Sustained MCC partnership facilitates grass-roots development work in India

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 24 June 2000

NEW DELHI, India -- 1947, the year India gained its independence, also marked the Partition that divided Pakistan and India into two nations, resulting in massive exchanges of displaced people.

Then Indian prime minister, Jewarharlal Nehru, appealed to the Christian community in India to aid in relief work. American Methodist Bishop J.W. Picket also drew international support from churches.

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) responded to the need by working with an Indian relief organization that grew out of the crisis -- the Christian Agency for Relief and Social Action, which in 1970 was renamed the Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA). This partnership continued to grow, and much of MCC's relief work for the past 53 years in India has been done through CASA. Now one of the largest non-governmental organizations in the country, CASA serves the poor and dispossessed through relief and development work.

On a recent trip to the MCC office in Akron, Major J.K. Michael, CASA's director since 1977, credited MCC with capacity building for the organization. MCC not only contributes funds for relief work, it has also provided "personnel to work out a disaster-preparedness model that is actually implemented in local communities," he said.

With his guidance, the organization aims to enable Indian people to take ownership of their development. "In a country as big as India," said Michael, "decentralized planning at the grass-roots level has to take place." CASA works to assure that the discussion, planning and implementation of their development programs are done at the community level.

MCC contributed $366,000 Cdn./$245,000 U.S. for the purchase of rice to feed victims of severe cyclones that hit the eastern state of Orissa in October 1999. Thousands died and some one million were left homeless. CASA distributed the rice in dry ration packets and also provided household items.

In June 2000, MCC provided 500 metric tons of wheat through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank to drought victims in three Indian states. Those most affected by food insecurity were landless laborers, small and marginal farmers and people from tribal classes.

At relief project sites, MCC and CASA often provide additional grains for CASA's Food For Community Development program. Through this program, recipients help with disaster cleanup and construction. In essence, "The gift of food works to enable disaster victims to generate self-help efforts," said Edgar Metzler, MCC director of International Programs.

Alongside this relief work, CASA also helps people in disaster-affected communities develop sustainable infrastructures. Assistance to drought victims mainly targeted water storage and water harvesting through soil conservation and well projects, which now provide the communities with additional water sources.

Michael notes the many benefits of CASA's relief and development process. "First, it staves off starvation for thousands of people by helping them get one square meal a day. It takes them out of the trauma to be able to build life again. People in the community do the cleanup and construction work without having to rely on outside help, and the community is left with useful infrastructures that benefit everyone."

MCC food contribution "is of strategic importance," says Dave Gerber, MCC co-country representative in India. "It provides the food which is otherwise unavailable and at the same time moves the housing reconstruction process along which is so sorely needed."

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org