Posts Tagged ‘Aid Still Required’

April 2nd, 2012

An Update on Darfur United

If you did not get a chance to see our first blog post on Darfur United, please check it out here.  Briefly, iAct is putting together an all star soccer team comprised of the best players in the Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad.  From roughly 280,000 refugees spread out over 12 camps across Chad, the top 5 players from each camp were invited to try out for Darfur United, the team that will represent Darfur in the Viva World Cup in Iraq in May of this year. 

Darfur United is coming together!  Over the last several days, the Darfur United coaches Mark Hodson and Brian Cleveland and iAct founder Gabriel Stauring have been in Camp Djabal in Eastern Chad running the tryouts for the team that will represent Darfur at the Viva World Cup.  Their emotional accounts of the experience have been wonderful to follow and, as an Honorary Coach, Aid Still Required is here to give you an update on how everything is coming together.

While the men come from many different tribes, they are truly embodying their team moniker–coming together to represent the best of the people of Darfur before the world.  On the morning of the second day of tryouts, the coaches were worried that the players slept in as the 5:30am start time passed…but emerging in direct line with the rising sun, they came running in together, clapping to the rhythm of their strides.  It was what Mark Hodson called “a moment in your life that stays with you forever.” Their documentarian, James Thacher, was there to capture the moment that admittedly couldn’t have been scripted if they had tried.

 

 

With unbearably hot temperatures during the middle of the day, tryouts have been running from 5:30 to 7:30 in the morning and again from 3:30 in the afternoon until dusk while hundreds of fellow refugees watched from the sidelines and cheered.  This is just a microcosm of what has been happening across the refugee camps for the last several months as athletes competed to be one of the five representatives from their refugee camp to travel to Camp Djabal to try out for Darfur United.  Now, those who do not make the 20 member squad will go back to their camps, proud of their comrades and rooting them on as they train for the games in Iraq.

With the hardships of refugee life a constant reality, the joy of competition and the pride of playing for one’s country is a healing salve.  Aid Still Required is proud to be a supporting organization of this beautiful endeavor.  We will keep you updated as Darfur United trains for the Viva World Cup!

 

 

 

 

 

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March 22nd, 2012

Aid Still Required and World Water Day – Send a Tsunami of Love to Indonesia

-from the desktop of Maureen Charles, ASR Board Secretary
Today is World Water Day, and in Aceh, Indonesia, where an estimated 160,000 people perished and over a million were displaced in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami, thousands of people have been without safe, clean, accessible water for over 7 years. 
Imagine all that ocean water rushing over your land, taking the leaves of your loved ones, and leaving you with no livelihood, and ironically, without water. Imagine going 7 years without a shower, unable to pour yourself or your child a glass of water without first hauling it for miles in heavy jugs or buckets…
In Aceh, women and girls walk miles a day carrying water and people bathe in polluted oceans that are routinely used as toilets. Long term progress on a variety of issues, including health, food security, gender equality, and environmental sustainability, is dependent on whether people have access to water that is safe to drink and and adequate for sanitation purposes.
Bio-Sand Filter
At Aid Still Required, one of the most elegant solutions that we fund is the building of eco-friendly sand filters that provide clean water in the villages of Aceh Province. It is an inexpensive, sustainable way to alter people's lives. We also provide vocational training for women in the region. The two go hand-in-hand. Imagine the transformative power of shifting your efforts from hauling water to earning a living.
It is because of such leading edge thinking that I choose to serve on the Board of Aid Still Required. Every project is carefully vetted for green sustainability, transparency, and efficiency. Our focus is on self-reliance – equipping people with the resources they need to live in dignity, health and peace.
Please make a donation of any size today, and every time you drink water or take a shower or turn on the tap, remind yourself that you are making it possible for others to do the same.

To make sure that your money goes as far as possible, we partner with small, locally based nonprofits whom we carefully vet to ensure that funds are spent in efficient and appropriate ways.  In Aceh, $40 gives one family access to clean water; $125 sets up a family farm complete with trees for an orchard; $250 establishes a woman in a handicrafts business including small business training. 
Thank you for helping us send a Tsunami of Love to Indonesia on this World Water Day.

