ADRA Inter-America recognizes partnerships and cites major accomplishments
Wally Amundson (left) outgoing ADRA Inter-America director reported the accomplishments during the past five years and beyond during ADRA Board meeting at the IAD Headquarters in Miami, Florida, on Nov. 1, 2015. IAD Treasurer Filiberto Verduzco and chairman of the ADRA Board sits next to Amundson. Images by Libna Stevens/IAD
November 24, 2015 | Miami, Florida, United States | Libna Stevens/IAD
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in the Inter-American Division (IAD) celebrated its progress across the church territory during a recent board meeting to close the previous five-year period.
Top Seventh-day Adventist leaders praised the work of ADRA Inter-America and its outgoing director, Wally Amundson, for being instrumental in the 14-year-long partnership with the North American Division’s (NAD) ingathering program, Hope for Humanity, to advance literacy.
Leaders also praised the 17-year–long collaboration with Loma Linda University and its Behavior Trauma Team in providing training and emergency psychological trauma response throughout the IAD.
Maitland DiPinto, NAD director for community engagement–Adventist Community Services reports on the impact of literacy programs in Inter-America during video conference with the board.
“The work of Wally in the IAD takes us back some 23 years when he started at the headquarters office,” said Filiberto Verduzco, treasurer for the church in Inter-American and chairman of ADRA Inter-America Board. “His extensive service to the church has no comparison.”
Amundson’s legacy includes the transformation of thousands upon thousands of people who can now read and write across Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Literacy learning centers and groups continue to operate using churches and schools as their base staffed by volunteer church and community members,
thanks to the funds that have come through from Hope for Humanity every year.
So far more than 60,000 people throughout the Inter-American Division have completed literacy courses, said Maitland Dipinto, NAD director for community engagement—Adventist Community Services.“The impact of this literacy initiative for the learners is so valuable that new skills and abilities are life transforming not only to them, but for their families,” said DiPinto.
The not-so-obvious benefit of the program has been to build capacity within the laity, or the church members, to develop leadership mission skills, he added.
It even goes beyond those reached, agrees Amundson. “The Hope for Humanity Literacy Program has helped the church in Inter-America develop an initiative to deal with illiteracy in their own countries and among their own members, and as a result the church is now at the forefront of literacy programs in countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic,” explained Amundson.
“We are thankful that NAD and Hope for Humanity decided to look beyond their borders, and to establish meaningful partnerships with church members and community members together, in other countries, to create simple but durable mechanisms for lasting change,” added Amundson.
In Nicaragua, for example, what began as a modest literacy project has expanded and now hundreds who have completed the courses have become literacy training volunteers in their own communities, said Amundson. “This confirms the church is the best vehicle to reach the community with life-giving benefits.”
Beverly Buckles, reports on the success the LLU trauma team has had in training hundreds of individuals in the IAD territory.
The board thanked DiPinto, via video conference, for his commitment and dedication to the literacy programs.
Disaster response has also been a major part of effectively providing relief and guidance to dozens of islands and countries battered by tropical storms, hurricanes and earthquakes across the IAD territory during many years, said Amundson. “We live right in the middle of this disaster prone area of the world.”
“In the days following Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998, it became apparent that psychological first aid and trauma counseling was needed for the populations of Honduras and Nicaragua,” explained Amundson. ADRA Inter-America and Loma Linda University formed a partnership to address the needs of the victims by providing direct intervention through the coordination of local and expatriate volunteer mental health professionals.
“Follow-up training sessions in many IAD countries have now established mental health intervention teams at the national level that are ready for rapid deployment to the distressed areas,” said Amundson.
That training was only possible through the partnership with LLU’s trauma team led by Beverly Buckles, Dean of the School of Behavioral Health, Department Chair and Social work and social ecology professor.
Buckles spoke to board members on the clear mission for which the trauma team was established: Sustainable capacity-building through service—clinical interventions, education, and research. Buckles added that Best practice interventions used included Psychological First Aid, Community Resiliency Modelä, Trauma Resiliency Modelä, and Pre-Post Disaster Specialized Curricula—Child Safety, Older Adult, Special Populations.
