Catholic Relief Services in the News

Aid Agencies Scramble to Help Flood Victims: Caroline Brennan, a Catholic Relief Services spokeswoman, said the hard-hit regions aren't regularly hit by monsoons, so the people in these poverty-stricken areas are particularly unprepared.; source: CNN, August 2008
A Week in Georgia: An Aid Worker's Journal: As the bombs fall and thousands of people in Georgia flee their homes, Catholic Relief Services aid workers in my region (Europe/Middle East) watch the news anxiously. On Friday and Saturday, we try to call our CRS colleagues in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, but only a few calls go through. The staff there is safe.; source: Commonweal, August 2008
Human Trafficking: Modern-Day Slavery With High Stakes: From fruit-packing plants in Britain to plantations in Malaysia and West Africa to fishing boats on the high seas, a globalized economy and the incessant quest for lower costs grease the wheels of a system in which policies favor forced labor and human trafficking even as countries claim to crack down on illegal immigrants.; source: Catholic News Service, August 2008
Speak Out: Faith, Hope, Fertilizer Give Poor People New Life: Ibania Flores has faith and hope. Faith and Hope (Fe Y Esperanza) is also the name of the small cooperative she leads producing organic fertilizer in the tiny village of La Tejera near the city of Esteli in northwest Nicaragua.; source: San Antonio Express-News, August 2008
Old Bombs, New Deaths in Vietnam: Catholic Relief Services educates children to dangers of decades-old mines, bombs.; source: Maryknoll Magazine, August 2008
Relief Worker Is Right at Home in Nepal: Underwear was nobody's biggest concern in March when fires raced through a refugee camp in Nepal, leaving behind a smoldering expanse of ash and ruin. Food, water, shelter, pants and shirts ranked higher for the 10,000 inhabitants who'd lost everything. But thanks to a relief effort that Cockeysville native Robin Contino helped coordinate, these refugees from neighboring Bhutan got all that plus undergarments, school uniforms and other valued items that could easily have been forgotten amid the chaos.; source: Baltimore Sun, August 2008
Foreign Aid Workers Slowly Returning to Iraq: Mark Schnellbaecher, Middle East director of U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which currently funds Iraqi charities, said he was set to make his first visit to Iraq for more than four years in October or November. The organisation will then look at re-opening an office, having pulled out of the southern city of Basra in 2004 because of the growing threat from militias.; source: New York Times, July 2008
Us Bishops, Charity Group Welcome AIDS Program: U.S. bishops and the aid organization Catholic Relief Services welcomed the passage of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.; source: Zenit, July 2008
Lessons From Iraqi Refugees: By any name, five years past the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. citizens have a responsibility to consider the conditions creating millions of Iraqi refugees, both within Iraq and in the neighboring countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.; source: National Catholic Reporter, July 2008
In Africa, One Familys Struggle With the Global Food Crisis: A year ago, this tree was shade. But now, with even basic foods suddenly too expensive to feed her six children, it is food. The leaves taste awful, she said, but they are free -- one small advantage of living in the countryside.; source: Washington Post , July 2008
Africa's Last and Least: After she woke in the dark to sweep city streets, after she walked an hour to buy less than $2 worth of food, after she cooked for two hours in the searing noon heat, Fanta Lingani served her family's only meal of the day.; source: Washington Post , July 2008
Catholic Educators Return From Frontiers of Justice Trip to Ghana and Burkina Faso: Six educators from Catholic secondary schools and three leaders have returned from a Frontiers of Justice trip to the West African nations of Burkina Faso and Ghana.; source: National Catholic Educational Association, July 2008
Waste? Not: One of the most successful efforts has unfolded in Ethiopia. Starting in 2005, Catholic Relief Services introduced a toilet called the arborloo to extremely poor Ethiopian farmers. The arborloo is a shallow pit latrine that costs only $5. When it's filled, the farmer plants a fruit tree seedling.; source: Boston Globe, July 2008
African Program Is Big U.S. Success: In my travels with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an American humanitarian aid organization, I have seen firsthand the impact of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as Pepfar.; source: Wall Street Journal, July 2008
Fuel Costs Cut Deeply Into Food Aid: The ability of the United States to supply food aid to foreign countries is being sharply affected by rising food and oil prices, new numbers show. In the past three to four months, as fuel prices have soared, the cost of shipping food aid across the ocean has climbed by about $30 per ton, and about $50 per ton since 2007—a total of nearly 30 percent, says an official from the United States Agency for International Development, which administers government food assistance.; source: U.S. News & World Report, July 2008
Going Where the Trouble Is: New Hampshire native Jennifer Poidatz has seen a lot of the world. For 15 years, her work for Catholic Relief Services has sent her trotting the globe to some of the most notorious hotspots of civil and economic strife. In 1994, she was sent to Rwanda, then in the throes of a genocidal civil war — the first in a series of “crisis” assignments in countries devastated by ethnic or political violence. Posts in Haiti, Burundi, and Angola followed. In 2005, she managed CRS’s tsunami relief in Sri Lanka.Now, in her current post as CRS’s country representative for India, she’s tackling a food crisis plaguing the nation of more than a billion people.; source: Manchester Hippo Press, July 2008
