Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Activism

We totally suggest you take a look to the following associations and activists' campaigns who fight for a better world all around the planet!!!

http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/

http://www.charlizeafricaoutreach.org/



A great foundation thanks to which a 100% of the money raised goes to charity!!
A marvellous tale for you children but also for adults!!!!!!!
http://www.justlikeyoufoundation.org/

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tashirat foundation in Mexico

Tashirat foundation in Mexico

Tashirat Kids Newsletter – March/April 2011
Dear Family and Friends,

It’s the height of the dry season, and things are getting pretty dusty around here. There seems to be no way of keeping the kids clean, short of keeping them indoors, which frankly, would be too cruel when there is so much nice, chocolate colored dirt around to play with! They also love grinding different rocks and bricks into “chile” powder, and playing “restaurant” with it, but after an hour of two, they are hardly recognizable!



Our teen boys have been diligently building a cement paved bike track, advancing a few meters a day. It's hard work though, so thankfully our recently returned volunteer, Kao, has recruited all the younger boys to join in too, and they are advancing at triple speed. Since everyone is into riding bikes, we can’t wait until it’s finished. Many of the girls also recently received a donation of bikes from friends and family. Thank you Pimi Gill, Tina, Kao and family for their great bikes!





A couple of months ago the children were fast asleep, when smoke from a nearby forest fire forced us into an emergency evacuation of the entire orphanage! As ambulances and police trucks poured into Tashirat, the children huddled together in their pajamas, wide eyed, watching the mountain close behind our bungalows smolder.



We piled them and their bedding into the awaiting rescue vehicles, and were taken to our friends Anneke and Adrian’s house. When we arrived at our friends’ house, there were loads of beds already laid out, but the kids were having so much fun by then that it felt much more like a pajama party than an emergency evacuation!



The next morning, the smoke was better but the kids were having too much fun playing in our friends’ garden and enjoying their gracious hospitality to want to go home.

Other exciting news: we received a new little girl in February, and a new little boy just last week! The girl’s name is Joline and she is 4 ½ years old. She was abandoned when she was two years old, and has spent the last two years living in the big government foster home in Cuernavaca. Jolie was very timorous and insecure, and spent the first few days here sleeping and talking to no one. She is getting happier by the week though and is starting to run, play and gain confidence in herself.





When Jolie first arrived, she behaved much like a two year old. Fortunately, she has started to mature again and seems to be developing the equivalent of a few months every week or so. Surely by the next newsletter she’ll be a very different little person!

Juan Diego is also four years old, and basically grew up in the government foster home since he was abandoned at 6 months of age. He is a very easy kid, who is naturally extroverted and curious about everything that is going on around him.





Juan Diego is always pointing everything out and saying or asking it's name. We think he is going to prove to be one of the easier cases we have taken. He is lacking gross motor skills for a child his age, but we think he may normalize with age and lots of physical activity.

We are also hoping to take more Special Ed in the near future. Recently, we went to the visit the child welfare agency and were begged to take 6 more very special cases, between 5 months and 4 years old. One of the main reasons is that they have seen how the Special Ed. children we have taken in the past, have ended up normalizing a lot in our care. Plus, it is hard to find orphanages who will keep disabled children after they reach age 18, so these cases will probably end up in a government home all their lives, as they will never become 100% independent.



Also, many of the children we took were on up to 4 medications and suffered from many physical problems when they arrived and none is on medication nor do they suffer from those same problems now. The changes in our other children have also been positive; even the youngest of our children give these special children so much affection and love. It has really opened our kids’ hearts to love and care for others who need their love, as well as to receive love from all of us.

The biggest thank you to everyone who has stuck with us in an effort to help our children live a new life!

Happy Spring and best wishes to all,

Tashirat kids and staff

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Tashirat foundation



A huge thank you to everyone who has been helping us to raise funds for the school. We are still in need of one teacher’s salary – $700 USD a month – so please let us know if you can help in any way. Every sponsorship means so much. www.tashirat.com/donate .

In order to keep Ixaya open, we have two of our staff members volunteering full-time in the primary school grades, and another two volunteering part time to avoid the cost of three additional teacher’s salaries. We still need to pay four hired teachers though and as mentioned above, we are still missing the salary of one, so we continue to work on this and appreciate all your support!

The summer vacation here in Mexico has quickly come to an end, but it seems it was only days ago that we celebrated the last day of school and graduation!

