Facts About the All Our Children Campaign

Facts About the All Our Children Campaign

The multi-agency "All Our Children" (AOC) campaign to date has raised $841,748, with $410,000 of that amount provided through Church World Service, a cooperative humanitarian ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations and part of the ecumenical family of the National Council of Churches U.S.A.

As of the end of 2003, the campaign has supported 14 projects.

Among the most recent projects are: $148,000 in additions to the Kerbala Pediatric Hospital; a $10,000 theater project that provides live theater to traumatized Iraqi children in hospitals, orphanages, refugee camps and in poor neighborhoods; $56,000 to provide fresh food to orphanages, elderly homes and to children; a $65,000 project to provide fresh water to hospitals in Baghdad; a $30,000 project to provide hospital refrigeration and cooking equipment to Baghdad hospitals.

Additional "All Our Children" projects supported by CWS have included local purchase of 100 beds for the Ibn Al-Aheer and Al Khassa Pediatric Hospitals in Mosul; purchase and distribution of fresh foods for 37 hospitals in Baghdad and Basra -- enough for three meals a day for 5,000 children over a 10-day period. Also: fresh food distributions to 21 hospitals over a two-week period in April / May with supplementary deliveries of dry food to seven hospitals and powdered milk to 18 hospitals.

CWS is shipping 13,160 “Gift of the Heart” School Kits and 16,450 "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits to Iraq; the shipment is expected to arrive to the region in February; the Kits were the centerpiece of a major public awareness initiative in the San Francisco Bay area in August.

One of the cornerstones of the CWS response was a shipment of surgical equipment that arrived Oct. 12 in Amman, Jordan, and has been distributed in Iraq. There were 437 cartons of equipment in the shipment, with a total value of $1.2 million. The items have been distributed to the following hospitals in Baghdad: the Al Kadhemia General Teaching Hospital; the Ibn Al Bittar Cardiac Surgery Hospital; the Al Samera'e Gynaecology Hospital; and the Al Wasiti Surgical Hospital.

CWS has also provided $253,000 in support to its partner agency the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) to support the provision of basic and supplementary food commodities, medicines and medical material / hospital equipment to hospitals and medical centers and shelters, bedding, and heaters and kitchen utensils to displaced Iraqi families.

CWS is extremely grateful to denominational funders, foundation supporters and individual donors who have lent support to CWS efforts to assist the people of Iraq in what has been a challenging and difficult humanitarian environment.

Denominational funders: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) / Week of Compassion; the Church of the Brethren; Episcopal Relief and Development; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA); Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA); Reformed Church in America; United Church of Christ Wider Church Ministries; United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).

Foundation supporters: the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; Trull Foundation; Shield-Ayers Foundation; Gemmer Family Foundation; C.E. & S Foundation; Bobolink Foundation; Central Alabama Community Foundation; Rose C. Stone Foundation; Tides Foundation; Laney-Vuaghan Family Foundation; and the Pascall International Foundation.

Continued support is needed for this effort. Contributions to support this work may be sent to your denomination or to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. Please designate for appeal # 6801 (Iraq Crisis).

January 2004

Pictured: Waiting in Line for Medicines: Residents of Hai Tarek, many of them women in their black chadors accompanied by small children, line up daily outside a clinic receiving "AOC" support. Photo by Chris Herlinger.