"As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azeris from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict." - from Wikipedia - The Central Intelligence Agency. "The CIA World Factbook: Transnational Issues in Country Profile of Azerbaijan". Retrieved on 2007-02-14. Military involvement denied by the Armenian government. 31.6% unemployed - 43% below poverty
In 2005, Helen Little, invited the founders of Basic Needs Ministry to attend a missions fair at Horne Memorial United Methodist Church, Clayton, where a missionary presented his work and the needs in cool/cold climate Armenia. Area Methodist churches support M.E.R.C.I., which cooperates with the U.S. State Department in shipping disaster relief aid from Eastern North Carolina; telephone 888-440-9167. It is a very necessary service, providing excellent value, permitting us to move excess clothing from our area to needy families worldwide, and ensuring that the families do not have to pay for the clothing. Basic Needs cannot afford to ship a box to Armenia, but with help, we can provide the necessary materials to ship. $8,000 may seem an expensive shipping bill for a box, but the box is often 40' long. There are areas of the world, which simply do not have clothing available for their residents and/or where residents do not have money for clothing. A 40' container can easily hold more clothing than many local clothing stores carry in inventory, particularly if the clothing is baled. If a container held new clothing from a family department store, its value could easily be more than $1 million. In 2006, Basic Needs Ministry sent 5,000 clothing items to M.E.R.C.I. for a shipment to Armenia. The shipments continue, when volunteers come to pack at Basic Needs and M.E.R.C.I. |
