By Jim Coggins

CANADIAN aid agencies – many of them Christian – are continuing to respond to two disasters which struck Asia last month.

On the evening of May 2, Cyclone Nargis smashed into Burma (Myanmar), carrying devastation and flooding 250 kilometres inland. The most recent estimates count more than 100,000 people dead or missing, and perhaps two million homeless.

On May 12, a 7.9 earthquake hit Sichuan province in China. There, the death toll has exceeded 50,000, and thousands are still missing.

Within hours of both disasters, Christian aid agencies with links to Canada were distributing emergency aid. Dave Toycen, president and CEO of World Vision Canada, told BCCN: “Christians have a particular history of compassion . . . A disproportionate amount of aid comes from churchgoers.”

World Vision has about 500 workers in Burma, most of them indigenous. As far as is known, none were killed in the disaster. World Vision supporters sponsor about 41,000 children in Burma, and all of them are also thought to be safe.

Within days, World Vision staff assisted 120,000 people with basic necessities such as rice, blankets, tents and water purification.  Some of the supplies were stockpiled when weather forecasters first issued warnings of the cyclone. Other supplies were purchased locally afterward.

Toycen said aid agencies are particularly eager to prevent the “disaster after the disaster.” Unless aid is delivered quickly, disease and privations could kill more people than the original cyclone.

Of particular concern is that the storm struck the Irrawaddy delta, the country’s main rice-growing area, and its largest city, Yangon.

While the cyclone hit a low-lying area, the earthquake hit a more mountainous region in northwest China.

World Vision has 700 workers in China, and 75,000 sponsored children, including 10,500 sponsored by Canadians. None were in Sichuan province.

World Vision had a warehouse in a neighbouring province, and so was able deliver aid quickly to survivors. Because of the large population and the frequency of natural disasters in China, World Vision also has an emergency response team stationed in Beijing, which was dispatched to Sichuan within 24 hours. World Vision is initially trying to raise $100,000 for China relief.

Local contacts important

The response to these disasters illustrates that relief and development work has changed in a number of ways in recent decades.

First, the Burma situation demonstrates the importance of having indigenous staff. As has been widely reported in the press, the military government of Burma has been slow to allow foreign aid and relief workers into the country. World Vision’s few expatriate staff in the country have been restricted to the city of Yangon, but its indigenous workers have been allowed into the hardest hit areas.

Toycen noted that local staff are less expensive, they know the local needs and they sometimes have more personal impact on those they work with. Even the technical experts World Vision would like to send in to Burma are mostly not from Western countries.

Toycen said that, like most relief and development organizations, World Vision has a policy that it will only distribute aid directly to the needy – and not through governments.

“It is essential to the credibility of our organization” and to “financial accountability to donors.” He said World Vision’s agreements with governments such as that of Burma recognize this principle.  

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is another North American-based relief and development organization which has stressed working more closely with local people.

MCC is raising $500,000 for Burma relief, as well as donating $100,000 in food aid from its Canadian Foodgrains Bank account. MCC does not currently have staff in Burma, but distributes its aid through partner agencies who do.

In China, however, MCC had English language teachers assigned to colleges in Sichuan through an agency called Mennonite Partners in China. All are reported safe.

Buy local

Another thing that has changed is that the initial relief supplies, including food and tents, have been purchased in Burma and China – and sometimes in neighbouring countries. Toycen explained that this gets relief aid in more quickly – and, with rising oil prices driving up transportation costs, it is also less expensive.

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Willie Reimer, director of food, disaster and material resources for MCC, added that local food is often more appropriate and culturally acceptable.

Toycen and Reimer pointed out that, in the past, Western aid was often used to support Western agriculture (by disposing of food surpluses) and Western businesses; however, they said, this is changing.

For instance, the Canadian government used to match donations to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank on a three-to-one basis – but only if Canadian grains were shipped to disaster areas. However, a couple of years ago, the government reduced the requirement to 50 percent Canadian grain, and it has now eliminated that requirement altogether.    

Toycen pointed out that disasters don’t usually affect an entire country, and that other parts of the country usually are capable of providing resources. In the past, shipments of Western food into disaster areas sometimes had the effect of lowering food prices in the country or region, undermining the local economy and reducing the ability of the region to feed itself in the future.

Toycen said there are still times when it makes sense to import food from the West. For instance, the current needs in Burma are so great, and disruption of local agriculture so serious, that food will likely have to be shipped in.

Focus on development

This also illustrates that the focus has shifted from disaster relief to development work. Toycen pointed out that World Vision puts much more money and effort into development work than relief. This is one of the other reasons World Vision works with local development committees.

World Vision’s policy is to stay in an area for 15 to 20 years, and then move on – leaving the local people to carry on the work. This is achieved through encouraging the development of education, health care and local business – and through giving poor people hope that they can make a difference on their own. The goal is “a changed community.”

Toycen said World Vision’s concerns “are especially around children.” They are often the first to get sick, and they dehydrate quickly. Even without more serious diseases such as cholera, in a tropical climate they can die quickly of simple diarrhea. This makes water purification crucial.

In Burma and China, World Vision has also set up “friendly spaces” for children – safe places where they can just be children.

In the name of Christ

Another change is that relief and development aid is not as closely tied to evangelism efforts.  Toycen said the goal of World Vision’s aid is not to convert people, but “to love the people unconditionally because God loves them.”

On the other hand, World Vision does not hide the fact that it is a Christian agency and registers with local governments that way. He noted that some countries World Vision works in are less Christian than Canada, but some are more Christian.

Reimer said MCC also makes its Christian basis “as clear up front as we can.” He noted that in China, MCC is distributing aid through Christian churches. The Christian church there is much more vigorous and accepted than the Christian church in Burma.

There has been a marked difference in how the governments of China and Burma have responded to their disasters. Toycen and Reimer noted the Chinese government has been “very open,” quickly asking for outside aid and allowing foreign media and relief agencies into the disaster area. This is much different from the way Chinese government officials responded to similar disasters some decades ago.

On the other hand, the government of Burma has been much more suspicious of foreign assistance. While the mainstream media have been quite critical of the Burma government, the relief agencies merely say they hope the government will also be open to aid.

Toycen stated that World Vision called for 15 minutes of global prayer for the disaster areas on May 15 – and on May 19, the organization was allowed to deliver its first aid shipment and five foreign relief experts into Burma. “The pipeline is open, and we’re very encouraged.”

Time of tribulation

Toycen said there is no doubt the number of environmental disasters is increasing. “Ten years ago, we averaged about 100 a year. In the last few years, the number is about 500.”

Reimer agreed that weather-related disasters are more severe and that droughts are more frequent, and last longer.

Both related the increase to climate change and global warming. Toycen, however, was cautious about suggestions that these disasters might be signs of the end times. “There have been great climate changes in history before, and Jesus didn’t come back.”

June 2008