The Swiss roll over

Community support needed for Children’s Moral Training

There has been a Thai law put into the Royal Gazette that encourages the private sector to advise on the education of children.

Kasemsook Bhamornsatit, President of the Trikaya Cultural and Academic Travel Services Company, was invited to Pattaya by Wannapa (Ju) Wannasri, Pattaya City Education Office, to instruct teachers in a Moral Camp programme.

Wannapa said, “The behaviour and moral conduct of Pattaya’s youth is a major concern now, especially in this competitive economic environment with many people looking for employment. More and more young people are turning to drugs and staying out late at night in socially unacceptable surroundings. The results include increased criminal activity with the number of drug addicts and the cases of AIDS continually rising. The many problems require corrective action with combined co-operation to prevent such behaviour before it begins.”

A Moral Camp programme is considered an important step in the right direction. However, implementation is restricted once again by the usual budget constraints, requiring the Educational Office to turn to the Pattaya community for financial support.

“The Pattaya City School system cordially requests community financial assistance in supporting this valuable endeavour. The goal is providing a ‘Moral Camp’ introducing proper values and instilling behavioural traits in young people, which will eventually realise positive social changes in Pattaya’s youth,” Wannapa said.

Kasemsook Bhamornsatit, who initiated Moral Camp, is an inspiration to many. Orphaned at age eighteen in a car accident which left her in bad health she raised her five younger brothers and sisters. She worked selling sweets on the streets to earn sufficient money to raise her family and make a career.

Kasemsook relied on her parents teaching that, “Love and understanding are the way to compassion. Depression, aggression and violence can be soothed by serenity.” Kasemsook found that family communication and values were slowly eroding because the increasing economic pressures left no time for families to communicate or relate. She commenced a community programme for children called Moral Camp. This develops the children’s ability, unity, happiness and freedom. She started with the children of friends and gradually reached out to others. Eleven years of experience has demonstrated that teaching music, nature and cultural appreciation with gentle love and understanding reveals the capability, empathy and self respect in every child.

“Children are the heritage of the future. In these times of high pressured society the morals and values of our youngsters should not be neglected. (Many are) condemned to follow the drug road because of a lack of internal love and understanding. These problems can be solved with a joint venture of the family, the children and the teachers,” Kasemsook said. “We are looking for community support to bring this Moral Camp training programme to our children.”

Two weeks of seminars are being held for a group of 70 local teachers who have volunteered their time. Moral Camp will teach the children: Music Appreciation, Becoming an Artist or Artisan, English and Thai language, Everyday Thai Culture, Appreciation of Nature, the Fascination of Thai History.

The Moral Camp will be held on the 8-10 October at the Animal Protection Park in Bangpra Reservoir. With the community’s support they will then be able to take this programme to the children.

Donations may be made to: Alvi Sinthuvanik, M.A. Language Centre, tel. (01) 864 5754, (038) 420 872, or Wannapa Wannasri, Pattaya City Education Office, tel. (01) 295 1490, (038) 410708.

Englishman discovers Angel in Bangkok

The Bang Lamung Hospital receives a very generous gift

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure

by C. Schloemer

Like dating in the Millennium and the price of gasoline, ways and costs of getting rid of garbage in the rich democracies has changed. In the old days, people used to have a dump and once a week the garbage was set ablaze. Now modern cities appropriate millions of dollars a year to incinerate garbage and even more money to recycle it. Traditional cultures have always had their own versions of recycling programs. Travels in Asia, South America, and Africa sooner or later bring striking encounters with refuse and what is done with it.

In Mexico City, garbage pickers pay hard cash to belong to the scavengers union to ply their livelihood. And they pay extra to secure a good spot and keep it.

In Calcutta, half naked men toil through the night to boil carefully collected animal bones in great vats, to get the fat out. Then, in a cavernous shed, bursting with noisy machinery, they grind the bones exceedingly fine for fertiliser. Others sitting on the sidewalk, patiently wash used coal so they can sell what’s left, because it can still be burned.

