How You can Save a Life in 15 minutes

1. Spend 11 minutes the following video.
2. Take 2 minutes and decide what is appropriate for you to do.
3. Take the final 2 minutes and spread the word and start your action.




Condition: Critical Feature:

"Hundreds of thousands of people are on the run, fleeing a war raging in eastern Congo in the provinces of North and South Kivu. They are frightened. Many are sick or wounded. Others have been harassed or raped, or have had everything they own stolen.

For more than a decade, several armed groups and the army have been fighting each other in the Kivus. The violence has made it impossible for people to lead normal lives. Life isn’t just hard in the Kivus: this region is in critical condition. And things aren’t getting any better. The destiny of everyone in this region of Congo is shaped by the war. The story of their struggle to survive needs to be told.

Condition: Critical will be regularly updated by MSF over the coming year with new eyewitness accounts, photos and video of people living through the crisis in eastern Congo."

Visiting with the Rotary Club of Topeka - Online

Sierra Leone ranks 177th of 177 countries listed by the lastest UN Human Development Index. The speaker at today's meeting spoke about experiences in Sierra Leone. It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone.

Congo (DR Congo) ranks 168th. It is bad there, so I can imagine Sierra Leone.

Woody Collins
blog: http://www.EndingExtremePoverty.org
facebook: http://profile.to/woodycollins/

Praying - The Additional 3,000 UN Troops Stabilize Eastern Congo

Eastern Congo needs to stabilize so humanitarian workers can try to minimize the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Otherwise, thousands of people, mostly children, will surely die from preventable and treatable diseases.

BBC NEWS Africa UN agrees DR Congo troop increase:

"The United Nations Security Council has voted to send 3,000 more troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo following renewed fighting in the country's east.

The increase means the peacekeeping mission, Monuc, will have about 20,000 troops and police on the ground - the biggest UN force of its kind.

Clashes between the army and rebels led by Gen Laurent Nkunda have created a humanitarian crisis in the region.

Learning about Seeds of Hope Outreach (SOHO)

What is a OVC? An Orphan and Vulnerable Child (OVC) is term applied to children that head households in Africa due to AIDS pandemic. The child's mother and father died due to AIDS leaving the oldest child in charge younger siblings. The older child may be only 12 years old.

Seeds of Hope Outreach is addressing the needs of these children in Africa.

Woody M. Collins
blog: http://www.EndingExtremePoverty.org

Exploring NetSquared

NetSquared is remixing the web for social change. NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.

Attended the Annual BUV Fundraising and Awareness Evening

Basic Vehicles. Changed Lives. The BUV have been delivered to 19 locations in Africa. The BUV is a low cost and powerful transportation solution for developing countries.

Why Only One out of Six Congolese Children Sleep Under Malaria Nets

Poverty and Limited Access due to War are the two reasons for the low coverage (below 15 percent) of insecticide treated mosquito nets in Congo.

I can not stop the war in eastern Congo. But I can give free mosquito nets to pregnant women and children under 5 years old.

Congo Helping Hands will distribute about 2,500 in central Congo.

Global Update - More Children Sleep Under Malaria Nets, but Millions Still Do Not - NYTimes.com: "Donor contributions for malaria have greatly increased since 2002, but distribution of the nets has been spotty. More than half of the 90 million missed children were in just seven countries, and 25 percent in Nigeria alone.

A few small countries did particularly well; Eritrea reached 85 percent coverage. Some medium-size ones, like Kenya and Madagascar, did moderately well.

But some large or populous countries, like Nigeria, Uganda, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan — the last two of which are at war — were below 15 percent.

Free distribution of nets worked best, the authors said."

Reading How Congolese Blood, Sweat, and Tears Will Make It Under Your Christmas Tree

There is good chance that some Congolese's "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" will be under your Christmas tree. If you get any electronic item, the minerals such as tin, cobalt, or coltan used to make that item probably came from the Congo.

At least, take the time to read about the origin of your gift.

The Spoils - Congo’s Riches, Looted by Renegade Troops - Series - NYTimes.com: "Porters carry the ore nearly 30 miles on their backs, a two-day trek through a mud-slicked maze to the nearest road and a world hungry for the laptops and other electronics that tin helps create, each man a link in a long global chain."

Telling President-Elect Obama about the Humanitarian Crisis in Congo

The Humanitarian Crisis in the Congo needs to be a foreign policy issue for the new administration.

Please take the time to tell President-Elect Obama and his team that the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo matters to you. Just click on this link below and follow the instruction. http://change.gov/page/s/ofthepeople This is a foreign policy issue.

Also, you need to ask them to get the following to bills out of the US Senate. Senate Bill S.2279, International Violence Against Women Act, was introduced by Senator Biden (with Senator Lugar). And Senate Bill S.2433, Global Poverty Act, was introduced by Senator Obama.

Apologizing for Waking up James after Midnight

I got the following email from James this morning. "Bishop and I would both prefer text messages a little earlier please. Midnight to 1 AM a little late to be hearing that tell tale beep ;-) Of course we always get up and answer because we know it's the lovable Woody. James"

James is an American living in Kananga, DR Congo. This part of Congo is 6 hours ahead of the US east coast. I had to apologize for sending him a text message at shortly after 6 pm in the US. Therefore, he received in just after midnight.

I should have waited until morning here (afternoon in Congo) to send my urgent text message. I was responding to their request for another friend's telephone number.

Below, James at work in his computer training center at the Catholic High School in Kananga.

Talking about the Congolese Women in the Church

"You have come along way, Baby."

In 1998, I was intoduced to the only female seminarian in the Presbyterian Church of Congo.

In 2005, I met two of three female seminarian students from the village of Bulape.

In September 2008, I met Pastor Jacky, the associate Pastor at a village Presbyterian Church in Bulape.

Pastor Jacky is the only female in a pastoral position in the Presbyterian Church of Congo.

Thanks to God, Pastor Jacky have come a long way, Baby!

blog: http://www.EndingExtremePoverty.org
web: http://www.CongoHelpingHands.org