Seventh-day Adventist® Church

Adventist Church Members Embark on Fundraising Campaign in Aid of the Earthquake Victims in Japan

Members of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Portadown, Armagh and Banbridge are embarking on a fundraising campaign to support relief work in earthquake stricken Japan. This campaign will take place from 26 March to 10 April. All money raised will be handed to the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), which is one of the important agencies who are currently on the ground, doing relief work in Japan. The fundraising campaign is part of an annual initiative authorised by the Fundraising Standards Board. In 2010 the local congregation managed to raise £1000 for the international charity work of ADRA. They hope to raise an even higher amount in the following two weeks. Members will be knocking at doors, visiting businesses and pubs in the Portadown and Armagh area to ask for contributions.

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is continuing to respond to the devastating tsunami that was triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday, 11 March. The death toll now stands at over 8,450; but there are more than 12,000 missing and over 370,000 evacuees.

ADRA Assessment teams reached the severely affected city of Sendai in the Miyagi Prefecture within 24 hours after a 7-metre tsunami wave crashed through the city, destroying entire communities. "The damage is so devastating, I have no words left to utter," said Atsushi Suhara, Programme Officer for ADRA Japan after flying over Natori city to assess the level of the damage.

"Getting precise information and the holistic picture of the damages on the ground still remains a challenge," said Hideo Wantanabe, Programme Officer for ADRA Japan, after his initial assessment in the city of Sendai. "However, we are gradually getting clearer pictures of what kind of support and assistance are needed by the people affected."

Working together with local authorities, ADRA Japan was appointed on Wednesday, 16 March to support an Evacuation Centre in Wakabayashi ward in Sendai city, Miyagi Prefecture. This Evacuation Centre is a public junior high school. ADRA Japan is providing hot meals at the Centre where approximately 300 displaced people are living and around 1,000 come to eat. The first truckload of food, non-food supplies, fuel and cooking gas left the ADRA Japan Tokyo office on Wednesday afternoon. These will be the first hot meals for the evacuees who are battling not only with loss but with snow and increasingly cold weather.

Rather than managing the Centre, ADRA Japan will support and fill the "gap" of activities that the Evacuation Centre Committee has already been implementing. Evacuees have been helping each other and ADRA will work alongside them. ADRA Japan's major activity for now will be to serve hot meals to 1,000 people twice a day until the situation allows people to live by themselves.

Electricity, water and gas and gradually being reconnected in some wards and cities in the affected areas but there are many isolated places still awaiting access. Petrol is very scarce in the affected area and in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The humanitarian situation continues to be exacerbated by reports of hundreds of large aftershocks, the onset of sub-zero temperatures in the heavily affected region of Sendai, and the fear of nuclear fallout from damaged nuclear power plants.

The ADRA Japan office began in 1985 primarily as a funding office for developing nations. Due to the numerous natural disasters that face the nation, ADRA Japan already had an emergency response plan formulated, tested, and in place. This pre-planning allowed staff and volunteers to rush to the affected areas and begin working, and included securing large vehicles to aid in the transportation of relief items from other parts of Japan to the affected areas and the distribution of food and non-food items.

In Japan itself ADRA is receiving generous donations of both cash and relief items. Approximately $US62,000 was received from the famous artist group "DREAMS COME TRUE". Donations are being given to ADRA-UK, ADRA International in the US, and various ADRA offices in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. Your donations will join all these others to provide help and hope to those affected. To help ADRA Japan reach out please make a donation on the ADRA-UK website http://www.adra.org.uk by following the link on the home page. Regular news updates are also available on the site.

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