Members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, the zabbaline, as they are known, return home each evening, their donkey carts overflowing with trash. These rural migrants have raised their trade to a vital public service. Flattened and baled cans are sold to craftsmen for recycling into gleaming new wares. The sprawling shanty slums which surround the city’s vast dumping grounds are home to the men, women and children who return Cairo’s junk back into a highly efficient system which costs the city nothing. Garbage brokers pay for exclusive rights to certain collection routes, high income neighbourhoods being the most desirable. Discarded fabric is rewoven into cloth for ethnic costumes.

When I was on Manila’s Balut Island in 1983, scavengers looked like fire-fighters, as smoke from spontaneous combustion billowed from a mountain of household trash 250 feet high, which was gradually edging into Manila Bay. Philippine Army soldiers stood guard as contractors with exclusive rights to buy, bought thousands of bags of metal cans and glass bottles for recycling.

Jakarta has a 10 acre dump in the centre of the capital city which is piled high with nothing but the trishaws, or what the Indonesians call the beja. Since these poor man’s taxis have been confiscated by the police for operating without proper licensing, manufacturers pay for access to the beja graveyard for spare parts and recycling.

Modern artists have been making junk into art for years. One of the most controversial sculptures stood in front of Washington DC’s Watergate Apartments in the 1980’s. Four thousand discarded household appliances, including TV sets, hair dryers, toasters, microwave ovens and air conditioning units graced the front gardens until an angry storm of residents prevailed.

Garbage collection from apartment buildings in Shanghai is conveyed by a miniature tractor to the city’s outskirts, and ends up in an agricultural commune’s “digester”; a methane-producing pit already stocked with weeds and rice stalks as well as human and animal waste. Clear plastic pipes go to thick plastic burners into the commune’s kitchen for domestic cooking.

Of course, high-tech scavenging is much more sophisticated. In Denmark community refuse is collected in moisture-resistant paper sacks. The paper allows for moisture to evaporate and reduces the weight for removal and transport. The garbage man brings a new sack when he takes the full one away to one of the ubiquitous incinerators. The heat they generate makes steam which keeps houses warm within a 40 kilometre radius. In Paris, the large garbage burning plants provide heat to half the city’s steam pipes.

But where is man’s ultimate garbage dump? High in space, mostly unseen by the naked eye, some 20,000 man-made objects are circling the earth. About 5 thousand articles are constantly tracked by sophisticated technology. Those pieces of exploded satellites, nose cones, and separated bolts are what NASA calls space debris.

It is the refuse of man’s most advanced endeavour - trash which may last longer than the Pyramids of Egypt, longer than the human species, longer than anything else we know.

World leaders adopt the ‘Millennium Declaration’

from the Child Labor News Service

“Only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalization be made fully inclusive and equitable,” world leaders stated as they unanimously adopted a “United Nations Millennium Declaration” at the three day Millennium Summit starting September 6.

The main document to come out of the largest-ever gathering of world leaders, which began on 6 September in New York, the Declaration contains a statement of values, principles and objectives for the international agenda for the twenty-first century. It also sets deadlines for many collective actions.

In an address delivered at the concluding meeting of the Conference, United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan told the Summit that it had sketched out clear directions for adapting the Organization to its role in the new century. “It lies in your power, and therefore is your responsibility, to reach the goals that you have defined,” he declared.

The document reaffirms Member States’ faith in the United Nations and its Charter as indispensable for a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. The collective responsibility of the governments of the world to uphold human dignity, equality and equity is recognized, as is the duty of world leaders to all people, and especially children and the most vulnerable.

