BWA: THE LAST 5 YEARS n BWA: THE LAST 5 YEARS n BWA: THE LAST 5 YEARS n BWA: THE LAST 5 YEARS n

BWA Meeting Global Needs Continued

relief response from the BWA. Several BWA personnel visited the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, where tens of thousands of refugees from Myanmar are housed. The BWA made regular interventions in the Syrian crisis that began in March 2011, granting sums of money for relief assistance to refugees in Jordan and Lebanon and displaced persons inside Syria. Inside Syria, funds were used for the humanitarian crisis in Homs, one of the hardest hit areas in the ongoing Syrian Civil War and an epicenter of the revolutionary movement in the Middle Eastern country. A visit was made to the refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Myriad problems were observed, including poverty, lack of security, inflationary prices, overcrowding and lack

of proper housing, insanitary

conditions, chronic diseases and children missing out on school. Funds given by the BWA were used to help provide food and other urgent

adequate sanitation for persons who have been affected by the crisis. Through a partnership with Kids Against Hunger, BWA shipped 1.3 million meals to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to help alleviate the hunger crisis brought on by the Ebola outbreak in the three countries.

Below left: Graduates from a BWA supported community college program in India

US$3.2 on development projects and programs.

Approximately US$1.8 million was spent on education in some 15 countries, the bulk of about US$1.5 million going to Source of Light in Haiti. The amount helped fund special programs to educate and empower women and girls. A ministry of the BWA is to help equip persons and communities to increase their standard of living.

More than US$330,000 was spent on farming and agriculture in about a dozen countries, more than US$350,000 on community development in about 13 countries, more than US$350,000 on hunger and poverty relief in more than 20 countries, approximately US$325,000 in health support for about 13 countries, and about US$60,000 in peace building and reconciliation initiatives in some eight countries. The largest project, both in terms

of scale and cost of more than US$1.5 million,

was the

relief supplies to approximately 500 Iraqi Christian families who fled Mosul and Karakosh to Erbil in Kurdistan.

DISEASES AND EPIDEMICS

BWA and its partners followed closely news of the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and provided

funds for public 8 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE

In response to the cholera outbreak in Haiti, the BWA funded the construction of 150 toilets for schools and communities that lacked these amenities. At least 30,000 primary

and education

campaigns, food and medicine, as well as materials and equipment to provide

elementary level DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

Between July 2010 and the end of 2014, the BWA spent approximately

school

students were positively affected by these facilities.

construction and

opening of Source of Light in Port au Prince, Haiti. It houses a school for 200 preschool, kindergarten

and

primary students and has an orphanage for 50 children. It includes facilities for conductive education and development for 10-20 disabled children. In addition, there is vocational

training for 100

young people in information technology, culinary arts and cooking, and sewing and tailoring, as well as the teaching of the English language. There is also a chapel and conference center.