Greetings Dear Friends and Supporters,
I'm heading to back to Japan in the last week of May to deliver funds and check on the relief efforts we've been supporting with our partners Global Giving and EMPACT Northwest. I'll be traveling six hours north of Tokyo to Ishinomaki with a group of Japanese students I've been working with since the disaster who have been delivering food, water, hygiene items, household items and medical supplies to shelters and providing manpower to the cleanup efforts. I'll send a detailed update with photos in early June.
In Haiti, we're providing financial assistance to the efforts of EMAPCT Northwest to bring in medical volunteers to work with the only trauma ambulance service in Port-au-Prince.
In Pakistan, our flood relief efforts have transitioned into the long term phase with our continued support of pediatric health facilities in Shikarpur, Sindh (Civil Hospital Pediatric Ward), Charsadda, KPK (The new Ashraf Medical Complex Pediatric Health Center) and Swat, KPK (The new Bagh Deri Hospital). We are committed to helping these facilities achieve self sustainability while helping the community recover from the disaster, especially the most adversely affected children such a Shabana, an adorable six year old girl whose surgery on severe burn scars is scheduled for May 23 at Shifa International Hospital. She'll be out of the hospital just in time to move into the new home we're building for her and her fifteen family members who lost their old home in the flood. We are collaborating with NCHD to provide basic health camps to flood affected villages in Thatta, Sindh.
In Chikar, Azad Kashmir, we've struggled to get the majority of the community to financially contribute a nominal monthly fee to our community health insurance initiative, so we're bringing in new partners, new ideas, new facilities and new capabilities to nudge the people of the area towards understanding the necessity of supporting their local government health facility so it can run as an effective public/private partnership for generations and not remain totally dependent on outside charitable contributions. Our new data management / paperless patient records / telemedicine project is going operational this month in Charsadda and Chikar with technical support and guidance from our partners UM Healthcare. Our 2010 financial audit is underway (a bit late in getting started due to our focus on the flood mission) and we are confident in the same successful result as the independent audits of each of the previous four years we've been in operation as a registered non-profit social welfare society.
I am grateful for your generous support of the above missions. I humbly request you to take a moment to read the information below, enjoy the videos and consider supporting another very important initiative that will be aimed at using musical collaborations to show Americans the wonderful people of Pakistan I've come to know in over five years of service to Pakistan. The overwhelming majority of Pakistani are rarely ever seen or represented in the western media, including 80 million innocent children who were either toddlers, infants or not even born yet on 9/11. They represent almost half of Pakistan's population and they need all of us to remember them. Sonic Peacemakers hopes you will join us in bringing them music, happiness, peace, love, compassion, health, education and opportunity. They are Pakistan's future and a part of our collective destiny. We can ensure that destiny is a bright one as we move beyond borders and eventually bring Sonic Peacemakers to all nations, opening up hearts and minds through the power of music and shared humanity.
Todd Shea
Founder
CDRS (Comprehensive Disaster Response Services), Shine Humanity and Sonic Peacemakers
SONIC PEACEMAKERS APPEAL
When the Pakistan Flood Disaster began last summer, The Sonic Peacemakers "Peace Through Music" project was put on hold. The relief efforts kept co-founders Todd Shea and Lanny Cordola busy for months, with Todd leading the disaster response of CDRS / SHINE HUMANITY and Lanny visiting Pakistan twice to help deliver supplies, compassion, smiles, music and gifts for children with fellow Sonic Peacemakers Atif Aslam and Noori.
Though we were able to produce several videos and teasers in 2010 (listed below), we need new funding to finish a documentary film and the first album, a collection of songs entitled "The Dreamer Awakes" with Atif Aslam and other prominent Pakistani musicians, ex-members of Guns 'n' Roses, The Beach Boys and other renowned western musicians. This epic collaboration is inspired by the works of Karachi-based poet Beo Rana Zafar and hopes to give a voice to the poverty stricken children of Pakistan.