By the year 2015, world leaders also resolve to halve the proportion of people with incomes of less than one dollar a day and of those suffering from hunger and lack of safe drinking water; to ensure equal access to all levels of education for girls and boys and primary schooling for all children everywhere; to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters; and to begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. By the year 2020, they resolve to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

The Declaration also sets goals for promoting human rights, democracy and good governance; protecting the vulnerable; and meeting the special needs of Africa.

During the six meetings of the three-day Summit, 99 heads of State, three Crown Princes and 47 heads of government presented their views on the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century and the main challenges facing the peoples of the world. One hundred and eighty-seven Member States were represented.

(From the files of UN News Service)

War leaves permanent scar

At the International Conference on War-Affected Children held last week in Winnipeg, children, politicians and experts from more than 135 countries met to discuss how to link children in war-torn countries to the rest of the world to help build lasting peace.

“Tomorrow’s international security depends on our efforts today at finding solutions to the cultures of violence and impunity that endanger children’s lives and jeopardize their futures,” said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy. “The international conference is an attempt to address this crisis by putting children first.”

Canada announced it would donate approximately $1.8 million to children affected by war in Africa.

Canadian International Co-operation Minister Maria Minna and UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said the money will be used to implement UNICEF education and protection programmes for African children.

“The need for access to education, improved quality of educational services and training in essential life skills for children in war-affected areas is urgent,” Minna said.

Bellamy said that continuing access to education during conflict “is as vital as food and health care.” Education is a form of protection.

Ministers from some 50 countries attended the conference and were expected to finalise an international agenda for action to assist war-affected children. A document expected to be signed at the conference will be presented at a UN Special Session on Children next year.

Thought for the week: Attracting Buyers 2

by Richard Townsend, Corporate Learning Consultant
http://www.orglearn.org

Seminars are a great way to attract interested buyers. When you are invited to speak to a group you are given a great deal of power. Most audiences when they focus on you and your message will tend to believe what you say as you are “the expert” in what you are talking about. Yes, you’re the expert, you must be because you wrote the speech and you are the only one who knows what you are going to say.

This is especially true when you are talking about your industry and you are talking on a topic on which most the listeners will only have a little knowledge. I am assuming of course that as a professional sales person you do know a great deal about your industry... YES!

The other great thing about giving public seminars, or being the guest speaker, at say your local service club, is that the more you engage in this activity the more competent you will become. Even if there are one or two cynics in the audience you can overcome any problem they may cause by only taking questions after the presentation, one on one. To ensure this happens you can say, “I have a limited time to speak; however, I will remain after in case any of you would like to talk to me personally”. If some smart individual tries to corner you publicly just say that you do not consider it wise to have the entire gathering held up while you answer personal queries. If after some time you feel you can successfully field any ‘difficulties’, allow open questions, BUT don’t feel you must always have a question time after a presentation.

A wise person once said to me... ‘often the things you do for nothing will pay you of the most dividends’. This I have found is also true of seminars. For many years and in more than one industry, I have given talks to small business groups and ‘clubs’ and much of my business has come from this activity. One of the ‘free’ seminars I conducted for a professional group on a quarterly basis lead to a request for an industry magazine article which was then republished across a wide range of industry publications, which again lead to more talks and more business. Sure it’s a bit of work at the start; however, it’s a lot less stressful than cold calling for the rest of your life.

Many seminars are sponsored by industry groups and if you can get involved in these someone else pays for the audience on your behalf, the venue, the refreshments, the publicity... and there you are, a room full of people to “sell to” and all for free... well almost! Now think about it, who holds regular meetings and is always looking for speakers, what seminars or events are coming up in your city that the organisers might need speakers for, or what is your industry body or local chamber of commerce up to? How would you like a third party sponsor to provide a captive audience of ideal prospects sitting in a room just waiting for you to ‘sell’ them something... it CAN BE DONE.

Oh! Have a fear of public speaking? Train yourself out of it, or don’t sell, become a ‘techi’ or a ‘number-cruncher’.

Worth a thought?

To contact Ric mailto: [email protected]

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