Act Now to Save the Hungry: I've looked hunger in the face - or to be more exact, in the faces of hundreds of Ethiopian children. Due to consecutive failure of rains, farmers in many pockets of southern and eastern Ethiopia have no crop to harvest. Combined with a spiraling rise in food prices, thousands of families are now left with nothing to eat. The Ethiopian government is taking action to address the impact of this year's drought by distributing emergency food rations and setting up feeding sites for malnourished children. But more help is urgently needed.; source: San Francisco Chronicle, July 2008
Hunger Pains: In Africa, the rise in global food prices doesn't mean forgoing a night out on the town or passing up a pair of shoes on sale. It means middle-class families stop buying milk for their children and morning coffee, poor families start eating a bowl of porridge just once or twice a day, and the poorest of the poor regularly go hungry and may even face starvation.; source: Baltimore Sun, June 2008
Church Groups Espouse Fair Trade: "We are glad that there are more opportunities for people to shop fair trade and impact more farmers' lives," says Jacqueline DeCarlo, senior program advisor for Catholic Relief Services, which last year sold $2 million worth of fair trade coffee, chocolate, and crafts. "But we want people to aspire to the highest standards, and in this case companies that offer full commitment to fair trade merit our support."; source: Business Week, June 2008
College Journalists' Stories Open Students' Eyes to World Issues: The award-winning series of stories by Hurley and fellow student Amanda Finnegan helped spur the college's food service to add fair-trade coffee and other items to its menus and won the two a trip to another part of the world -- the Middle East -- to see the work that Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international aid and development agency, is doing with Iraqi refugees.; source: Catholic News Service, June 2008
Editorial: Thank You, Father David, for Your Civic Mission: While Garcia surely will enjoy leading this valuable effort so integral to the history of San Antonio, those who know him suspect his priestly heart will be in his other job. As senior adviser for clergy outreach for Catholic Relief Services, Garcia will work to raise awareness among American Catholics of the needs of the poor in the developing world.; source: San Antonio Express-News, June 2008
Steve & Cokie Roberts: Jews, Palestinians Sharing Pain and Land: Elhanan and Faraj are members of Parents Circle-Families Forum, an organization of antiwar activists drawn together by the loss of loved ones. Now on a speaking tour of the United States, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, they recently sat down for a talk.; source: Marietta Daily Journal, May 2008
Humanitarian Problems in Gaza: Audio file - Tom Garofalo interviewed on situation in Gaza; source: National Public Radio - Baltimore affiliate WYPR, May 2008
Heavy Rains Head Toward Cyclone-Devastated Myanmar: "The weather will exacerbate humanitarian conditions for the homeless, many of whom are living under an open sky," said Elizabeth Griffin, a director of Catholic Relief Services from Baltimore. "Thankfully, no serious outbreaks of bacterial, water or mosquito borne diseases have been reported, but this could change in the next two to three weeks."; source: Associated Press, May 2008
Pope Expresses Deep Sadness Over Cyclone's Destruction in Myanmar: Pope Benedict XVI expressed deep sadness and "heartfelt sympathy" after hearing news of "the tragic aftermath" of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands in Myanmar.; source: Catholic News Service, May 2008
Hunger Stalks Globe AS Aid Groups Forced to Cut: "This is an unprecedented crisis for us, because it's global," said Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw, of Catholic Relief Services -- a crisis felt in most of the 100 places CRS works.; source: Reuters, May 2008
Bush Proposes $770 Million for World Food Crisis: Some aid groups and U.S. lawmakers are clamoring for more assistance immediately. The administration has already requested supplemental food aid funding, a perennial addition to annual budget funds, of $350 million for fiscal 2008, but some are pushing for a figure at least $200 million higher. The United States typically provides about $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion in food aid each year through the U.S. Agency for International Development. "As a humanitarian organization interested in saving lives, we are not sure these resources equip us to meet the needs now," said Catholic Relief Services, an aid group.; source: Reuters, May 2008
Surplus U.S. Food Supplies Dry Up: Food aid "is going to have to be significantly higher if we're going to continue to play the role we've played in the past; ... $117 million is not much," says Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw of Catholic Relief Services.; source: USA Today, May 2008
How to Help (World Food Price Crisis): CRS focuses on international aid and has a Food Security program that aims to alleviate hunger through short-, medium- and long-term initiatives. Donate via its Web site, http://www.crs.org, call 800-736-3467, or mail a check to Catholic Relief Services, P.O. Box 17090, Baltimore, MD 21203-7090.; source: Washington Post, April 2008
