Inspiring :: Young People Who Rock

This girl is amazing. She is only 16 and is already trying to make this world a better place. I pray that there are more young people out there like her, that is what this generation needs, young people who are willing to live for others and make this world a smaller, better, more loving place. Check out the article.

Tara Suri, 16, hopes to help to young children around the world achieve their
full potential.

Bake sales and recycling are common fundraising tactics in middle school. But Tara Suri wasn’t baking cupcakes for just any common cause. Her cause was hope, literally.
When Tara was 13, she was more than saddened by her trip to India with her family. From her sadness sprung the idea of trying to help the orphans in India and Sudan whom she saw abandoned by their parents, sometimes found in garbage dumps. Tara started H.O.P.E., or Helping Orphans Pursue Education. It aims to give kids the opportunity to achieve their full potential with the basics, like a sturdy roof over their heads, that Tara and her friends sometimes took for granted back in Scarsdale, New York.
Now, at 16, she has expanded her cause with an umbrella organization called Aandolan, which means “a movement for change” in Hindi. Through that fundraising group, Tara now runs Turn Your World Around and Connect a Kid along with H.O.P.E., and a lot of it for kids growing up continents away who are in sad situations.

Anti-Malaria Efforts Yield New Success

Anti-malaria efforts yield new success
Research finds unprecedented drop in deaths in two hard-hit countries

Widespread use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and state-of-the-art drugs has succeeded in cutting malaria deaths in half in two countries most heavily affected by the disease, the World Health Organization is reporting today.

The findings from Rwanda and Ethiopia are the first to show a greater than 50 percent reduction in malaria mortality nationwide in "high burden" countries.

This is so encouraging for those working on this problem in our world. Malaria is a preventable disease that millions die from and the efforts to educate people on the disease and how to prevent it and the efforts to distribute the much needed mosquito nets and malaria medicines and starting to pay off; all of the hard work put into these social injustices is beginning to show. That has to bring joy to people's faces who have dedicated their lives for this cause.

Keep it up I say, and tell your friends about what needs to be done and what they can do from where they are to help in this crisis.

There's a Little Hope

Here's the Headlines on msnbc.com:

Eastern Congo militia groups sign peace deal
Treaty calls for immediate
cease-fire in embattled African country

...but we all know what those African tribal peace treaties/cease-fires can be like. It's a sad reality that this could only be temporary. But maybe, just maybe, this one may work, this one may give the poor victims who have been forced from their homes, who have relatively no health care and no security to speak of, maybe this could allow them time to reset their lives, to flee and get to a place that can be safe. I feel the only safe place is in the arms of their Jesus. But I pray that they can find peace where they are.

Sometimes...

...I get homesick for a place I've never been......but long to go.

a letter from Ethiopia

Our little Ethiopian baby girl wrote us a letter. It was absolutely heart wrentching. Here's what she wrote (and take into consideration that the translation from her language to English is a bit sketchy)...

Dale and Lindsay Best,
How're you? I'm alright. with my family Praise God. We celebrated our millenium warmly last September. I'm work hard at school in this millenium I hope my country will pull through poverty this time too. I like dolls like you do Could you send me one? Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God. Goodbye.

Making a Difference

Paul told Timothy to not allow his age to hold him back to make a difference in the world around him. I just read this blog of a few kids who don't let their age stop them either...

Santa Monica, California, is far from Tanzania. But a group of high schools there makes the distance seem closer. The Crossroads Teen AIDS Ambassadors are the youngest certified educator-activists in the country working toward the eradication of the disease.

The California students bring their mountainous mission to Africa. They travel to Tanzania and other countries to help tell their young counterparts about the history of the pandemic, the virology of HIV, and the importance of safe sex. But they also bring the "mountain" to them: Kids from Tanzania have come to California to go through the program to experience and see inspiration of a life minus the disease.

The hours are long, the information is daunting, and the trek is substantial. But from the AIDS Ambassadors' perspectives, even their small hands can help start move the mountain.

A ray of Hope

I randomly came across a little seed of hope.

Ethiopia's President Girma Wolde-Giorgis is a good man. The Ethiopian presidency is largely a symbolic office with little power, but the man holding that symbolic office is a good man. I found not an ounce of corruption nor anything negative about Girma Wolde-Giorgis. Actually the oppisite is conveyed in his wikipedia article.

Girma is a married fater of five. He grew up in Addis Ababa where he attended the Ethiopian Orthodox Church school and later an Itialian schhol in town, after the Itialian invasion of his country. He worked as an air traffic controlmen, undoubtably one of the most stressful jobs! He speaks 6 languages, obviously a very educated man. He has been in the military, the air force, served as director of Trade, Industry, and Planning, was a member of Parliment, and later to become speaker of parliment. He has served as director of Ethiopia's Peace Programme which was set up in 1977 to handle the Eritean problem peacefully. He was a member of the House of Peoples' Representatives of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE).

In addition to his political and career achievements, this man has been awarded for his various humanitarian contributions and initiatives. I like to hear that in anyone, especially in a political African leader. It is encouraging. The UNAIDS' Medal was given to him in October of 2004. That is a beautiful thing. He was President of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society- Eritrea Branch (Asmara) as well as Board President of the Cheshire Home (It is an extended care hospital with 296 beds providing infirmary care for the severely disabled patients who need long-term treatment / care and infirmary patients from the Central Infirmary Waiting List...Cheshire Home encourages patients to actively participate in community, recreational and religious activities run with the assistance of volunteers. Some residents are working in sheltered workshops.) and Managing Director of The Leprosy Control Organization. He served as Board Member of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society and Head of its International Logistics Department. He launched an environmental protection association called Lem Ethiopia in 1991 to date serving as Vice President of the Board of the Association.