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Date: March 24, 2000 
A lack of clean water, food, and adequate medical care remain major concerns in the emergency response to flood victims in Mozambique and other parts of southern Africa.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is asking church members to participate in its Medicine Box Project as one means of assistance. Information on the program is available by calling (212) 870-3683.
Volunteers with basic construction skills will be needed for work teams in a couple of months. Medical volunteers also are being sought. UMCOR officials warn that the assignments will be under rough conditions. Those interested in registering their interest can call the volunteer line at (800) 918-3100.
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In addition to housing, it is expected that volunteer teams will construct some small medical clinics, each with a maternity room, examination room and storage area for medicines and medical supplies, according to Wendy Whiteside, an UMCOR executive. The clinics would be run in conjunction with the Mozambique government's ministry of health.
The United Methodist hospital at Chicuque (Inhambane province) is facing problems with erosion on its grounds, along with a lack of food, gas, electricity and water because the road from Maputo, the capital, is blocked.
But Jeremias Franca hopes to get the hospital back in order. Franca, a resident of Chicuque, has been studying at Southwest Texas State University, Georgetown, Texas, since 1995 and is completing his medical residency at Seguin Hospital, near San Marcos, Texas. He said the United Methodist Church in Sweden paid for most of his tuition, while churches in the United States helped with living expenses and the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries covered his health insurance.
Administering a shot at Chicuque Hospital, which provides an invaluable service to Mozambicans Richard Lord, GBGM, 1991
"My biggest concern is upgrading the hospital," Franca told United Methodist News Service. He said he is working with UMCOR and the Board of Global Ministries on that project. But he also will have to deal with the health-related effects of flooding when he returns to Chicuque in mid-June as the hospital's administrator. "They're having a malaria problem right now. And they suspect there is an uprising of cholera."
Because of its location and stock of medical supplies, Chicuque Hospital draws much of the population in the Inhambane province to its doorstep, Franca said. He welcomes volunteer medical personnel of all specialties to come and work at the hospital.
To help prevent disease like cholera and diarrhea, safe drinking water is another concern. UMCOR already has sent some water treatment units and the United Methodists in Missouri are making safe drinking water the focus of their support for flood relief, according to Carol Kreamer, coordinator of the Missouri Area's Mozambique Initiative.
Whiteside said money is needed for a well-drilling machine as well as more water treatment units. The United Methodist Church in Mozambique also is using some of its emergency relief money to buy two block-making machines for home reconstruction. Bishop João Somane Machado believes seven to ten more will be needed.
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This high-compression block-making machine, which uses very little cement, was donated by UMCOR to help build walls at a low price in Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch. UMCOR is buying two of these machines to send to Mozambique; more are needed. Paul Jeffrey/CCD, 1999 |
Richard Brown-Whale, a former missionary from Mozambique who returned there in March to do assessment for UMCOR, noted in a March 21 e-mail report that the flooding is more than just a natural disaster. "This calamity which has befallen Mozambique is the result of human interference in the environment and of a geopolitical and international system that keeps Mozambique poor and vulnerable to such disasters," he declared.
People who, economically, live day-to-day, "do not have the resources to survive such an event as this," Brown-Whale pointed out. Farmers, for example, "who spent all their resources on seeds to plant their fields cannot easily replace them when a flood washes topsoil and seeds away together," he said.
You can support UMCOR's response to this disaster through donations to the Churchwide Appeal for Flood Recovery in Mozambique and Neighboring Countries, Advance #156500. Checks may be dropped in United Methodist church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling 1-800-554-8583.
Source: United Methodist News Service.