Gifts to this ECO assist with travel and communication funds related to consultant work with PCUSA-supported health and development programs as well as supporting visiting teams from PC(USA).

Avalon Girls Higher Education School

The Avalon Girls' School in Pathankot, Punjab, has an enrollment of more than 900 in classes from kindergarten through 12th grade. More than 100 are residential students. This fund supports their room and board.

Sangli Industrial School, located in west India, provides vocational training for very poor children. Contributions to this project provide ongoing support for the school.

Scholarships for Rural Development Students, Allahabad

$400/year will provide for tuition, room, board and book allowance for each Allahabad Agricultural Institute student recruited especially to become development specialists among grass-roots communities in rural India. For nearly 85 years the Institute has carried out this Presbyterian vision for future self-development in India.

Established in 1995 and financed by the Mizoram Synod, the Synod Multipurpose Training Center is a training school both for ordained and lay leaders of the church. It provides ministerial training such as pastoral counseling for pastors, and leadership, stewardship and management training especially for lay leaders, whose contribution in the Mizoram Church is commendable. It also organizes and provides vocational training free of cost along with a monthly stipend for men and women, who come from rural areas with poor economic background. The training programs include tailoring, knitting and shoemaking. The trainees are provided help in order that they can earn their livelihood on completion of the course.

Union Christian College, Aluva, Kerala, India

This project involves renovation and addition of buildings, development of innovative education programs to serve the needs of the community and creation of an endowment for future sustainability.

Evangelism

Frontier Mission: Tribals, Northeast India

The Manipur Synod of the Presbyterian Church of India continues to reach out to the Meitei peoples of northeast India. The challenge is great — two-thirds of the 2 million people of Manipur are Meitei. Recently the Meitei Bible was published. Gifts to this ECO will assist the Manipur Synod in this challenging outreach.

Frontier Mission: Zou Synod Outreach

Zou Synod of the Presbyterian Church of India continues to reach out to the unreached people in the area. Gifts to this ECO will assist them in various outreach efforts.

Church of North India Health Programs

Emmanuel Hospital Association

Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) is a Christian medical missionary society that provides health services through 17 hospitals and their community health programs in the city of Delhi as well as in rural villages in central and northern India. Gifts to this ECO will help EHA provide staff training and strengthen hospital management.

Frances Newton Hospital, India

Frances Newton Hospital in Firozpur is a 300-bed facility providing a full range of general and specialized services, including coronary care, pediatric intensive care and ophthalmic surgery. Contributions to this ECO will primarily support the hospital’s role as a Christian training center for medical personnel, including physician interns.

Ludhiana Medical Center (India)

In addition to serving over 200,000 patients each year, Ludhiana Medical Center is a historic Christian training facility. Gifts to this ECO support training costs and subsidize indigent patient care.

Miraj Medical Center

Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church for over a century, Miraj Medical Center serves the population of a vast rural area regardless of faith, caste or ability to pay. Miraj offers the services of a Maternal and Child Health Center and a Burn Unit and is the only hospital in the area with facilities for neurosurgery, cardiac surgery and hemodialysis.

Mussoorrie Village Development, India (Mussoorie Gramin Vikas Samiti (MGVS)

This is an integrated community development and outreach project of the Christian Retreat and Study Centre working in the village communities of Chamasari and Kanda-Kimor. The program includes community awareness, forest conservation, health and health education, work among women, and agriculture. Funds are needed for medical supplies, training costs for village health workers, and for transportation to rural areas.

NetWorkers Malaria Prevention

NetWorkers projects in malaria-stricken nations provide mosquito nets and prevention education to protect families from malaria, the disease that is the leading cause of death among young children and a serious health threat to pregnant women.

Society for Nurture, Education and Health Advancement (SNEHA)

SNEHA works actively with the poorest of the poor among the Dalits in the slums of Khurbura. The program includes a school for children, community health education and a subsidized visiting clinic. Funds will be used to provide scholarships for children, community health education and medical care for those who cannot afford to pay.

Vellore Christian Medical College

The Vellore Christian Medical College has an excellent undergraduate and postgraduate nursing school. Christian women from all over India seek admission to the college because of its outstanding record. Scholarships are required in order that disadvantaged Christian girls can attend this school.

Ending religious intolerance and rebuilding the human community is an urgent priority for Christians living as minorities in many countries. It is also a serious concern for all people of faith where other religious minorities face prejudice, discrimination and sometimes persecution. The PC(USA) works with other institutions to build a human community free from misunderstandings, suspicion and fear. Such institutions include, for example, SABEEL Center in Jerusalem, the Christian-Buddhist Relations Institute in Chiang Mai (Thailand), the Henry Martyn Institute in Hyderabad (India), Rajpur Center (India), Interfeidi in Yogijakarta (Indonesia), the Intercultural Forum of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services (CEOSS) in Cairo (Egypt), and other centers in Africa and Europe. These centers bring together religious leaders, intellectuals, writers and grass-root participants to share expertise, develop strategies, and generate positive approaches to deal with religious intolerance. They build peace through interfaith and intercultural dialogue and action.

Mission Personnel

Brett and Shelly Faucett — Regional Consultant for Health and HIV/AIDS, India/Thailand/China

Brett and Shelly Faucett are newly appointed regional consultants for health and HIV/AIDS in South Asia, based in Chiang Mai. Most recently Brett, a registered nurse, was on the staff of Hoag Presbyterian Hospital in Newport Beach, Calif. Brett and Shelly served for two years with the Peace Corps in Moldova. Shelly has had special training in teaching English as a second language and has worked as a literacy specialist as well as an ESL teacher with the Peace Corps.

Kathy Hoffmann is academic dean and teaches at Woodstock Christian International School in Mussoorie, a Christian, international, residential boarding school, with more than 400 students from nearly 30 countries. Kathy has taught at Woodstock for more than 20 years.

Paul Love, an ordained PC(USA) minister and a professor of English, is director of the Study Centre for Indian Literature in English and Translation, which is part of the American College in Madurai. The Centre facilitates the translation of regional-language writing into English so literature in these languages can be more widely read. Paul, who has been teaching in India for some 50 years, helped develop the first graduate program in the humanities for this predominantly science-oriented college.