Washington, D.C.—As June 1 marked the beginning of 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, global humanitarian ecumenical agency Church World Service (CWS) and Caritas Antilles signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for mutual support, learning and collaboration in the areas of disaster preparedness, response and long-term recovery.
A member of Caritas Internationalis, Caritas Antilles is headquartered in St. Lucia. Through its connection with Catholic dioceses and parishes, it serves primarily the Caribbean islands of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, which include Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Curacao, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, and Bermuda. Caritas Antilles also responds to disasters in Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Founded in 1946 by mainline Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox denominations in the United States, and named the 2022 National Member of the Year by the U.S. National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), CWS is a faith-based organization transforming communities through just and sustainable responses to hunger, poverty, displacement, and disaster. CWS is currently supporting long-term recovery efforts in response to Haiti’s 2021 earthquake and Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas.
“Hurricane activity is predicted above-average this year, local faith communities and their partners will continue to play a crucial role in delivering quality and timely disaster prevention, response, and long-term recovery support and accompaniment, Especially in hard-to-reach islands and archipelagos where formal disaster response coordinating mechanisms are less developed or non-existing,” said Martin Coria, CWS regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Caritas Antilles looks forward to deepening this new relationship based on the mutual objectives and working with the most vulnerable in our societies, as this can be further strengthened with this partnership with CWS.
For more information, contact Caritas Antilles and CWS staff:
Monica Arango, CWS Communications and Advocacy Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean – marango@cwsglobal.org
Marcia Haywood, Caritas Antilles Regional Coordinator – caritasantilles@aocslu.org
Caritas Antilles
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CWS Latin America and the Caribbean
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