Sharing projects 2010

Projects supported by our 2010 Harvest Festival

Proceeds this year will go to the Sharing Fund, which is supporting three projects approved this fall:

Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services (THARS) Bujumbura, Burundi ,Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services (THARS) is a local, inter-faith organization founded in Burundi in 2000 to promote healing and reconciliation after 11 years of civil war and to promote peace-building in the country and the region. One of its main focuses is providing assistance to victims of sexual violence, particularly rape victims. THARS is requesting assistance in order to give psycho-social support to 50 women victims of sexual violence in the commune of Buterere and Kinama, Burundi. The project will consist of counseling workshops for personal trauma healing, access to medical and psychological care, and support for small, community-based income-generating activities for the victims. Ten of the women are HIV-positive and will receive medical care. The income-generating activities will also help the women connect so they can continue participating in the healing process through their support groups.

Centro Social e Creche Bom Samaritano (Good Samaritan Social Center & Nursery) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, The Centro Social e Creche Bom Samaritano was founded by the Lutheran Community in Rio de Janeiro. It offers health care, nutrition, family care and nursery facilities to the families of the children in the “favelas” (shanty towns) of Paväo, Paväozinho and Cantagalo. The project beneficiaries are mostly children of migrants from the northeastern part of Brazil who migrated to Rio de Janeiro looking for better economic opportunities. The Centro Social e Creche Bom Samaritano is requesting assistance to replace its nursery’s water heating system with one based on solar energy. Children who come to the centre receive daily showers as part of their holistic care, and the centre receives around 100 children a day, with a heavy increase in visitors during the winter season. The current water heater was damaged during the recent floods in Rio and needs to be replaced.

Regional Ecumenical Council in the Cordillera (RECCORD) Baguio City, Philippines, RECCORD is a group composed of six mainline Protestant churches jointly undertaking ecumenical programs among indigenous peoples in the northern part of the Philippines. The project aims to rehabilitate the communal irrigation canal that was damaged by Typhoon Pharma in October 2009. The canal irrigates the rice fields of more than fifty farming families belonging to the indigenous Maeng tribe of Ud-udiao, Abra. Repairing the canal system will enable the families to resume their previous production level of two rice crops per year. RECCORD is requesting assistance for the purchase of construction materials to repair about 150 meters of the damaged canal. Thirty people from the community will provide their labor, a civil engineer from RECCORD will supervise the work, and together they will rehabilitate the communal irrigation canal.