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February 28, 2007

A Proper Beginning to Lent

While posting my most recent blog entry in anticipation of our Africa trip, I was stricken with the inadvertent Lenten discipline I'll be taking for the next two weeks. It has me justifiably nervous!

Being a proper child of the digital age, my daily routine is spent juggling my laptop, a cell phone, a PDA, an iPod and various and sundry electronic gadgets. I am connected to my peers and my friends and my family for 24 hours a day. Texting, video messaging, email, blogs, newsfeeds all combine to keep me informed and to make my own life available to those I love.

While in Africa, I will have none of these things. I will be utterly disconnected from my daily reality and the quick easy fix of calling on friends or family at any time the mood strikes. I will be absent the daily, hourly, almost down to the minute flow of information that I have become accustomed to.

No news; no gossip or scandal; no quick and easy way to look up a fact I do not know; or answer a question with the immediacy of the digital age. No way to write a quick article or reflection or hammer out a new poem on the keyboard. Heavens... I may have to actually use pen and paper!

This is a prospect that I find terrifying and exhilarating at once. And it will certainly require of me more patience and deliberation than I have had need of in a very long time.

I am an information junkie. And that quest for constant connection, the exploration of ideas and the constant question and answer dialectic informs so much of my life and even my search for an understanding of God and God's history with us, that to be without my digital fix for the next two weeks begs a very serious question:

Is this something God has placed in my path for Lent to make me find new ways to express my longing?

And secondly, have the use of these means of communication in my life usurped the role of waiting in my life as a reminder that I cannot always have what I want when I want it?

As I embark on the journey today, I will miss my family and friends and all of those with whom I have daily interaction through the wonders of electronic information sharing. I will be absent my digital community that gives me so much nourishment.

You will all be in my prayers and thoughts and I will try to record as much as I can using my good old fashioned memory cells... rusty as they are... so that I can share with you all when I return.

I ask for your prayers as we travel, so that we might not only find safety on our journey, but that I might also enter in to the Lenten journey so surprisingly sprung upon me. I trust that God will reveal something mighty and marvelous if I enter fully into the desert of "digital aloneness" that has been prepared for me.

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Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 9:05 AM | | Comments (0)

February 27, 2007

A trip to Africa

Tomorrow, we leave for an extended trip to Africa with the Recycled AIDS MEdicine Program. While I will keep a journal, blogging will be virtually impossible while I am away. I will post my journal here upon my return. But, in the meanwhile, I request your prayers as we travel with over six suitcases full of medications, and I offer this little blog post so you can know more about our trip.


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Anthony and I are on the Board of Directors of this agency in San Francisco composed of 5 volunteers who collect unused HIV medications and redistribute them to clinics in the developing world. Many people with HIV end of with large quantities of medications that go unused, mainly due to the medications not working in their particular case, or a change in regimen. Some medications are from folks who have died and the families donate them to us. Some medications are perfectly fine, but because of expiration dates can no longer be sold or used in the US in spite of the fact that they are still quite usable, in some cases for up to two years after they expire.

Anthony and I will visit two agencies in Zimbabwe to meet the people that our work directly benefits. We will help several doctors in our party at an open clinic in Harare for two days distributing medication and offering counseling to those we can. Many hundreds of people will show up and wait from the night before to be seen by a doctor. Many will have to be turned away because we cannot see everyone given the limited staff. For four days afterwards, we will stay at the Mother of Peace orphanage with the children whose parents have died as a result of HIV infection. Many of them are HIV positive.

The pharmaceutical industry in the US is maximized NOT for the health of the individual, but for the profit of the pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of medication available in the US but at tremendously inflate prices. Because of this, and due to the high number of HIV cases in the developing world, medications are difficult to come by in places like Africa and South America because to offer them at cheaper prices does not benefit the pharmaceutical industry.

There is tremendous social stigma attached to HIV infection, particularly in the developing world. Many people risk losing their jobs, housing, and health care if it is discovered they have HIV. The clinics we supply, under the supervision of a medical staff, make sure that these medications are distributed in an equitable fashion.

RAMP has criteria for how the medications we donate are distributed:

1 - the agencies many not charge for the medication
2 - Social and economic status may not be used to determine who has access to the medications.

