Africare
Diocesan Press Service. March 17, 1975 [75112]
Africa feeds the hungry today -- Helps insure food for tomorrow
Thanks to Africare initiative, there are now nearly 40 wells in Niger, Chad and Mall, drought-ravaged countries in the Sahelian midlands of West Africa. Strategically located by hydrologists and development experts working closely with local governments, these wells are utilizing the plentiful water supply beneath the Sahel and the Sahara Desert. Major funding for this project, which has served as a model for additional similar projects, came from the Lilly Endowment, the Public Welfare Foundation and the Presbyterian Church, USA.
It is primarily to assist long-term relief projects like this that the Diocese of Washington is designating for Africare 40 percent of unallocated funds received in the current campaign to help alleviate world hunger.
"We believe that people must be reasonably healthy if they are to develop their natural resources and intellectual capacities," said C. Payne Lucas, Africare's president since it was founded three years ago. "We also believe that African people and their governments must exercise primary control over development priorities and programs." As was the case in the well construction program, it is the African people and their leaders who direct Africare to specific tasks, assuring that what is achieved is "what the people want," Lucas added, "and not what a well-intentioned foreign organization has imposed."
Another Africare project demonstrated the feasibility of cloud seeding to produce rainfall and led the Niger government toward developing its own cloud seeding capability.
Providing water is by no means Africare's only undertaking. For instance, with aid from another Lilly Endowment grant, Africare is working with Texas Tech University and Niger in a project that includes developing improved breeding and livestock production, agricultural training, farming and marketing practices.
Working with the US Agency for International Development (AID), the Niger government and its Ministry of Health, Africare is hoping to deliver health care and preventive medicine to people who are virtually without medical care. Included in the plan is the training and involvement of large numbers of local people to perform the services and educational programs at various levels. One of the gravest problems is the high infant death rate. It is hoped that, if there are more healthy children, women will cease to wear themselves out in childbearing -- to make sure of raising a few to adulthood.
Finally, Africare is also meeting some of the emergency needs brought on by the drought. Because Africare field staff have the authority to spend money on the spot, they are frequently able to meet drastic human need quickly by purchasing supplies locally in bulk quantity for less money. In this manner, $100 was spent for tools to repair a dike in Chad, 28 tons of dried fish brought relief to drought victims in Mali and gasoline was purchased so that Niger agencies could deliver their own supplies.
Although Africare does conduct major and expensive projects that require large foundation grants, its early success has been the result of small gifts. Suffragan Bishop John T. Walker of the Diocese of Washington, who is vice-chairperson of Africare's board, said that, in its first nine months of drought assistance in the Sahel, Africare raised $250,000 in small donations. He also supports Africare, he said, because nearly all the money contributed is used directly for Africare projects.
(Editor's Note: Africare has chapters in Boston, Mass.; Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Tulsa, Okla.; Tacoma, Wash.; Ypsilanti, Mich.; Kansas City, Mo.; and Washington, D.C. Chapter development progress is being made in Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.; Baltimore and Montgomery County, Md.; Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn.; Miami, Fla.; Toledo, Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; Detroit and Saginaw, Mich.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Los Angeles and Berkeley-Oakland, Calif.; and Dallas and Houston, Tex.)