HUMANITARIAN TRIP

By HEATHER SMATHERS
BULLHEAD CITY – A group of local business leaders, doctors and dentists are heading out for a humanitarian trip to Costa Rica in January.
The group of six will visit the tiny village of Jorco and will perform medical and dental exams for the villagers, and the seasonal visitors who pick coffee.
“After going to Central America earlier in the year, I realized there was so much more we could do to help the people out,” said Dana Kern, owner of the Firehouse Coffee Company and Roaster and organizer of the trip. “I came back and wanted to get a group together to go during the prime coffee-picking season to help out the pickers.”
Exams will be offered to both villagers and coffee pickers, many of whom will travel from Panama and Nicaragua for the season. Exams will include blood pressure and blood sugar checks, and screens for respiratory problems and diabetes. Basic CPR, first-aid and hygiene lessons also will be offered.
Traveling with Kern, who also is a paramedic with the Bullhead City Fire Department, will be his wife, Karen, serving as a dental assistant; Dr. Rob Sturms, DDS; Adriana Bauer, RN; David Vierthaler, RN; and Alice Cummins.
Each person is paying their own way to Costa Rica, where the group will stay at the coffee plantation.
“I’m really excited,” Cummins said. “This will be my first trip to Costa Rica and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Kern said he planned the excursion because he believes it is the right thing to do. He said he tries to think globally by purchasing organic and free trade coffees from Central and South America, and by helping the people picking the coffee.
“I believe that if I recycle and use organic coffees and try and help the people who are picking the coffee, that the people will be paid back in other ways,” he said.
The group will be gone from Jan. 17-23.

SOURCE:http://thecostaricanews.com/

NO PAIN NO GAIN

Without pain there is no gain

ONE would say prison is a sinister place to live due to high razor wired-fence and surrounding brick walls.
Others would say prison is a place where bad people are put so they can suffer because they are criminals convicted of crimes and deserved to die there.
Some say prison is a place where continuous harassments, violence and intimidation are prevalent.
But to me, I would say I’m thankful that I was sent to prison.
It is prison that shaped and molded my character and now I am really a new person, though the experiences I had encountered in prison were painful.
I appeal to all the inmates at Bomana and other prisons around the country, not to return to past doings but dedicate your lives to God and you will see change in your ways, dreams and visions.
These were the words of a former Bomana prison inmate, Barry Pale, who served seven years in the nation’s biggest and notorious prison from 2002 to 2009.
He was released last month with 50 other inmates from Bomana having completed their jail-terms.
Here he described his ordeal as “irregular and frame up” statements that led to his conviction.
“At the time, I was doing my third year economics at the University of Papua New Guinea.
“I was given financial support by my relatives and friends for bus fare and other daily needs. But I didn’t use the funds purposefully.................


READ MORE :http://www.thenational.com/

NEW YEAR MESSAGE

“Hope and Encouragement in times of hardship and adversity”: Envoy Kesang Gyaltsen's new year message

December 31, 2009

tibet-envoy.eu[Tuesday, December 29, 2009 17:52]
by Kelsang Gyaltsen, Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama


The year 2009 has been an extremely difficult one for the people of
Tibet. Harsh repression marked the life of the Tibetan people inside
Tibet under Chinese Communist rule. Since the Tibetan protests in 2008
there has been a massive presence of military and security personnel in
Tibetan areas. Political campaigns such as the “Strike Hard” or
“Patriotic Re-education” are regular features of life in Tibet. On a
nearly daily basis we hear of new arrests of Tibetans, heavy sentences
handed down on Tibetans for peaceful expression of their grievances and
aspirations and according to our information four Tibetans have been
executed in October this year.

The year 2009 has also been a year without any face-to-face meetings
between the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and officials of the
Chinese leadership. This is the sad state of affairs of the Tibetan
people one year after the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Despite this gloom and grim reality, I remain optimistic on the issue of
Tibet in the long run. The spirit of the Tibetans - inside as well as
outside of Tibet - is stronger than ever. There is also growing
awareness of and concern about the Tibet issue in China and intense
internal discussions about minority issues are taking place in PRC........

READ MORE.........http://www.tibet.ca/

World Tibet News