First US football, now Australian rugby scores for UN tsunami relief
First it was the United States with football. Now it is Australia with rugby with a bit of on-site fieldwork to assist the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in its emergency operations to feed the hundreds of thousands of people left destitute by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
First it was the United States with football. Now it is Australia with rugby with a bit of on-site fieldwork to assist the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in its emergency operations to feed the hundreds of thousands of people left destitute by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Former Australian rugby captain Nick Farr-Jones has visited Indonesia’s Aceh province, the worst-hit area in the dozen countries devastated by the disaster on 26 December, to see first-hand WFP’s efforts to deliver food to survivors and tour several WFP-supported projects.
His visit follows that by several National Football League (NFL) players, who earlier this month helped WFP deliver food by loading helicopters and participating in distributions to displaced families Indonesia and Sri Lanka, thereby raising the agency’s profile among the donor community.
Mr. Farr-Jones was appointed as a WFP Goodwill Ambassador for the 2003 World Cup, when WFP teamed up with the International Rugby Board (IRB) to raise awareness of the world's 800 million hungry people.
From Indonesia, he is travelling to London to assist with IRB’s Rugby Aid match on 5 March. Funds raised by the event, which will see a Southern Hemisphere XV play a Northern Hemisphere XV, are destined for WFP operations.