Baptists have opportunity to provide ‘hope’ to victims of China earthquake

An expanded effort to assist families in China’s Sichuan province is available to Southern Baptists who want to continue helping the area devastated by the May 12 earthquake in the region.

The earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people and left literally millions homeless, creating a massive need for replacement housing and opportunities for people to rebuild their livelihoods.

In the early days of the relief effort, Southern Baptists were able to draw on almost $900,000 in Southern Baptist relief and world hunger funds to provide basic medical supplies, food and nutritional supplements, clean water, tents, clothing, blankets, water filtration units and hygiene products, according to Jim Brown. Brown is U.S. director of Baptist Global Response (BGR), a Southern Baptist international relief and development organization based in Singapore.

BGR representatives are now encouraging Southern Baptists to partner with a Christian children’s charity that has already piloted an initiative to help children and parents traumatized by the earthquake.

“The ‘Hope Center’ outreach is based in large tents that offer a library, play area and staff and volunteers who help families cope with trauma,” Brown explained. “Five centers are already in operation, but as many as 50 such centers could be established in one year’s time, with each one assisting 200 to 400 children and families.”

The Hope Center ministry follows evacuees as they move into temporary and long-term housing — beginning with a stadium where displaced families were first housed, then to temporary tent cities and eventually on to housing where they may live for up to three years.

Each Hope Center will need a generator, a TV/DVD setup and temporary furniture at a cost of about $20,000 per center, Brown added.

The Hope Centers will be able to operate for several years, assisting displaced families with needs as they arise — skills training, trauma assistance, health care or needs unique to a particular community.

Another component of the initiative would be a teddy bear program similar to the one conducted among children in the United States who were traumatized during the 9/11 attacks.

This initiative would reach 10,000 children at a cost of $10 each.

For more information about the initiative, visit www.gobgr.org. (BGR)