UN Official Praises UMCOR Refugee Work

WASHINGTON -- The representative to the United States from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had high praise for the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) in Bosnia.

Anne Willem Bijleveld, speaking here April 14, said, "We are extremely pleased with the cooperation we have with you."

He praised UMCOR's work in the former Yugoslavia and said 160,000 people were able to return to their homes in that country last year.

UMCOR had administered projects that repaired water, sanitation and electrical systems. It oversaw the distribution of building materials for home repair. In addition, other UMCOR staff worked with children to help them overcome the experiences of war.

Bijleveld said UMCOR currently is administering a grant from his agency to repair 1,500 homes and will do 1,500 more later in the year as part of a commitment of the international community to make 18,000 units livable again.

Even then, 30,000 more will be needed, he said. He added that he sees "a lot of problems ahead," but "with patience and perseverance" on the part of governments as well as individuals, he is confident it will all work out.

He also mentioned other global trouble spots including Rwanda, which he termed "an area where still a lot of assistance is needed."

Bijleveld spoke at a reception for UMCOR heads of mission from Armenia, Azerbaijan, the former Yugoslavia, Georgia, Haiti, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

These UMCOR projects use funds from government and other donors for specific projects to help development within those countries, explained Sue McIntyre, head of mission for Haiti.

"We don't compete for church funds," she explained.

McIntyre has been on the job for 13 months in a former "house of voodoo." No one wanted to go there because of its reputation, including some murders, she said, "so the rent was real cheap."

UMCOR signed the lease, hosed the place down and fixed it up. Then, McIntyre said, they had the local United Methodist missionaries perform a very formal, public dedication and blessing of the facility. Now, she said, UMCOR's building is the envy of the community.

McIntyre has been able to facilitate disaster relief in the northwest part of the country from a hurricane last fall, channel pharmaceuticals to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince and to rural clinics, and oversee water projects.

A plumbers' school for 27 rural Haitians was geared to repairing and maintaining systems that had been neglected, she said.

But a major task was applying to the Haitian government for registration as a non-governmental organization.

"It took a year to get all the paperwork together that they required," she recalled, commenting that original papers of incorporation for predecessors to the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries had to be located in vaults so copies could be included in the application.

Registration as an NGO will allow the UMCOR mission to seek funds for specific development projects, she said. In Haiti, she sees those as falling into three categories: water and sanitation, health, and agriculture and micro-enterprise.

Although McIntyre expects the approval of the application to take three months, UMCOR is allowed to go forward on the basis of the application.

McIntyre is developing a national program for eye care and is working on funding it. She also expects to work with farmers on the island of La Gonave and to set up some micro-enterprise projects with women.

One of the primary duties of the heads of mission and their staffs is accounting for every dollar of funds entrusted to them for the development projects, McIntyre added.

These UMCOR missions are located in three different parts of the world: Southeastern Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. In each, the staffs are a multi-cultural group of people working to help the people overcome the results of years of conflict.

The heads of mission are themselves different. Richard Wagner, a very collegiate-appearing young man, began the UMCOR mission in Azerbaijan in 1993 and continues there. Terry Wollen, who was in his first day as head of mission for Armenia, has already worked 25 years as a veterinarian in the field of livestock reproduction.