On May 26th and May 30th, a total of 10 metric tons of rice (200 sacks of 50 Kg each) were bought for distribution.
An interim oversight committee has also been formed to help with advice on strategy and spending to ensure effectiveness and accountability.This committee consists of members from NGO's including World Vision and World Concern.
Through Myanmar Compassion Project (MCP), an organization focused on providing care to children/orphans in Myanmar, we also hosted in our facility last week a seminar conducted by Crisis Response Training and Networks Asia (www.crtnasia.org) to give Biblical focus and practical tools to our church-based efforts in providing relief now and reconstruction later to the Nargis-affected areas we are helping.
As mentioned in the previous report, we are now focusing our weekly distribution in areas that we already have village churches or in villages we hope to start a new ministry. This strategy enables us to provide sustained contact with the people receiving assistance. For the long-term we believe this will give the most meaningful results. Our people on the ground can provide other types of assistance including simple counseling and spiritual guidance.
In June, our efforts will continue to be mainly in food distribution (we have already assisted over 10,000 families so far). This will shift to reconstruction assistance in July where we hope to assist at least 600 families. It is encouraging that close to half of our church members have also been involved in one way or another in our relief efforts.
This week approximately USD 500 was disbursed for house repairs to about 5 people.