And if you are reading this after World Water Day, know that the need is there every day and far from being met. Consider joining me and the other ASR Angels by setting up an automatic monthly donation.
-Maureen

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February 13th, 2012

Aid Still Required Collaborator Alison Thompson Featured in Guideposts Magazine

In January’s Guidepost inspirational magazine, ASR collaborator and friend Alison Thompson shares the story of how she found her new vocation of passionate volunteer and shines the light on five areas around the world that she feels need our help the most.

Alison ( far right, with We Advance team members Maeve McGoldrick, Aleda Fishburn, Deborah from Boston)

Hunter and Andrea met Alison in 2007 as they got more deeply involved in the work that became AId Still Required. Utlizing her nurse’s training as a first responder in the months following 9/11 changed Alison’s life and when the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami hit, her two week trip to offer aid turned into a 14 month Sri Lankan odyssey, creating a medical center, making a documentary and writing a book along the way. January 2010 saw Alison packing her bags for Haiti, where she still works today, as co-founder of We Advance, a women’s clinic in the most neglected slum area of Port au Prince.

You may have read about The We Advance Clinic in earlier ASR blogs and on the Haiti project page on the ASR website. We Advance provided the location for Aid Still Required’s first Women’s Trauma Relief project in August 2011; last month two more courses, including one for men in the community, were held in a tent adjacent to We Advance. Aid Still Required has also been proud to provide support to The Community Tsunami Early Warning Center on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, established by Alison during her tenure there and the only organization of its kind serving the region.

The Guidepost article provides an excerpt from Alison’s book The Third Wave, listing helpful tips of what to bring if you go into a disaster situation

What to Know If You Go
1. Prepay any upcoming bills and leave checks with friends who can pay while you’re away.
2. Get the appropriate vaccinations.
3. A soft backpack is easier to travel wtih than a hard suitcase. Include a first-aid kit. The last thing you want is to become part of the disaster.
4. Be sure to pack water filtration tablets, sunscreen, insect repellent, flashlights and batteries, waterproof matches, rubber gloves, plastic garbage bags, rope, duct tape, a Swiss Army knife, a watch, a compass and energy bars.
5. Pack stickers, bubbles, colored pencils, anything to put a smile on a kid’s face.
6. Take cash in smaller denominations, nothing larger than a twenty.
7. Buy a return ticket in advance. If things get too tough, you can always go home.
8. Don’t forget your faith—in God and in yourself. Leave behind your fear.
—adapted from Alison’s book The Third Wave

If you’d like to read the entire article, click here : Guide Post – Inspirational stories

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September 30th, 2011

Return from Haiti: Trauma Relief and Healing in Wharf Jeremie, Cite Soleil

From our ASR Newletter….
We returned from 12 days in Haiti last month and it has taken these past weeks to distill our experience there.

Our focus in Haiti was to implement a stress-reduction program for the women of Cite Soleil, Port au Prince’s notorius slum and to vet child services and reforestation projects.  While we were there, Haiti got under our skin.

Wharf Jeremie- Our project neighborhood


Haiti feels overwhelming. It has something to break everybody’s heart: utter poverty, alarming rates of unemployment, illiteracy, rape, orphaned and abandoned children; and a once-lush countryside which has been almost entirely deforested. Haiti was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere before last year’s earthquake leveled its capital city region.

The good news is that the Haitian people are remarkably resilient, bright, and loving, and as we found there, open to trying whatever will work for them, including our program in Cite Soleil.

Wharf Jeremie, Cite Soleil: Trauma Relief and Healing 

The Wharf Jeremie neighborhood of Cite Soleil, where our collaborative implemented its pilot program, has a long history of untoward violence, low literacy and high incidences of disease and sexual assault.  The area is considered so dangerous, most non-profits will not work there. This means that Cite Soleil, likely Haiti’s poorest area, has been grossly neglected.