The medications we receive are donated anonymously in drop off boxes across the Bay Area. We then collect them and rigorously sort them into drugs which we may permissibly distribute and those we may not. Unusable drugs are incinerated and the others are sorted according to which clients need which medications. We currently supply a clinic and an orphanage in Zimbabwe, a clinic in Mexico City and another in Santiago, Chile. In addition, we supply medications to a women's health program in Uganda.

With an annual budget of $5000, we distribute as much medication as comparable agencies in the US with annual budgets in excess of  $150,000. Last year, we gave away nearly $2 million in medications that would otherwise have been thrown away. We are an all volunteer agency and rely on couriers to get medications to our clients. We will be hand delivering several suitcases full of medications on our trip.

Brother Karekin

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Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 12:20 PM | | Comments (0)

February 17, 2007

A Little Perspective

U.N.: Hunger kills 18,000 kids each day

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 17, 7:43 AM ET

UNITED NATIONS - Some 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world in 2007," the head of the U.N. food agency said.James Morris called for students and young people, faith-based groups, the business community and governments to join forces in a global movement to alleviate and eliminate hunger — especially among children.

"The little girl in Malawi who's fed, and goes to school: 50 percent less likely to be

HIV-positive, 50 percent less likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby," he said in an interview Friday. "Everything about her life changes for the better and it's the most important, significant, humanitarian, political, or economic investment the world can make in its future."

Morris, an American businessman and former president the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, one of the largest charitable organizations in the U.S., is stepping down as executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program in April after five years of leading the world's largest humanitarian organization.

He said that while the percentage of people who are hungry and malnourished has decreased from a fifth of the world's population to a sixth of the population, the actual number of hungry people is growing by about 5 million people a year because of the rising population.

"Today 850 million people are hungry and malnourished. Over half of them are children. 18,000 children die every single day because of hunger and malnutrition," Morris said. "This is a shameful fact — a terrible indictment of the world in 2007, and it's an issue that needs to be solved."

Morris said the largest number of malnourished children are in India — more than 100 million — followed by nearly 40 million in China.

"I'm very optimistic that India and China are very focused on this issue," he said. "They're making great progress — (but) need to do more. (It) needs to be a top priority."

Elsewhere, there are probably 100 million hungry children in the rest of Asia, another 100 million in Africa where countries have fewer resources to help, and 30 million in Latin America, he said.

As Morris prepares to leave his post, he said the two issues of greatest concern are the increasing number of impoverished people and the "very significant, growing number of natural disasters around the world."

According to the

World Bank, natural disasters have increased fourfold over the last 30 years, he said. That means several billion people need instant help over the course of a decade because of disasters such as the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, or drought in southern Africa.

The response to these disasters and conflicts such as in Sudan's Darfur region and Lebanon has meant that most development aid has been used to save lives — not to help communities prevent disasters and promote development through agricultural programs, education for children and water conservation, Morris said.

The agency's biggest operation today is in Darfur, where violence and security are major problems and 2.5 million people have fled their homes and now live in camps.

"Our convoys are attacked almost daily. We had a truck driver killed there at the end of last year. Our convoys coming through Chad from Libya are always at risk. When the African Union troops were there, that was very helpful. The U.N. troops will be even more helpful," Morris said.

He was referring to a plan for an AU-U.N. force to be deployed in Darfur, which is awaiting approval from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

American diplomat Josette Sheeran will replace Morris, who plans to head home to Indianapolis.

"I will work as hard as I can every day of the rest of my life to see that more resources are available to feed hungry children," Morris said.

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Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 12:51 PM | | Comments (0)

February 6, 2007

Untitled

24 Year-Old Videographer Now Longest-Running Imprisoned Journalist In US History

Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup refused to release freelance videographer Josh Wolf from jail, where he has been for 169 days since being imprisoned for refusing to turn over raw footage to a grand jury. Today, he becomes the longest-running imprisoned journalist in U.S. history.

Wolf, 24, was held in contempt of court in August 2006 for refusing to comply with a subpoena demanding the raw footage from aJuly 2005 protest in which a police officer was injured and allegations of vandalism of police property were made. Wolf's imprisonment for contempt, if uninterrupted, will run until the expiration of the Grand Jury in July 2007 -- even though all the underlying criminal charges relating to the incident have been dropped.

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Posted by Br. Karekin, BSG at 12:07 PM | | Comments (0)