Egypt’s Millennium Package: One-Third of the
Budget,
Two-Thirds of the Target
CAIRO, Egypt — An assessment by the Bible
Society of Egypt of its ambitious distribution of Millennium Packages concluded
that in spite of obstacles it had brought tangible benefits – to the Society
itself as well as to the population at large. The Society took the project on
in faith and began putting the packages together before it was certain that the
necessary funding was available. Each package included a video of the Jesus
film, a New Testament, a children’s cartoon video and audio cassettes. The
funding proved hard to get, and in the final event the Society received just under
a third of what they had reckoned they would need to distribute the hoped-for
one million packages. The money came mainly in the form of a generous grant from
Opportunity 21. And by selling the packages for a little more than they
had budgeted, and by cutting down on other costs, they managed to distribute 600,000
packages, just under two-thirds of the target. It is thought that many of them
would have reached an average of five people, many of them from ‘unreached’
sections of the community. (WR 358/18 - 03.01) e-124