Onsite training and interventions have been provided in 15 countries, as well as 21 clinical and educational interventions and 1,700 direct and indirect services. In addition, 1,364 participants have been trained across Inter-America, reported Buckles.
A group in Haiti is trained by LLU Trauma Team after the aftermath of the earthquake which hit January in 2010. Image courtesy of Beverly Buckles.
“Inter-America has been the territory we have trained the most,” said Buckles. It basically represents about 50 percent of our overall training around the world, she added.
The largest training happened after the devastating earthquake killed more than 300,000 people in Haiti in 2010, said Buckles. LLU Trauma had previously trained 60 social workers and psychologists in Haiti in 2004 after devastating floods. When the LLU team arrived in Haiti weeks after the earthquake, they found that all the previously trained team members perished except for one trained physician who was not in Haiti when the earthquake struck, she explained.
“We brought in our wellness programs and trained people from church. Most of those individuals were laypersons. It was emotionally devastating but we had to work with what was available in Haiti,” explained Buckles.
What LLU Trauma Response Team considers as a complete team resides in Trinidad, said Buckles. In 2009, a team of 24 individuals was trained to respond to emergencies in the string of islands in the Caribbean. Just this past September, Dominica was devastated by Tropical Storm Erika, and trauma team members were able to use their training and provide mental health interventions for displaced individuals after they were left homeless.
Wally Amundson embraces Abel Pacheco, president of El Salvador Union, as he is given an award for leadership in support of ADRA and literacy programs set in place with the government in his country.
Creating a trauma team locally has always been the goal for the LLU Trauma Team, said Buckles. “We realized very early on that there’s no way the Loma Linda team can get out there soon enough because mental health is not a medical component they look at when disaster strikes,” she said. “Physical medical intervention is, and we stand back until roads get cleared, but that means things can be delayed, and trained individuals more locally based, know how to do planning.”
Buckles said the team in Trinidad is so committed and open to continuing learning and building capacity that it’s the kind of team that she could call upon to travel anywhere in the world for training and intervention.
Creating more local teams will be the key to ensuring the kind of intervention needed when an emergency situation arises, said Buckles. “We want to also take this capacity training from the professional side and take it to the lay level with prevention and early intervention in capacity trainings, getting every member involved just like the world church is advocating,” Buckels said.
The partnership with LLU’s trauma team has been so valuable, along with the ADRA coordinators and church member volunteers who form a permanent team in providing assistance to the community even on a small scale, day to day,” said Amundson.
ADRA Inter-America recognized Beverly Buckles with a special award for her leadership and work across the Inter-American Division.
Among the many projects ADRA offices have generated throughout the years, includes a sewing project for unwed mothers in Mexico; micro credit programs for women-head of households in Honduras; personal training and marketable skills for displaced persons, mostly women-head of households in Colombia; locally funded literacy programs through ingathering organized by church volunteers in the Dominican Republic; livelihood projects for farmers and fishermen recovering from the earthquake in Haiti, among others.
David Poloche (left) of the West Venezuela Union is introduced by IAD Treasurer Filiberto Verduzco as newly elected ADRA Inter-America director, on Nov. 1, 2015.
ADRA Inter-America gave awards to each of the 24 union presidents during the board meeting for their commitment and dedication to assisting the vulnerable and disadvantaged in their countries. The awards cited specific areas of contributions to society such as literacy programs, children helping children school kits, and emergency response.
The board elected David Poloche as the new ADRA director for Inter-America.
Poloche has served the church faithfully in a variety of administrative positions for more than 40 years. Most recently he has served as Union Treasurer for 19 years in Venezuela. He was the country director for five years.
Amundson thanked church leaders and board members as the meeting came to a close. “It has been a real privilege and honor to serve here at the Inter-American Division for the past 23 years, and to serve as your ADRA director in this great territory,” said Amundson, who is retiring with over 35 years of service. “I see much evidence the Lord is leading his people during this unpredictable time in earth’s history.”