Episcopal Press and News
Grants Aid Refugees, Others
Episcopal News Service. April 15, 1982 [82096]
NEW YORK (DPS, April 15) -- Five emergency grants for a total of $31,500 have been made by the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief to meet a variety of needs in the United States, the Middle East, Tonga and South Africa.
A grant of $5,000 has been made to the Episcopal Diocese of California for emergency assistance for an Hispanic refugee program at Good Samaritan Community Center in San Francisco. The grant will enable individuals to obtain appropriate employment, to locate housing and to provide an emergency assistance network for refugees in the Bay area. The bishop of the diocese, the Rt. Rev. William E. Swing. made the request.
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia was given $1,500 in support of an ecumenical "Politics of Hunger" week on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. During the week, students were slated to examine the roots of local and global hunger and to raise religious and ethical questions surrounding their response. The Rt. Rev. Robert B. Hall is bishop of the diocese.
The Fund has provided $10,000 to assist the Rt. Rev. Faik I. Haddad, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, to purchase a washing machine and a sterilizer for a hospital in Nablus.
Two emergency grants were approved for channeling through the National Council of Churches' office of Church World Service. A grant of $5,000 was approved to aid the victims of Cyclone Isaac in Tonga where citizens face many economic difficulties because of damaged churches, schools and other property. This grant is in addition to $10,000 given directly to Bishop Jabez L. Bryce of the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia in the Church of the Province of New Zealand, in whose area Tonga lies.
The South African Council of Churches is the recipient of a grant of $10,000 which has been sent through Church World Service. The grant is in support of the Council's humanitarian service programs in the area of relief, rehabilitation, short-term development and refugee/migration. Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu is president of the Council of Churches.