In Mexico graduation from 6th grade (primary school) and then again from 9th grade (middle school) are celebrated as very big events in a child’s life. Here are some of our graduates this year.







The celebration was made special by the children’s artistic performances. One especially interesting performance was directed by a professional parade organizer, Roxana, who was a volunteer at Ixaya this past year. As one of the elective classes offered to the secondary students, Roxana gave instruction in performance arts.




Another highlight was a musical performance performed by the first and second graders as the culmination to this year’s music classes.

It was directed by our music teacher Jimmy, who has been a parent in the school and a volunteer teacher for the past two years.


The students also presented an array of their artwork.





A very special thank you to several friends who have gone the extra mile in their efforts to support our projects. Michelle Silva pulled off an amazing fundraiser, her first time ever, in Vancouver this spring, and all before ever coming for her first visit! One of our past volunteers Genevieve (aka Kao) Lawrie and Tina Jojic have been making and selling their own granola and tons of Ixaya stickers Kao designed, while another past volunteer, Craig Smith, inspired the local soccer academy in his hometown in Scotland to donate the proceeds from a soccer match. This week we just received the news that yet another past volunteer, Iris Maertens, raised funds by organizing an event for the World Cup and will be holding a music event in her native Belgium soon.

Our friend Alicia Gentz Montoya has been holding yoga class fundraisers over the past year in and around Los Angeles, California to help support Tashirat. Her next yoga event, Sweat for Tashirat, will be held September 25th at the Yogaworks studio in West Lake Village. The event will include free aromatherapy consultations courtesy of Robin Barnette of Aromachick, followed by a fun Vinyasa flow yoga class with Chaz Russ, who was recently named Best New Yoga Instructor in LA Family Magazine, and is the founder of Sisters Yoga, an all female yoga studio in Fresno, California. After the class, there will be complimentary Mexican style snacks, courtesy of Chipotle Restaurant.



Please attend if you are in the area or pass this invitation on to your friends that live in or around LA. You can call 805-371-3030 for more information or to rsvp. This entire event is free! All donations contributed will be sent directly to Tashirat to support our Ixaya School.



A very big thank you once again to each one of you for your continued care and support for the Ixaya school; we couldn’t do this without you!



Lots of love,

Tashirat and Ixaya school staff and students

www.ixayaschool.com

Monday, July 19, 2010

Tashirat Foundation


Our animal population has been growing – we now have a parrot, four bunnies, several dogs, and we just got two 4 month old St. Bernard puppies, which we are planning to breed (to help pay for the copious amount of food they eat!) This breed of dog is known to be kind, loving and loyal, which we thought would make them just perfect for the children…what we didn’t count on was that the littlest children would be absolutely petrified of them (and they aren’t nearly full grown yet)! Most of the little ones will now pet the dogs hesitatingly, but are still more than terrified if one of the dogs comes eagerly running to greet them! Only baby Arian, has been pretty much fearless from the start.



This spring we have been very excited about our eco- project. Our goal is to make the ashram and orphanage self sustainable and ecological. We are currently looking into installing “earthworm composts” by the main houses. This seems to be the most effective and fastest way of composting our organic waste, but we will need a lot of worms, as it takes one kilo of earthworms to make one kilo of compost per day! The earthworms are expensive, but an engineer friend has donated our first 10 kilos for free!

We are currently arranging an exchange program for groups of students to come and stay on the ashram, in exchange for landscaping gardens around the children’s homes, and building irrigation systems which recycle the water from the homes. This will supplement the food supply from the greenhouse, which is also being prepared to produce presently. We have a chicken coop just finished and are working on outfitting a solar room, where we can power our most important appliances. We also recently installed drain pipes to the large soccer court roof which funnels all the rain water into an enormous cistern. We can then use this water throughout the dry season. Since we only have rain during four months of the year, and no underground spring water, catchment systems are imperative.

Meanwhile the new children have been giving us so many funny anecdotes over the past year. Here are a few we thought you would enjoy hearing:


Dovin, age 5, and third youngest in a family of five, is one of the most impish little people you will ever meet. When he is excited and happy, he’ll often break into a jerky dance while pulling the most hilarious faces. He is full of enthusiasm, but loves to say “No!” to just about everything you say. One day, two of our teenage girls, Kendra and Rubi, began complaining that something or someone was leaving rocks in their beds night after night! It remained an unsolved mystery for a few days, until Dovin was caught in the act of sneaking into one of the girls’ rooms and filling her pillow case with rocks!

