Freedom from Want,The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC, the Global Grassroots Organization That’s Winning the Fight Against Poverty, a gripping account of how the practical intellect of one person and the trail-blazing activities of an organization have been able to achieve something close to a miracle. — Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics “.Author Ian Smillie
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It is a 2007 book by Professor Paul Collier exploring the reason why impoverished countries fail to progress despite international aid and support. In the book Collier argues that there are many countries whose residents have experienced little, if any, income growth over the 1980s and 1990s. On his reckoning, there are just under 60 such economies, home to almost 1 billion people.
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, An Entrepreneur’s Odyessey to Educate the World’s Concern, by John Wood Founder of Room to Read. “Our future goal is more ambitious than ever: to enable more than 10 million children in over a dozen developing world countries to maximize their educational experiences by 2015.”—-John Wood Founder of R2R. We are proud to share that through the end of 2009 Room to Read has… Established: 9,220 libraries Constructed: 1,129 schools Published: 433 local language book titles Printed: 4.1 million local books Donated: 3.3 million English language books Supported: 8,707 girls’ educations Benefitted: 4,066,775 children!!
Nina and John share their passion for helping to bring aid to S.E. Asia — Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar (Burma). They help by supplying medical, educational and nutritional basic necessities to poor communities as well as connecting people.
2009 has passed and 2010 is coming! Today is the last day of the 2009 and please accept the wishes from Children and staff at Angkor Hospital for Children. May New Year brings you and your family good health, good wealth, good luck, and prosperity.
With warmest wishes!
The Angkor Hospital for Children, founded by renowned Japanese photographer Kenro Izu in 1999, supported by Friends Without A Border, provides comprehensive medical care to children in the Siem Reap area. On average, 400 children and their families arrive at the hospital each day. Recognized by Cambodia’s Ministry of Health as an official teaching hospital, it serves as a training site for health professionals throughout Cambodia through its Medical Education Center. The Capacity Building and Health Education Program works to both strengthen the capacity and improves the quality of local health centers and works with community members to teach good public health practices.
Charity Navigator, America’s leading independent charity evaluator, endorses Friends Without A Border with four stars.
Our visit to the Muslim Free Hospital and Medical Relief Society was enlightening, to see the amount of renovations $55,000USD can buy in Yangon City. The city hospital was wrapping up the construction and renovation of a minor operating room, outpatient area, a maternity ward and a pharmacy. Funds are being extremely well spent. The hospital sent a team to the delta setting up three clinics to cover the Christians, the Muslims and the Karens, reducing the risks of unfair treatment, which were all too common in Thailand during the tsunami.
The slogan of this charitable hospital is “For the poor of all communities”
And that it truly is, serving the Buddhist, Muslims, Hindus and Christians of Yangon city. We were greeted at the entrance by hordes of patients lined up to collect their prescribed medications. The out patient department was calling patient number 346! And it was only 10:30am. Our group arrived laden with bags of medical supplies, donations in kind from Canada, making for difficult passage in an already very crowd space.
The donations we bring include sutures, anti-biotics, ambu-bags, multi-vitamins, skin oitments, surgical blades, steri-strips,
The number of children using the centre daily has more than doubled, with well over 300 children coming to the centre daily, over last year.
Over 220 children studying full time in five classrooms in our special education program representing a 100% increase in 12 months.
Over 100 children participating in art, IT, English and sport activities.
All students because of lack of money, child-rearing responsibilities or simple parental neglect are not ready to attend or not able to afford public schools.
For most of these children this is their first opportunity for any schooling.
IT TRAINING
IT training represents an important component of our youth programs.
Two Sample Itineraries:
(a) 5-day-Itinerary with one night each in Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake
(b) 11-day-Itinerary with one night in Golden Rock, two nights each in Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake and total of three nights in Yangon.
5-Day-Itinerary
Day 01 : Arrive Yangon (International flight in the Morning)
Upon arrival in Yangon, you’ll be met and transferred to hotel. You’ll be guided to the following places of interest in Yangon.
Chaukhtatkyi Reclining Buddha
Landmark Shwedagone Pagoda
China Town evening market
Overnight in Yangon at Kandawgyi Palace Hotel / Deluxe Room (B)
By Nina and John
Canadians on this trip: Mark and Dawn Marshall, Tim Norman, Ross McClellan
Our first trip was with Serge Pun and Associates (SPA) travelling from Yangon to Pathein with 109 of their donors, volunteers and staff all involved with the initial emergency response. It quickly became apparent as to why international aid agencies all had so many difficulties and were met with a logistic nightmares trying to deliver assistance to the homeless victims of Cyclone Nargis.
We departed Yangon City at 7:00PM for the 100-mile journey on a very rough road. After arriving in Pathein 10 hours later, at 4:30am, we transferred to an express riverboat for a further 4-hour trip arriving at the village of Auk Pyun Wa on Middle Island at 9:00AM. At one point our river boat lost its steering coming to a halt up on mud flats due to deep fishing nets set up by local village entrepreneurs.
Due to its long term presence in Myanmar AZG was able to respond quickly after Nargis struck Myanmar. Operations started on the 5th of May (Yangon Division) and 6th of May (Ayawaddy Division; Ngapudaw and Laputta).
AZG sent 250 national staff from the large existing programmes in Myanmar and used the medical reserves that were already present in the country.
In the first weeks AZG sent out 8 distribution teams to ensure the distribution of food (rice, oil, fish, beans) and non-food items (sheeting, bed nets, blankets, toolkits) and 8 watsan teams to clean up ponds and wells. Distribution was executed at household level, ensuring that all recipients did acquire the necessary items. AZG sent also 28 mobile medical teams to conduct medical consultations, set up feeding centers for malnutrition and opened 8 fixed clinics in the Ngapudaw and Laputta townships.
The slogan of this charitable hospital is “For the poor of all communities” and that it truly is, serving the Buddhist, Muslims, Hindus and Christians of Yangon city. We were greeted at the entrance by hordes of patients lined up to collect their prescribed medications. The out patient department was calling patient number 346! And it was only 10:30am. Our group arrived laden with bags of medical supplies, donations in kind from Canada, making for difficult passage in an already very crowd space. The donations we bring each year include sutures, anti-biotics, ambu bags, multi-vitamins, skin ointments, surgical blades, steri-strips, dental instruments and book.
