Health & Welfare
Hospital Revitalization - Advance #982168 Landmine Removal - Advance #982575 The Medicine Box - Advance #982630 The United Methodist Church Global AIDS Fund - Advance #982345
Hospital Revitalization - Advance #982168
The Hospital Revitalization Program helps Methodist churches in Africa and Asia to improve their healthcare facilities and make them accessible to more people. Experts work with the hospital to help them improve standards of care, ensuring always that the effort will be part of a larger strategy of community-based health education and development. Twelve hospitals are currently in the program. These hospitals are essential to the health and well-being of the population surrounding it. Improving the facilities thereby improves the quality of care people receive. The Chicuque Hospital in rural Mozambique, for example, serves a population of 500,000 people. Without support from the Hospital Revitalization Program only a fraction of the population currently served could be assisted by this institution.
Landmine Removal - Advance #982575
Increasing numbers of women and children are being maimed when they attempt to cultivate fields where mines were planted. Unable to use their fields, farmers migrate to overcrowded cities to seek work. Cities are thus faced with a food shortage because of overpopulation. Agricultural land is laced with explosives.
Landmines are easy and inexpensive to plant, but are expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming to "harvest." This advance allows UMCOR to use the latest landmine detection and removal techniques and permits farmers to cultivate their fields without fear. The program is experiencing much success in Mozambique and UMCOR is seeking to replicate it in Angola and other areas riddled with landmines.
The Medicine Box - Advance #982630
The typical Medicine Box contains 18 essential drugs and medical supplies in quantities that can treat illnesses and injuries in a population of approximately 1,000 people for three months. These are basic medicines and supplies needed for day-to-day treatment of the common ailments that plague women and children.
With the help of congregations; women's, men's, and youth groups; and service clubs in the United States, Medicine Boxes that provide hygiene items, vitamins and pharmaceuticals can be packed and shipped to designated hospitals and clinics. The boxes will be used in community health clinics and emergency medical response programs overseas.
The United Methodist Church Global AIDS Fund - Advance #982345
Five people die of AIDS every minute. In the same amount of time, nine more people are infected with HIV. This epidemic produces mind-boggling numbers that can make one feel hopeless to alleviate the suffering caused by this incurable disease. The United Methodist Church is responding to God's call by developing a unified strategy and funding source for addressing the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Heeding the biblical commands to "care for the widow and the orphan" and "visit the sick," the 2004 General Conference delegates established The United Methodist Church Global AIDS Fund, with a goal of raising at least $8 million by 2008.
Funding supports education, prevention, care and treatment programs for people living with HIV/AIDS. The projects will focus on women and children, hospitals, and food security. Education initiatives will be developed through local churches, communities and organizations throughout the world. The Global AIDS Fund does not overlook the crisis in the United States. About one million people are infected in the United States and more are added to that number each day. The plan specifies that 25 percent of what each annual conference raises should be used in that conference for AIDS work, either locally or in global projects.
