparo Guerro, director of an LWR-related women's organization for the displaced in Bogota.
The women come with bitter experience of war and of violence related to the drug trade, and have each laid their lives on the line for peace in their communities.
They will speak about how their communities care for those affected by war, efforts to establish local peace sanctuaries, and how U.S. communities can support peace initiatives in Colombia through prayer, action and advocacy.
Hosting the visitors are congregations, women's groups, church leaders and college campuses in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, October 18 through November 2, 2003.
‘Give Peace a Place in Colombia' is a Lutheran World Relief campaign for peace at three levels: innocent civilians displaced by war must have a place to live, Colombia's marginalized peacemakers must have a place at the negotiating table, and U.S. citizens must help win a place for peace in U.S. policy through their Members of Congress.
The current focus of U.S. policy toward Colombia, backed by nearly $3 billion in mostly military aid, is curbing the drug trade. But, economic alternatives to coca cultivation, the protection of human rights, the well-being of more than two million displaced people, and a negotiated settlement to Colombia's conflict have received relatively little attention by comparison. The Colombian civil war began in the 1970s, making it the longest current war in the world.
JAVA JUSTICE: CHURCH AID GROUPS WORKING TOGETHER FOR NICARAGUA'S COFFEE FARMERS
Baltimore, October 16, 2003 - Three Baltimore-based international relief and development organizations including Lutheran World Relief are banding together to make sure your next cup of coffee really will be good to the last drop.
LWR, Catholic Relief Services and World Relief today signed a pact with the U.S. Agency for International Development to work together to ease the poverty faced by thousands of small coffee farmers in Nicaragua. Their method will be two-fold: offering U.S. Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals coffee purchased at prices that allow farmers to earn a living wage; and helping the farmers in Nicaragua diversify their crops and meet quality standards for coffee.
The program will be underwritten by an expected $1 million-plus grant from USAID. The project reflects Bush Administration efforts to provide more funding to U.S. faith-based organizations that work in innovative and effective ways to meet the needs of the poor and marginalized.
A major goal is to increase U.S. demand for fair trade coffee—the kind already used by some 3,000 Lutheran parishes in the LWR Coffee Project. Concurrent with the Nicaragua program, LWR is inviting parishes to join a “90 Ton Challenge” that would double their purchases of fairly traded coffee this year from last year.
Together the three church aid organizations have the potential to increase fair-trade coffee sales among the 110 million Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals in the U.S.
As part of the new USAID-supported program, LWR's fair trade partner in the U.S., Equal Exchange, will buy Nicaraguan coffee on fair trade terms and assist Nicaraguan farmers to improve their production. Equal Exchange and Catholic Relief Services are also launching a coffee project for Catholic parishes this fall, based in part on the success of the LWR project.
In Nicaragua and other coffee producing countries, coffee farmers face the worst crisis in 30 years due sustained, record-low prices on the conventional coffee market. Fair trade coffee, however, an alternative business model that puts the farmer first, is helping to keep thousands of small growers in business.
TWO TV SHOWS AND ONE ‘CROP FOR CHRIST'
Baltimore, October 16, 2003 - Lutheran World Relief has ‘supporting' roles in two national television programs this weekend and one personal appearance to match.
A rural Lutheran parish in Forrest, Illinois, that grows crops to help hungry people overseas is featured in the TV program “U.S. Farm Report.” Proceeds from Grace Lutheran's local harvest will be used by LWR to purchase grain, seeds and tools abroad. The project is sponsored by the Foods Resource Bank, which links farmers, parishes and aid agencies like LWR.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for those who benefit from such projects is in Iowa this weekend. Mary Pelezi of Dodoma, Tanzania, is taking part in a harvest celebration by seven Lutheran parishes near Lake Mills. The parishes call their project 'One Crop for Christ' and expect their harvest to generate nearly $10,000—with a USAID matching grant—for LWR to use in places like Tanzania.
“We have provided seeds to three villages with help from LWR,” Mary Pelezi reports. “But we have still much work to do. This year is really a starving year in my area.” Crops in central Tanzania were good last year, Pelezi said, but very bad otherwise every year since 1998 because of drought. For more on the LWR project where Pelezi works, see: http://www.standwithafrica.org/hunger/tanzania.php
“U.S. Farm Report” airs on nearly 200 stations each weekend. For information in your area, visit http://www.tribtv.com/usf.html
Lutheran World Relief provided video footage from Africa for a portion of this week's PBS program “To The Contrary.” The program explores the potential of microbicides as an alternative to an eventual HIV/AIDS vaccine. The LWR footage is from an innovative AIDS prevention project in Senegal. For show times and stations, visit http://www.pbs.org/ttc