The first Sonic Peacemakers documentary film will highlight Lanny Cordola's amazing journeys to Pakistan, where he creates music with awesome and diverse musicians and artists, tours disaster affected areas, experiences Pakistan's amazing cultural richness, meets with everyday people in remote villages and big cities, and discovers the wonderful people of Pakistan who are too often unseen and misunderstood by the outside world. And perhaps most importantly, Lanny and Sonic Peacemakers will show the world Pakistan's warm, friendly, loving, inquisitive, beautiful and brilliant children who are Pakistan's hope and future.
Sonic Peacemakers future plans include produce recordings and concerts in an ongoing series of musical collaborations, starting with Pakistani and American musicians and eventually bringing together musicians from other countries to build bridges of peace, erase misconceptions and support health, education and development projects that help families and children who need them most.
This spiritual, social and musical initiative has the potential to transform hate into love and darkness into light, ignorance into empowerment. There is so much we can accomplish together by making this project a reality.
To make a tax-deductible contribution to Sonic Peacemakers, please visit:
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/peace-through-music/
Or send a check made out to Sonic Peacemakers to:
Britt Lake, Global Giving, 1023 15th Street, NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20005
Thanks for your time, we hope you’ll join us as a Sonic Peacemakers Ambassador!
In Love and Light,
Sonic Peacemakers
VIDEO CLIPS
1) Glimpses of "The Dreamer Awakes" An Upcoming Sonic Peacemakers Project Featuring Pakistani and American musicians, including Atif Aslam & ex-members of Guns 'n' Roses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntm8dlD6H-Q&feature=related
2) Pakistan (I Have A Dream) Atif Aslam and Lanny Cordola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak1welvCLLo&feature=related
3) We Will Rise Again - A Tribute to Pakistan's Flood Victims (Atif Aslam, Lanny Cordola and Todd Shea) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UpjTiIeBsg
4) Lanny Cordola Interview about Sonic Peacemakers at NAMM Show in Los Angeles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRiU16Yl6vw&feature=related
5) Clips of Sonic Peacemakers Live Concert In Islamabad (Noori, Atif Aslam, Todd Shea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq-brkLhbKM
6) Dil Dil Pakistan Live - Atif Aslam & Todd Shea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lHAHb2w1ZU&feature=related
Dear SHINE Humanity Supporter:
Each day in Pakistan, thirty nine women die of childbirth complications and 1,440 children under the age of 5 die because of lack of access to basic health care. Did you know that for only $20 a month - the cost of one dinner - SHINE Humanity can provide access to basic healthcare for 10 patients?
SHINE Humanity depends on your generous support to make sure that mothers and children living in poverty, whose lives have been further devastated by earthquakes and floods, continue to have access to basic healthcare and medicine, each month. Help us lower the maternal-child death rates by continuing access to basic medical care and medicine by signing up for a recurring donation! A recurring donation is easy to set up and automatically goes to your credit card each month so you can help provide a steady income for SHINE Humanity without having to worry about making separate donations each month.
By signing up for a recurring donation now, you can help us get an additional $1,500 through Global Giving's Recurring Donation Campaign! We need at least ten new recurring donations before the end of the day Friday, May 20 EDT in order to be eligible for additional grants between $500 and $1500.
Sign up for a recurring donation here: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/mother-child-health-in-disaster-affected-pakistan. Be sure to click on the "monthly recurring" option below the large orange "donate" button. Read instructions for setting up a recurring donation here.
Would you give up just one dinner a month to help women and children in need? Thank you for your support this Mother’s Day and continuing throughout the year! With your help, SHINE Humanity is Lighting the way forward………
Best wishes,
Laila Karamally
Chief Executive Officer
Links:
"Seeing things like that changes you..."
Dr. Aaliya Ali
Dr. Aaliya Ali, a pediatrician from Whittier, California and Dr. Sara Khan an internist at San Antonio Hospital in California traveled to Shikarpur, Sindh eight weeks after the floods began in Pakistan to volunteer at SHINE Humanity’s pediatric facility in Shikarpur District Hospital.
