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Eight United Methodist volunteer teams will work at various sites in the former Yugoslavia from May to August.
The teams of 10 people are being organized by the Troy, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Western North Carolina annual (regional) conferences, according to Carol Van Gorp, volunteer coordinator for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).
"Most of the teams are doing construction work," she said. One group, led by the Rev. Joe Agne, will be composed of diaconal ministers.
UMCOR has offered humanitarian aid and assisted in reconstruction and rehabilitation in Bosnia since April of 1993. A current emphasis, according to Van Gorp -- who visited there in February and early March -- focuses on the movement of people under the peace agreement.
"Now that spring is coming, the push to repair and get people into homes is very big," she said.
A recent convoy of 15 trucks carrying building materials from Zenica to Sarajevo began a $15 million repatriation project that UMCOR is supervising for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), she added.
In February, UMCOR received a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. State Department to distribute emergency supplies to the Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina in cooperation with the International Orthodox Christian Charities. Additional funding of $1,273,000 also has extended a water sanitation project UMCOR is supervising in a number of communities.
Other ongoing UMCOR projects in Bosnia include:
March 20, 1996