Israeli, Palestinian Find Common Ground in Grief, Hope: Rami Elhanan and Mazen Faraj live on different sides of the controversial concrete wall separating Israelis from Palestinians. But they have found common ground.; source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 2008
Experts Say High Food Prices Permanent; Bishops Urge Help for Poor: As protests over rising food costs spread around the globe, experts warn that high prices are here to stay, and Catholic bishops are calling for governments to take emergency measures to keep their poorest citizens from going hungry. The price increases are fueled by a variety of factors that "are all coming together at once," said Lisa Kuennen, director of the public resource group at Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency.; source: Catholic News Service, April 2008
Rising Food Prices Highlight Controversy Over Biofuels: Calculating the exact impact of biofuel production on food price hikes is difficult. Despite the attention to biofuels as a factor in recent price increases, it probably had less of an impact than drought and other factors, said Lisa Kuennen of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency.; source: Catholic News Service, April 2008
Volunteer Couple Leave Africa, But Kids Remain in Their Hearts: It had been months since she and her husband, Anselm, arrived as volunteers for Catholic Relief Services in the West African nation and they had grown accustomed to the hunger, poverty and daily funerals in the town. But the sound of a child laughing stopped them in their tracks.; source: Los Angeles Daily News, April 2008
Haiti's Rising Cost of Food Worries Aid Groups: Haitians who live on less than two dollars a day rely on food aid and other assistance from abroad. Catholic Relief Services is one of several organizations that seeks to aid working poor, handicapped and other residents.; source: Voice of America, April 2008
Aid Worker Reflects On Catholic Relief in Africa AS Pope Visits Us: Lori Kunze, CRS deputy director for East Africa, says her organization is involved in various anti-poverty and humanitarian programs throughout Africa, including initiatives aimed at providing people with access to clean water, good agricultural practices and emergency relief. But Kunze says “by far the largest” of CRS projects in Africa is its response to the continent’s HIV/AIDS pandemic in six of the countries worst affected.; source: Voice of America, April 2008
Aid Sector Sees Lingering Woes in Food Aid Crunch: A deepening global food crisis requires not only greater funding for food aid going to hungry nations, but long-term investment to improve agriculture productivity, especially in the developing world, officials and aid groups said on Monday.; source: Reuters, April 2008
Syrian, Jordanian Diplomats Urge U.S. to Share Iraqi Refugee Burden: Mark Schnellbaecher, Middle East regional director for the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services, described the situation as the "flight of moderation" from Iraq because the refugees are Iraq's educated and middle class.; source: Catholic News Service, April 2008
Peace Train Sounding Louder: Peace is a precious commodity. Especially in a time of war and conflict, an act of peace — even on the smallest scale — brings a sense of hope.; source: University of San Diego Magazine, March 2008
Church Leaders Say Rape Is Used AS Weapon of War in Congo: Leaders of the religious congregations working in eastern Congo's Katanga province said they "cannot remain silent" in the face of "all kinds of violence, repeated cases of sexual abuse, and the total lack of respect for the lives of our brothers and sisters."; source: Catholic News Service, March 2008
Miraculous Efforts in Africa Must Continue: There's a miracle happening in Africa right now, and I've had the good fortune to see it.; source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, March 2008
Soaring Food Prices Putting U.S. Emergency Aid in Peril: The U.S. government's humanitarian relief agency will significantly scale back emergency food aid to some of the world's poorest countries this year because of soaring global food prices, and the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of recipient nations, the amount of food provided to them, or both, officials at the agency said.; source: Washington Post , March 2008
Authorities Release A Dozen Iraqis in A Move the Could Lead to the Freedom of Hundreds: Lebanon on Friday released 13 Iraqi citizens detained for staying illegally in the country, following mediation by the U.N. refugee agency and a Christian aid group, in a move expected to lead to further releases.; source: International Herald Tribune, February 2008
More Than Coins in A Cardboard Box: The third–graders in Christina Myers’ class at St. John the Evangelist School don’t know a whole lot about the daily lives of children in the faraway countries of Guatemala, India, Mali, Haiti and Cameroon that this year’s Operation Rice Bowl focuses on, but they can really relate to not having access to utilities, food, clean water and shelter.; source: Florida Catholic, February 2008
Philippine Colonel Helps Launch Quiet Revolution for Peace-Building: When Col. Pedro Soria walked into his first seminar on peace-building, his classmates eyed him suspiciously, wondering if the Philippine army officer was there to spy on them. But Soria stayed for the two-week course, winning the confidence of his fellow students and helping launch a quiet revolution with the Philippine military.; source: Catholic News Service, February 2008
CRS Program for Doctors in Congo Helps Ease Plight of Female Victims: A church-run training program for rural doctors in the Democratic Republic of Congo has helped ease the plight of women in the war-torn eastern region where sexual violence is common, an aid worker said.; source: Catholic News Service, February 2008
