Saving Syrians, One Blanket at a Time - By Wijbe Abma. KILIS, Turkey — I am a 21-year-old, independent aid worker. I don't work for any country or NGO, but for Syrian civilians. The project I started isn't just about bringing help, it's about bringing hope. The idea started small and simple: I wanted to take blankets to refugees. Before I knew what I was getting into, it had grown big and complex: I've just come back from Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, where I delivered my second batch of aid -- 500 blankets. It all started when I finished a university exchange in South Korea and decided to travel back home to the Netherlands overland. It was here that I met Ali, a refugee from Aleppo. I listened to his story, horrified. Reading up about the humanitarian situation in Syria, I was struck by how much aid was needed. I decided to visit Bab al-Salam, a makeshift camp situated just a few hundred feet into Syria, across the Turkish border.
I was greeted at the border by a teenager in a camouflage outfit. Syrian nights are incredibly cold. Haiti’s Medical Volunteers – Helping or Harming? | Tiny Spark. Doctors and nurses responded when Haiti was shaken by a deadly earthquake in 2010. From across the United States and around the globe, an untold number of men and women took leave from their jobs and flew to Haiti to provide assistance to the injured. In our latest episode, Tiny Spark takes a look at the quality of care those volunteers provided. While they may have been well-intentioned, medical volunteers’ lack of specialized training would sometimes have severe repercussions for patients. Harvard’s Dr. Stephanie Kayden says many surgeons who volunteered in Haiti had only ever worked in US hospitals, and didn’t think to bring along basics, like anesthesia.
She tells us that there were grave consequences for patients when volunteer surgeons arrived unprepared: We also speak to Andy and Jennifer Day, a couple from Indiana who decided to volunteer their medical skills in Haiti. Jennifer Day (L) and Andy Day (R). Dr. Dr. But when Dr. See more photos from a surgeon in Haiti. Why Burma Shouldn’t Listen to the IMF - By Rick Rowden.
Burma is at a crossroads. While the country's dramatic (and fragile) political opening is receiving plenty of attention, its leaders are also confronting some stark decisions about their economic future. After decades of economic isolation, the economy of Burma (also known as Myanmar) is badly in need of reforms than can better promote development. The choices that Burma's government makes in the coming months could well determine what the country will look like 30 years from now: an industrialized South Korea or a resource-cursed Nigeria. Coinciding with its political opening, Burma's leadership has taken steps to deepen the pool of foreign investors in the economy beyond the traditional influence of neighbors China and Thailand. The IMF has already sent several delegations to the country and is assisting the government in unifying its complex system of multiple exchange rates for the currency, the kyat, as a necessary first step to other reforms.
No one will argue with that. The euro crisis: A three-headed beast. Photo Booth: Postcards from Tohoku: Japan, One Year Later. On Sunday, one year will have passed since the great tsunami of 2011 launched its “menacingly effective assault on Tohoku,” as the photographer Jake Price described it. “It took down the largest of structures, killed thousands of people, and inundated ancient fields, making them fallow for years to come.” This winter, Price lived with residents of this region in northeastern Japan in their kasetsus—trailer homes provided by the government. “Living in isolation, they endure and exist,” Price told me. “But people want not merely to endure; they want to connect to their culture, art, and history.” In short, they want to belong again. Moved by the quiet yet unflappable fortitude of the people he met over the four months he spent in Tohoku, Price organized “Dispatch from Tohoku: Documenting the Aftermath,” a special event that will take place on Sunday.
“In the end,” Price said, “the tsunami’s assault proved a failure. Iwaki City. Lost economic time: The Proust index.