The World Reaches Back

Mercy Corps International
Tuesday, 25 September 2001

Offers of Support and Help from Global Friends Flood Mercy Corps

In December 1999, heavy rains and flooding in Venezuela caused wide-scale property damage and resulted in more than 20,000 deaths. Many Americans reacted with immediate compassion by donating money, time, and supplies to Mercy Corps' emergency relief efforts. Thanks to the generosity of concerned Americans, Mercy Corps and its local Venezuelan partner, Servicio de Apoyo Local (SOCSAL), were able to help those most in need by providing trauma counseling and reconstruction services.

Within hours of the September 11 tragedy in the United States, SOCSAL responded, offering up its assistance to the very people with whom it had worked side-by-side less than two years before.

"Our hearts go out to yours, and moreover we are ready and disposed to share and help in any possible way with the slow process of recovery, especially for those suffering the most direct psycho-social damage," wrote Mireya Vargas, Director of SOSCAL.

"Thanks to your past help, we have managed to make our own path and it is now time, in your moment of need, that we repaid you by sharing what we have learned."

The reaction of our friends and partners in Venezuela is one that has been voiced from countless others around the world. Countries, organizations, and people that have been touched by Americans through Mercy Corps' work are now offering their hearts and services to help those in need in the United States.

"After having felt the wrath of the earthquake in Gujarat, we wake up to hear this man-made devastation. It is usually easy to accept the nature's fury but when it is engineered by man, it is extremely difficult to digest," wrote members of Mercy Corps' partner in India, CHETNA.

"We were fortunate to have the influx of support and resources both human and material from all the corners of the world and at the same time hope you have the same kind of support, moral and material from everybody at this hour of destruction"

Mercy Corps provided emergency relief to citizens in Gujarat after the January 2000 earthquake that ravaged India and chilled the hearts and minds of thousands of Americans who saw pictures of the devastation and felt compelled to donate food, money and clothes.

Messages of compassion and concern have also poured in from individuals in Kosovo who came to experience first-hand the generosity of Americans through Mercy Corps' work following the war in their homeland.

"America was the country that hosted so warmly and friendly many Albanian refugees and helped more than a million of them during the War in Kosovo. I was one of them and I am terribly feeling sorry," wrote Muhamed.

"At this tragic moment, our hearts go out to all those directly affected, and to their families. Every and each Albanian is with you."

Messages such as these, from citizens and groups in 50 countries, representing the thousands of lives that Mercy Corps' work touch each year, have been posted on the Mercy Corps website.

The sincere desire to help those that are suffering has always been one of the missions of Mercy Corps and those who support its work. It is heartening to see that this desire and compassion knows no borders -- and that those touched by our work have reached out for us in this time of tragedy on American soil.

For more information, or to contact Mercy Corps International, see their website at: www.mercycorps.org