Wednesday, Dec 16 we met with Bruce Muir, head of Emergency Response for the church.
He has been in Europe doing our job for the past two months, arranging Elder Ballard's visit and pushing forward ER projects.
We learned that part of our job will be developing good relationships with new agencies who haven't worked with the church before.
The Church is very serious about helping the refugees. The church has spent about $1 million a month this fall.
Our job will be to wisely but quickly spend the money that the members have donated and relieve as much suffering as possible.
On Tuesday, Dec 15, we met with Lynn and Dean Curtis, directors of Interweave Solutions, an NGO that produces materials teaching self-reliance
. We were interested in considering some of their programs for refugee aid. Of most interest to me was the business literacy program: teaching literacy in a second language using materials that teach business terminology, ethics and local laws as the topic.
LDS versions of Interweave publications are available FREE in many languages at lds.org in Provident Living. This is the new Chirch direction on self-reliance to supplement the PEF.
you can download the manuals here : https://www.lds.org/topics/pef-self-reliance/manuals-and-videos?lang=eng. Look on the righthand side for a list of the 33 languages the program is available in!