Students Learn True Meaning of Hunger: Hunger now has a face for many students at St. Scholastica Academy in Covington. On Feb. 11, Thomas Awiapo of Ghana, in West Africa, spoke to the girls, along with some students from Pope John Paul II High School in Slidell.; source: New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 2008
Newsmakers: Arlene Flaherty, Catholic Relief Services (Video File): Pat Ciarrocchi talks to Arlene Flaherty of Catholic Relief Services about the plight of refugees in Iraq.; source: CBS - Philadelphia affiliate - local channel 3, February 2008
Refugees From Chad Face Desperate Situation, Says CRS Spokesman: Thousands of people who fled Chad to neighboring Cameroon after rebel fighting in early February are in a desperate situation without any infrastructure to support them, said a spokesman for the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services.; source: Catholic News Service, February 2008
30,000 Fleeing Chad Find Safety, Little Comfort in Cameroon: "The situation in Kousseri is really quite serious," Jennifer Nazaire, the representative for Catholic Relief Services in Cameroon, said Wednesday. "Chadians are pouring out of N'Djamena, and there's little set up to receive them at the moment. The Catholic Church in Kousseri, the local government, United Nations, and aid agencies are all scrambling to work out temporary and longer-term measures to host people."; source: Boston Globe, February 2008
Reprieve in Chad Gives Thousands A Chance to Flee: Thousands of residents poured out of N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, on Monday as clashes between rebel and government forces cooled after two days of combat, according to reports from the besieged city. "We have a lot of injured and dead people in town," said Christophe Droeven, Chad representative for the aid group Catholic Relief Services. He spoke from Belgium, to which he was evacuated over the weekend, but has kept in close contact with staff members in Chad.; source: Washington Post , February 2008
Catholic Relief Services in the Gaza Strip (Audio File): The country representative for Catholic Relief Services in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is Tom Garafalo.; source: Vatican Radio, January 2008
Priest-Performer Brings Broader Tale to Life On the Stage: More than 500 people are expected to attend the 46th annual Southwest Liturgical Conference Study Week, which is being held in Tucson for the first time. The theme is "Eucharist and Justice: Walking in Charity and Peace." Speakers at the gathering will include Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory and the Rev. Maxwell E. Johnson, a professor of liturgical studies at the University of Notre Dame.; source: Arizona Star, January 2008
Kenya Crisis Death Toll Seen at Around 600: The death toll in Kenya has risen to about 600 from more than two weeks of unrest since President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election, aid agencies said on Monday.; source: Reuters, January 2008
Ex-D.C. Cardinal Assesses Plight: Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, visited the Latin monastery in Gaza City yesterday while President Bush met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Cardinal McCarrick sat with the Rev. Manuel Musallem, leader of the Catholic community in Gaza, local and U.S. officials from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and other community members on a pastoral visit.; source: The Washington Times, LLC., January 2008
Kenyan Bishop Says His Appeals for Aid Have Been Met Quickly: Bishop Cornelius Arap Korir of Eldoret told Catholic News Service things gradually were taking shape as agencies such as the United Nations, the Kenyan government, the Red Cross and other churches were joining Catholic relief agencies in sending financial and material assistance.; source: Catholic News Service, January 2008
On the Road, With A Mission: Humanitarian Workers Return Home to Steamboat Springs for the Holidays: Simpson-Hebert is the regional health adviser for Catholic Relief Services. Based in Ethiopia, she said her role is to help enhance health programs that reach communities who are most vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.; source: Steamboat Pilot & Today, December 2007
Bishop Returns From Spending World AIDS Day in Africa: Seated in the comfort of his office at the Helena Diocese, Bishop George Thomas smiled when reflecting upon his recent trip to Senegal, where he received a crash course in micro-financing and spent World AIDS Day visiting AIDS-infected patients. The international organization offers micro-loans to impoverished African women, creates dialogue between Christians and Muslims, and promotes AIDS education and care to those inflicted with the virus.; source: Helena Independent Record, December 2007
Left Behind: Amid Immigration Debate, Children Are Forgotten: More and more children in Central America are being raised by people other than their parents, DeLorey told Catholic News Service. Those who are raised by extended families miss direct contact with their parents, she said, while those who are left with neighbors may end up on the street or in gangs.; source: Catholic News Service, December 2007
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel On New CRS Board President: Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, who was appointed board chairman of a major Catholic relief agency this week, has a lot on his plate these days in addition to his normal duties as archbishop and a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.; source: Journal Sentinel Inc., December 2007