Recently all of our boys, ranging age 4 to 10, have discovered the joy of fort making! They will spend the entire afternoon building forts from just about anything they can find. Atair, age 10, and our most recent newcomer, is the master architect; he’ll spend hours making and remaking some of the most elaborate constructions on his own. Alex and Dovin, our 3 and 4 year old brothers, work more like a pair of mini engineer twins, chattering away as to the merits of each new piece of plastic or plywood they put into place.


Now Alex and Dovins’ older brother Abundio likes forts but he would much rather busy himself loading and unloading wheelbarrows of rocks, digging holes, and collecting brush. He so loves to help with “real work”, that he actually becomes immensely upset if his help is ever not needed.


We are very proud of our almost 4 year old boy Gaby, who suffers from Ehler Danlos syndrome (characterized by hyper elasticity of the joints) and dwarfism, as he is making the biggest effort to become mobile. He gets so excited when he sees a child running, that he shrieks, flails his arms and bounces up and down and motions them to run some more for him! Although his legs are still weak and floppy, his arms are strong enough to support his own weight now. His favorite thing is going down the slide; he likes to hang from the rails at the top of the slide, then let himself go whizzing down as he holds his breath! Gaby really loves the thrill, and the moment he comes to a stop, he calls out “mas, mas!” for more. One day while getting his diaper changed, Gaby came up with another new trick – he rolls over and then scoots himself backwards off the bed! We happened to catch one of his first tricks on video; check this link to see it!




Another great kid accomplishment, which we can’t take the credit for, is Oscar’s recent reading and writing progress. Oscar is just turned 11. His family of 3 arrived in the summer of 2009. None of the children had ever properly attended school, and Oscar was extremely self conscious about his inability to read or write. But thanks to a special volunteer, Antares Hernandez, he is improving by the week! Antares has been very dedicated to her daily three hours of tutoring him; so much so that she recently decided to commit to stay here for an entire year, instead of the two months she originally had planned, so that she could continue to give Oscar all the individual attention he needs, both academically and as his special “auntie”!

We have also had Betina Mansbach, a veteran elementary school teacher here for the past month as another great help tutoring the children in our special learning classrooms. With her passion for teaching she brought an enthusiasm and excitement to the classroom that kids and staff really enjoyed.

Our first and second graders had a blast in Betina's inspired classes!



As for our other volunteers, we’ve just had an acrobat from Germany, Kristin VeiB, who gave a 3 week beginning acrobatics course to the children, which culminated in an informal performance for all the families!




Melody White, another one of our artistic volunteers, created a puppet theatre with our 11 and 12 year old girls Misha and Danya, which they performed for the other kids! Alex and Dovin must have never seen a puppet show before, because they kept jumping up to scrutinize the puppets and then very gingerly try to touch them, to see if they were real!


Artistic opportunities for the children seem to just keep on coming, too; this summer we have both a professional pianist and modern dancer coming to do artistic programs with the children!

Thank you all so much for your care and support; we are deeply grateful for the kindness that you continue to share with us!

Wishing you all a wonderful summer!

With lots of love,

Tashirat kids and staff

Friday, May 28, 2010

My Pledge to the Animals

My Pledge to the Animals
written by
Pramada Shah
Vice President/ Animal Nepal
President /Animal Welfare Network Nepal
pramada00@yahoo.com


There seems to be no limit to the everyday crimes committed against animals in Nepal. The level of cruelty against every kind of species is so high and so commonplace that most of us simply close our eyes and ears and get on with our lives.

Stray dogs are regarded as pests, and left to die in the streets. Household pets are tied on short chains or locked up in tiny, dirty cages, 24 hours a day. Exercise , grooming, balanced diets and most of all love is something these poor creatures never see in their lives. Exotic breeds find their way to the market through unscrupulous breeders and dog dealers. They are mostly bought, to show-off, but noone seems to hear the yelping of tied up, hungry and thirsty pets. No one bothers to request their neighbors to untie the poor animal. We are all so afraid of not being taken seriously when talking about animal rights and welfare that we fail to speak up.

