The 2003 Japan Times Readers' Fund has distributed 1,480,782 yen to five organizations to help finance projects for Asian people in need.

As in the 20 preceding years, many of our readers and organizations supported the newspaper's annual yearend fundraising campaign for humanitarian aid.

A sum of 300,782 yen went to the Kyoto-based Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development to help finance a permaculture and pistachio-growing project in 12 villages around Herat in Afghanistan.

Four other groups -- the Japan International Volunteer Center, AMATAK (Association to Live With Cambodians), PAG-ASA Group Japan and the Friendly Asian Home -- each received 295,000 yen.

The Japan International Volunteer Center will work to improve wells and conduits to secure safe water in two farming villages in the Vientiane Province in Laos.

AMATAK, led by Rev. Fumio Goto of the Catholic Kichijoji Church in Tokyo, will buy lumber to build an elementary school in a village in the Battambang Province in Cambodia.

PAG-ASA Group Japan will financially help poverty-stricken children in Paco and Muntinlupe in and near Manila with their schooling.

FAH will use the money to help needy people from other parts of Asia living in Japan receive medical treatment, especially for infectious diseases, and help them go back to their homeland for continued treatment there.

We thank our readers again for their kind support.