This Month:
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INDIA:
A group of missionaries who refused to leave .... |
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TURKEY People lined the streets to applaud as a group of "peace walkers" ....
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GUATEMALAAn unexpected reunion on a medical missionary ship ...
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SWEDEN Candidates for a fast-response crisis relief team ....
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UNITED STATES: A Christian relief group leader met with national security advisors ....
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| - | BRAZILFast-moving roller hockey is helping former street kids.... | | - | WORLD An attempted murder and a mock funeral highlight .... |
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| YWAM Ministries |
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YWAM International
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Mercy Ships International
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University of the Nations
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4. S W E D E N :CRISIS "REHEARSAL" FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF RECRUITSCANDIDATES FOR A fast-response crisis relief team will find themselves in the middle of a make-believe emergency...knowing that next time it could be the real thing.
The mock disaster - complete with language difficulties, long-distance walks, abrasive officials and ever-changing events - faces those offering to serve with MEDAIR, an international Christian crisis relief organization.
The simulated catastrophe features in the ten-day Crisis Situations Seminar for health professionals, managers, administrators and logistical experts being staged at Youth With A Mission's Restenas training center, early next year.
"Graduates" of the intensive program - which also includes teaching about stress, security, and cross-cultural communication - will be ready to join MEDAIR teams at short notice, and could find themselves working in war, earthquake or famine zones from Africa to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Since it was founded eight years ago - as a partnership between Youth With A Mission, Mission Aviation Fellowship, and MEDAF (a French medical charity) - MEDAIR has sent over 150 volunteers from Europe to 19 projects.
The organization - with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland - specializes in short-term programs, aiming to arrive soon after the emergency arises and helping provide urgently-needed help, handing over to local, long-term staff after a year or so.
Workers have established medical clinics and trained health workers, organized immunization and feeding programs, directed refugee projects, and run counseling services for war victims. Teams have been sent to a dozen countries, including Sudan, Chechnya, Rwanda and Liberia. Volunteers have included doctors, nurses, builders, psychologists, engineers and administrators.
"Although small compared to other non-governmental organizations, as a Christian organization there is an important role for MEDAIR - and others like it - to play in crisis areas," said personnel director Dr Josiane Volkmar.
"Christians can make a difference not only because of what they do but the way they go about it. Acts of love and words of hope from Christians can have an impact anywhere," she said. "Many of the countries where we work have very few Christians, and where there are the church can be isolated so our presence can be a real encouragement."
Adequate preparation for crisis relief workers is increasingly important, as humanitarian agencies have become "more visible than before", she added. "Since 1992 in northern Iraq, humanitarian work has been mixed with military involvement, which has not been favorable for us.
"In some places, like Chechnya, non-governmental organizations have been a political target of violence. In other places, they have been abused by political parties. NGOs are now becoming more and more political tools, commercial targets and media puppets. So it is even more important that workers are well prepared."
With her own experience of the risks of crisis relief work - she was kidnapped at gunpoint and later had to flee like a refugee, with her patients, while running a medical center in Lebanon 12 years ago - Dr Volkmar will be among the speakers at the seminar.
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