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Anita Silverman Hirsch Z"l

The world is a dangerous place...

The world is a dangerous place. One person can still make a difference...

Last week I attended the Abitibi Bowater lecture at Concordia University.
This year they invited Rick Hodes a CNN Hero, who has been a working physician in Ethiopia for twenty two years. He works for a ninety-two year old NGO called The Joint Distribution Committee funded by the Diaspora Jewish community. They have been working in Ethiopia helping Jews and non-Jews. They pay Rick's salary.

Rick has written a book about his work and gave a lecture with slides documenting his work.
I learned some fascinating facts.:
1. There are eighty million people living in Ethiopia.
2. Most of them live on considerably less than a dollar a day.

Rick is doing what he can to treat children with spinal disease and malignant cancer, sometimes by adopting children to put them on his health insurance plan and sending them to the US or India where they can be treated. He now has 17 children living in his house in Adisababa and has treated over 2000 children, many of whom have gone on to be educated and to thrive emotionally, physically and mentally.
I found this video on youtube which is similar to the lecture he gave.
And here is a video of Rick Hodes doing Jewish in his home. Yes he is an orthodox Jew.
He is truly doing the Jewish thing which according to Rabbi Lew is "making every moment sacred."

Knowledge is power.

Below is a description of the current state of affairs in Yemen posted by GLORIA an Israeli research institute.
Comparative Counterinsurgency in Yemen By Jane Novak
Yemen is among the world's most corrupt and least developed nations, factors that explain a long running war in the north and an exploding independence movement in the south. Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih deals with legitimate dissent by jailing journalists, shooting protesters, and bombing civilians on a scale that reaches the level of war crimes...

Getting the word out is game changing.

Crude Impact

The other night I watched a documentary on oil and its impact on the African states in which it has been found and exploited called Crude Impact.
Apparently there is greater poverty in those countries like Nigeria where oil has been mined and exported than in those countries that are oil free.
Nigeria has one hundred million people. (The numbers are astounding) 70 % live below the poverty line and also in a state of war caused by the conflict between the Oil companies and the native populations that have been devastated.
What is the moral?
One person can still make a difference and each of us can do something.

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