FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
World Vision resumes humanitarian relief and development operations in Zimbabwe following lifting of NGO ban
· Agency's top priority is reaching out to the most vulnerable communities, especially children
· About 400,000 school children are to be reached by food aid in the supplementary school feeding program
· World Vision's development projects involves community mobilization, such as livelihood training and workshops, will re-start immediately
Washington DC, September 2, 2008 Zimbabwe's largest humanitarian aid agency, World Vision, will resume humanitarian relief and development operations this week following the lifting of a suspension order that was declared in June.
"We are going to resume our operations immediately and comply with the ministry's demands, and our priority is to reach out to vulnerable communities, especially children, with minimum delay," said Leslie Scott, National Director of World Vision Zimbabwe.
Dialogue is taking place with communities to identify the most vulnerable children in need of assistance.
Relief operations that had some partial activities underway during the suspension are expected to scale up, and target about 700,000 beneficiaries with various food aid interventions, through the C-SAFE program funded by USAID.
"We are looking to move about 4,000 metric tons of food, and this has already started mainly in schools ahead of the third term, where we are targeting 400,000 school children with supplementary feeding," said Edward Brown, C-SAFE Chief of Party.
"An additional 200,000 beneficiaries are being drawn from the Market Assistance Program and the remaining 100,000 from smaller programs like the institutional feeding of the elderly and chronically ill," noted Brown.
In addition, planning is underway to launch the safety net program, which will target over 1 million beneficiaries during the 'hunger period' between October and January with food aid.
"We expect to launch the safety net program, which will include food for asset projects, in October, as we are still to conduct preparatory exercises like beneficiary registration and verification before we do the actual distribution," said Brown.
All other development projects involving community mobilization like livelihood training and workshops are set to start immediately. World Vision has 72, 258 children in the sponsorship program.
Other outstanding projects within World Vision's agricultural recovery program and water and sanitation are also being tapped for completion.
It is projected that between July and September 2008, 2.04 million people will be food insecure, while 5.1 million people in both rural and urban areas will be food insecure at the height of the hungry season between January and March 2009 and in urgent need of food aid, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) Crop and Food Assessment Mission in Zimbabwe released in June 2008,
World Vision also runs recovery programs in food security, water and sanitation and HIV and AIDS through the support of various donors.
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World Vision experts are available in Zimbabwe for interviews. Contact Cynthia Colin at 202.572.6595 or ccolin@worldvision.org if interested in speaking to a representative.
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. Visit www.worldvision.org/press.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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