The Christian Friends of Korea is probably one of the most influential non-profits in Buncombe County that you’ve never heard of. I’m here to introduce you to this unheralded outfit, which, just a few months ago, was awarded millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to help feed starving North Koreans. Just as it did several years ago, the country faces another devastating food shortage, and Christian Friends has been called upon to help.
This is the first time that Christian Friends of Korea has ever received government funds. For years, it’s been the only organization allowed into the closed-off Communist North Korea, where its workers have been providing medical assistance and other help.
The summer announcement noted that Christian Friends of North Korea was one of five agencies to receive the funding. One of the other groups — Samaratin’s Purse, the aid agency run by Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Here’s a few graphs from a June wire story:
Five aid agencies today announced that they have signed an agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to deliver U.S. government food assistance to North Koreans suffering from severe food shortages. The partnership will distribute 100,000 metric tons of food to more than a half-million needy people over a twelve-month period.
Mercy Corps is leading the program, with World Vision as co-lead, pending final agreement. Partner agencies are Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services and Christian Friends of Korea. Daily rations will be provided for approximately 550,000 vulnerable people — mostly children, the elderly and pregnant and nursing women — in two North Korean provinces. The program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) office of Food for Peace, is the first U.S. food assistance program for North Korea since 2000.
“This is a breakthrough program: the first U.S. bilateral food assistance to North Korea in eight years. As a needs-based program, it has enabled us to have unprecedented monitoring provisions,” explained Nancy Lindborg, president of Mercy Corps.
Here’s a tidbit from another wire story:
Relief workers distributing thousands of tons of U.S.-supplied food in North Korea have unprecedented freedom of access in the insular country to ensure the food goes to the people who need it, says the project’s chief U.S. negotiator. …
In all, the U.S.-sponsored program is to feed through the NGOs about 550,000 people, mostly children, the elderly and pregnant and nursing women, in two North Korean provinces, said a release from Mercy Corps, one of the five. The others are World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services and Christian Friends of Korea.
The World Food Program will distribute another 400,000 metric tons in other parts of the country. The United States is the largest donor for the WFP’s current aid program in Korea at $38.9 million.
The United States has sent food before to North Korea, but always under much more constrained conditions. Brause said the first time the United States sought to negotiate conditions similar to these, in 2004, “I met with them in New York, and they said, ‘No, thanks.'”
Keep your eyes on this organization. It’s been quietly going about its mission, and it’s making a difference.
Links:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/27/northkorea.explosion/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/30/world/main4218128.shtml
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080630/ap_on_re_as/nkorea_us_aid
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/07/01/us_ships_food_aid_to_north_korea/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/world/asia/01korea.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/30/AR2008063000374.html