Dr Aaliya Ali: I think that Sara and I were good combination I am a pediatrician and she is an internist, which is an adult doctor. We traveled to a different village every day, and saw anywhere from 200-300 people. I focused on the children, and Sara focused on their mothers. About one-third of our patients were children. What we encountered most was extreme malnutrition in women and children. Obviously for young children a mother’s health is tied to the child’s. It was difficult to see these malnourished mothers trying to care for their children.
I do not see mother/child health getting any better. Most of the people in these areas are farmers and their main staple was rice, but the rice fields won’t dry out until March or April, so this year’s harvest is lost. The next few months will be difficult.
Dr. Sara Khan: I had previously traveled to Haiti with SHINE Humanity, so I was not new to working in an area devastated by a natural disaster. On the other hand going to Pakistan was much more emotional for me, because I grew up in Pakistan. These people who were already very poor, had lost the very little they had. I was happy to help in whatever way I could, and I have to say the SHINE Humanity support team that we worked with which included volunteers, a pharmacist, and a paramedic, were some of the best people I’ve ever worked with.
The majority of our patients were children, because they were the ones that were hardest hit by the floods. The adults we saw had chronic problems. They had probably not received proper medical care throughout their lives, so for them just to have access to doctors was a big deal.
This experience was real eye opener. You go to a place where people don’t have enough to eat, and there is a whole generation of children who are malnourished. You can tell their parents what the problem is, but there is nothing they can do to help their own children. Seeing things like that changes you.
Annual Fundraiser
Supporting our Heal A Heart Campaign
Sunday March 27, 2011 at 12:30 PM
Hyatt Regency Hotel
1107 Jamboree Rd.
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Tickets:
Individual $125
Sponsored Tables of 10:
Early purchase ensures priority seats.
Puchase your tickets ONLINE.
"In a Way Giving is Selfish"
SHINE Humanity volunteer Sweta Chawla talks about her experiences volunteering in Shikarpur Sindh.
"It was very heartbreaking to see little children less than a year old with minor health problems that had gotten to the point that they were life threatening. I saw four children die in one week. No matter what your thoughts are about a country politically I don't think it's not fair for children to have to pay the price for that."
To hear more about her trip, and see the moving photographs please watch this VIDEO.
Links:
2011 Begins On A Positive Note!
SHINE Humanity volunteer has a "positive experience" visiting flood affectees
Surgical Eye Expedition in Santa Barbara California has arranged most of my trips to perform eye surgeries abroad. They do not support natural disaster relief work, but because of my 20 year association with them, they did provide me with many supplies for my trip including; antibiotics, eye drops and other basic emergency eye care supplies. SHINE Humanity was the receiving organization that provided logistical support for me in Pakistan. Many of the other supplies I needed I acquired on my own
It was quite a struggle for me to get to Pakistan. I arrived four days passed my scheduled arrival date, because it was difficult for me to attain a visa.
In Charsadda SHINE Humanity connected me with the non-profit Sarhad Rural Support Program (SRSP). I was warmly received by their agent Khalid Jaan. I stayed with his family during the three days that I worked in Charsadda. After that I went to six villages. We visited a different village every morning. I saw 70 to 100 patients every day. Most of the patients had eye infections due to contamination from the flood waters. Most infections were treatable, but if those infections had been neglected, then it would have had a negative impact on the patient's vision.
I also saw patients with Glaucoma and Cataracts. These problems were not related to the floods, but it was clear to me that most of these people had never had any eye care prior to my visit.
On of the challenges for me was the language barrier. Most of the locals spoke Pashtu or Punjabi. SRSP helped me by always providing me with a social worker/interpreter who accompanied me on all my trips.
Because of the volume of patients that I was seeing every day I quickly ran out of supplies, so I bought local supplies. I was shocked to see that medicine that costs $40 here in the U.S. only costs $.50 in Pakistan.
It was very sad to see so much devastation, and what it has done to the people of Pakistan, but over all I had a positive experience. I was so well received by all of the organizations that hosted me, by the social workers that assisted me, and Khaled Jaan and his family. Most of all I knew that the patients appreciated my help.
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