Over the past year, ASR has helped support the We Advance Women’s Clinic there.  We Advance offers free gynecological care and rape counseling to thousands of women, many of whom have been assaulted ( there are roughly 100 rapes a day in the tent cities and settlements).  They also provide general family care as there is no other help in the area.

Day 3-Course participants meditating


A few months ago ASR learned about the success of a program for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)  and rape victims in Kosovo, Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan taught by the International Association of Human Values( IAHV), so we put two and two together, formed a collaborative effort amongst these groups and ourselves, and piloted the program in Wharf Jeremie to gauge the area’s interest.  Members of nouvelle vie, a branch of IAHV for Haitian young adults, would teach the course in Kreyol.

We were thrilled by the response.  Initially, we’d projected 80 women would participate in the program.  In the end, 143 signed on.  Given that the program requires attendance for four consecutive days  for 3-4 hours per day and that the participants would likely be called away for daily domestic duties or for emergencies, we projected about 50% would finish the entire course.  Again, we were surprised, and deeply heartened – more than 80% completed all four days.

Graduation - Participants with their "Setifikas" and gift bags


Since our return, the young Haitian trainers from nouvelle vie have held three followups  in the community, with an average of 90% of course graduates in attendance.
Due to this exceptional response, we’re now designing ways to expand this program further into Cite Soleil and other cities.  
Other Projects

We have identified a highly effective reforestation project in Leogane which, in addition to planting 800,000 trees per year is providing jobs and housing incentives to 600 people. Also, we visited orphanages where we see we can have a direct impact, and held meetings with several other nonprofits, big and small, to discuss ways ASR might make a lasting difference.

In the next few weeks we will finalize our multi-pronged appraoch for Haiti to address the needs for education , medical and psychological care, child services, and reforestation.  We will update the Aid Still Required community to see which programs most inspire your involvement. 

In the meantime, thank you for your support,  It is truly making a difference.

Andrea (cou-founder ASR) with a new friend

 

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August 4th, 2011

On Our Way to Haiti

Tomorrow we leave for Haiti to implement our pilot program for Trauma Relief in the Wharf Jeremie neighbohood of Cite Soleil, the worst slum of Port au Prince. We’re filled with both hope and apprehension; hope and excitement that we can make a difference in this community, apprehension as we received yet another Travel Advsiory from the US State Department, declaring Haiti a Red Alert due to unrest.

On  Monday, August 8th Aid Still Required, in conjunction with our local partners, the nouvelle vie branch of The International Association of Human Values and WeAdvance Women’s Clinic with special contributions from Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation and The Clinton Foundation will inaugurate a trauma relief program in the Cite Soleil nieghborhood of Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital. We are also bringing gift bags filled with donated personal care items such as shampoos, lotions, toothbrushes and toothpaste, organic soaps, and hand sanitizers which are small luxuries for the women. Thank you to the local Los Angeles businesses and many Art of Living and First Tuesday members in Los Angeles who contributed.

Alison Thompson, We Advance co-founder offering counseling for personal protection to young Haitian


Aid Still Required saw the power of bringing the Trauma Relief technique to this neighborhood and instigated the Wharf Jeremie program.

We Advance is a small medical clinic serving Wharf Jeremie and co-founded by our friend Alison Thompson whom we met working on issues surrounding the SouthEast Asian tsunami.  We Advance will be our liaison to the community. The International Association of Human Values teaches the Art of Living trauma relief  technique and has been working with young Haitian adults for four years. Through the creation of their own organization nouvelle vie, the young people are learning sustainable agriculture in addition to being mentored and gaining leadership training. 

The progam utilzes special breathing mediation and yoga practices to facilitate the healing and empowerment of women and girls who are victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and or rape.  The program has shown demonstrable results in other  high stress araeas such as Kosovo and Iraq in reducing phsyical and emotiioal stress in the face of upheaval.

Whille in Haiti, ASR will visit also ASR beneficiary The Academy for Peace and Justice secondary school, three orphanages, a reforestation project, several tent camps, and meet with local community organiztions and NGOs to see where we can bestmake a difference.

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