BMS grants for Pakistan floods

15/09/2010



BMS World Mission has given its largest relief grant to date in response to the floods in north west Pakistan.


The grant of £41,000 is the third channelled by BMS through partners in Pakistan and takes the total given in the last six weeks to over £80,000.

Money will directly support 130 internally displaced families in three provinces – Sindh, Kyber Pakhtunkhwa and Hyderabad – as they return to their homes.

It will enable them to repair, refurnish and buy basic cooking equipment. BMS’ grant has been supplemented by a contribution from Asia Pacific Baptist Aid.

Media attention of the disaster – which has affected as many as 20 million people – has waned in recent weeks, but huge needs remain in the country as communities face challenges relating to healthcare, infrastructure and employment.

26/08/2010

BMS World Mission has given an additional grant of approximately £30,000 to aid the relief effort in Pakistan's flood-hit Sindh province.

Partners on the ground have been providing food and basic relief supplies from the earliest stages of the relief response and the latest grant will fund essential medical work.

Malaria, diarrhoea, skin infections, stomach disorders, snake-bites and fevers are prevalent in Sindh province and BMS partners have a medical team working alongside relief and assessment teams.

The BMS grant will fund 50 days of a planned 90-day period of mobile medical clinic work. Hundreds of people have already been helped and it is expected that this grant will be invaluable to many more.

05/08/2010

BMS World Mission has given £10,000 to help victims of the devastating floods in Pakistan.

Exceptionally heavy monsoon rains have led to widespread flooding in north west Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan, leaving, as we write, nearly 1,600 people dead in Pakistan alone and an estimated three million people affected.

BMS partners on the ground in Pakistan are already working with victims, distributing food and other supplies to Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and the £10,000 grant will help in this effort. The money will be used to purchase food packages (containing flour, sugar, lentils and cooking oil) for 500 families in two villages in the Sindh region of north west Pakistan.

BMS Manager for Mission Partnerships, Steve Sanderson, said that while BMS does not have any workers in Pakistan, a trusted international partner was already at work there. "It's good to work with an organisation in Pakistan with whom we have a track record of partnering in relief situations," he said. "With disasters of this kind, the bigger challenges often come during the later recovery phase of work, when homes, sanitation and livelihoods need to be restored, and it is very probably that BMS will be looking to help during that phase as well."

BMS anticipates that grants will also be made to assist in relief work in neighbouring Afghanistan.

(Photo credits:

Rubble by Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN

Girl with bucket by NB77

Submerged street by Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN.)