In the past I fought with people who kicked dogs or abused cows, I cajoled and shouted at neighbors who treated their pets cruelly. But I wasn’t pro-active in the true sense. I have let years go by ranting and raving about how badly our animals are treated. All this because I am one of those unfortunate ones who loves animals with all her heart and soul and wants to end their suffering (unfortunate because loving animals in a place like Nepal is living a life of constant mental torture). I cannot forgive myself for being silent for so long, watching the years go by instead of organizing, mobilizing, fundraising, rescuing and doing everything in my capacity to end the pain and the suffering of domestic, wild and pet animals.

I have finally seen the light and have stopped bothering about comments like: “Who cares about animals when there are so many humans suffering.” Of course I care about humans and will continue to fight to end human suffering. But I also care about animals equally and will be pro-active for them from this moment onwards. I will speak out for and work with animals. This is my pledge to them.

The crimes committed against these hapless creatures vary from the extreme to the gory (if one can categorize the level of pain and suffering) . We have rituals that are so bloody in nature that one hesitates to describe them. Live goats are being thrown into ponds and bitten and torn to death by cheering young men. Drunk men chase after thousands of sacrificial animals, armed to the tee with khukuris and machetes, creating untold suffering and a sea of blood. Thousands of animals are sacrificed in the name of religion, sacrifices done in the goriest of manners like slitting of throats and hacking of necks, all in the name of rituals, created by man, in the name of god, the creator and the protector of all living beings. Don’t all religions say the same thing? Isnt it man who created the rituals?


Buffaloes, goats, chicken etc are transported in the most inhumane of conditions. The animals are starved of water and food . They are piled on top of each other, tethered by their sensitive noses, their necks twisted, bones broken, eyes gorged. They arrive half or fully dead. Their adrenaline so high, that their meat is a breeding ground of toxins which are extremely hazardous to human health. But no one speaks out.

The suffering doesn’t end with their long painful journey to the drop-off point. They are dragged out of the vehicles by yanking their tails or simply hurled out of the trucks, or from atop busses before being herded off for the meat market and eventual death. They are tethered on short ropes in all kinds of weather with no place to rest or move in front of meat shops on the roadside. They are barely fed or watered. They are hacked to death in front of each other and the passers by. No one says a word.

Chicken and other feathered birds are stuffed into small cages in the most unhygienic of conditions. People queue up outside these shops for the meat they want to cook and relish. Silent about the conditions, silent about the suffering and unaware about the hazards to their own health.

The plight of working animals makes me want to cry. Donkeys, horses, mules, bullock, buffaloes, sheep are suffering physical torture beyond anyone’s imagination. They are made to carry burdens way beyond their capacity, pull carts and buggies overloaded with humans and goods on backs with festering wounds. They are flogged mercilessly if their battered and bruised bodies, weary from their heavy burdens stumble or fall. They work till they drop dead, relieved to leave this uncaring, cruel world behind. How inhuman can we be? How long are we going to allow this to happen? When are we going to raise a voice to change things for the better?

We breed monkeys for export for bio-medical research. Absolutely unnecessary and completely inhumane. Condemned by ethical people all over the world. There are enough alternate means for testing and substantiated research to prove the uselessness of using monkeys for medical research. This is so wrong. A group of animal rights campaigners tried to stop the monkey business through legal means. A writ has been filed in the Supreme Court against all those involved in this heinous crime of breeding and using primates for bio-medical research and those who are allowing it to happen. We want to save our monkeys from a fate worse than death. The torture and pain they have to go through is insurmountable. Thankfully the government has but a ban on this after much campaigning.


Mahatma Gandhi was so right in saying that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals. If we don’t get moving fast we will be judged as one of the most uncivilized societies in the world. A society, that treats its animals as inanimate objects, oblivious to the pain and suffering of these voiceless creatures.

Not everyone can be animal rights activists. But at least one can support movements and individuals who are fighting for the rights and welfare of animals. Support the campaign to get animal welfare legislation in place. Support initiatives that give animals the care they deserve. It’s the least we can do. Stop abusing animals. Become aware of the impact of your food, clothes and entertainment on the lives of animals. .Educate yourself, educate others and make a difference.

Humans can be known for their kindness and empathy. I invite anyone who wants to end animal abuse to join us. Help us clean up this awful, bloody mess and ensure the rights of Nepali animals. Help us to rescue and rehabilitate sick and injured animals. Help us to introduce humane working conditions, transportation and slaughter. Help us to bring abusers to book. Help us to fight for a clause in the Constitution that guarantees the humane treatment of Nepali animals. We invite the international community of animal lovers to join us.

In the New Nepal let’s make sure our animals are no longer left out.