BRIDGES AND PATHWAYS WORK WITH THE POOR AND PRISONERS

Saturday, October 27, 2007

LOOKING FOR HOPE?


IT IS OUT THERE.

IT CAN BE FOUND DOWN MANY ROADS. PRAYER, CHURCH, HELPING OTHERS, THROUGH PEOPLE WHO SHOW KINDNESS AND LOVE. IT CAN BE FOUND IN THE SPIRIT OF THE POOR WHO ARE THANKFUL YOU TOOK TIME TO CARE ABOUT THEM. HOPE CAN COME INTO YOUR HEART THROUGH THE EXAMPLES OF PEOPLE OF COURAGE... WHO DO GOOD IN THIS WORLD. IT CAN BE FELT WHEN SOMEONE ACKNOWLEDGES YOU OR GIVES YOU TIME TO SHARE YOUR FEELINGS. PEOPLE ARE SEEKING HOPE IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE AND IF WE CAN DO SOMETHING TO BUILD SOME ONE'S HOPE, THEN WE ARE DOING SOMETHING TO MAKE THIS A BETTER WORLD.

VICTIMS OF TRAUMA

People who don't have any knowledge what trauma can do to our fragile self esteem or our brain, nor do they seem to even care to learn about it, can pull us down in a moments notice by their indifference.
Trauma can happen so quickly from natural disasters, from a car accident where we lose members of our family or we become severely harmed. There is the tragedy of war, kidnappings, killings, sexual and physical abuse, to children, women, the elderly... and to men. There is trauma from neglect and trauma through medical abuses.
Some people only experiences a one time trauma while others experience on going trauma since they were children. They had no out for their situation.. no one they could go to for help.
How does someone recover from trauma?
To find someone you can talk to and who gives you encouragement is very helpful.. but often times there is no one you could really go to. Over 200,000 women were used by the Japanese army as comfort women for the soldiers. They were held against their will and used by the army soldiers, sometimes 50 times a day. What these women experienced was kept hidden inside because they were deeply ashamed and could not talk about it.
Many, many women died and if they lived, their spirits would have been dead through the pain and suffering they had to quietly live.
What ever happens in people lives that traumatizes them, especially by the brutal rapes and dehumanizing experiences, no one deserves to be harmed. No one should ever been made to feel shame for something that other people did to them.
Even if we feel our lives are fragile because of these experiences, don't allow the evil deeds of others to pull you down into the ground for something that doesn't belong to you. Be strong. Take back your life and go out and do things to help others.
It is when we can do things for others, that we will find meaning to our own pain. So many others who have never experienced trauma as some people have, can rewound them by the way that they respond, or don't respond.
People can be cruel to those who have been traumatized through their indifference.
It is sometimes hard to tell. Have courage. You are understood.
THE COMFORT WOMEN CLICK HERE

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORER CLICK HERE

WOMAN LEFT TO DIE ON MOUNTAIN ~ WHERE HAS OUR COMPASSION GONE

AMERICAN CLIMBER RISKS ALL TO SAVE WOMAN LEFT TO DIE ON EVEREST

A stricken climber left to die on Everest was saved by an American guide and a sherpa who found her by accident as they returned from the summit.

The dramatic rescue of the Nepalese woman has reopened a passionate debate about mountaineering ethics, a year after the controversial death on the mountain of the British climber David Sharp.

The woman, identified only as Usha, was found on Monday morning suffering from severe altitude sickness about 550 metres beneath the 8,848m (29,028ft) summit.

She was at a similar altitude to the cave where Sharp died on May 15, 2006, after an estimated 40 climbers passed him by, most of them without making any attempt to save him. His death sparked an international controversy, with some arguing that a rescue would have cost more lives. Others, including Sir Edmund Hillary, condemned the cynicism of commercial mountaineers.

Usha, like Sharp, was apparently on the sort of barebones expedition that charges clients typically as little as £4,500 and provides them with only basic equipment.

Also like Sharp, she was too weak to move when she was found by David Hahn, a veteran American guide, and his sherpa, Phinjo Dorje, on their way down from the summit. Mr Hahn and Phinjo Dorje decided to risk their own lives by taking her with them, even though she was only semiconscious and suffering from severe cerebral oedema, or water on the brain. “I was very concerned because her oxygen had run out. She was virtually unresponsive, and in a precarious spot on the mountain, on a steep snowy slope,” Mr Hahn told The Times via satellite phone from Base Camp.

It was a huge risk given the harsh conditions in the “death zone”, above 8,000 metres, where there is so little oxygen that people need all their strength to keep themselves alive, let alone someone else.

After giving Usha a steroid injection to ease her altitude sickness, they pushed and dragged her down the treacherous south side of the summit for four hours until they reached Camp IV, at 7,920 metres. They were met there by members of a team of British doctors from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition and others from Mr Hahn’s International Mountain Guides group.

“The doctors were a huge help in stabilising her,” Mr Hahn said. Realising that they would have to take Usha to Camp III, at 7,300 metres, where the rest of the British team was waiting, Mr Hahn and his four colleagues wrapped her in a sleeping bag and strapped her to a sled. Accompanied by AndrĂ© Vercueil, one of the British team, they spent nine hours dragging and lowering her by ropes across the Lhotse Face and through the rocky Yellow Band. At one point on the face they watched in horror as another woman climber fell 1,000 metres to her death. They did not reach Camp III until about 9pm, long after nightfall – and 12 hours after they had first found Usha.

“I was pretty exhausted, because I’d put my oxygen on the patient during the rescue,” said Mr Hahn, who has climbed to the peak of Everest nine times. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think she’d survive.”

Mr Hahn and his team continued down to Camp II on Monday and were at Base Camp yesterday, recovering from their exertions. Usha was also brought to Base Camp yesterday, where doctors are still treating her for altitude sickness. She was not capable of speaking on the telephone.

Mr Hahn, who helped to rescue two climbers on Everest in 2001, said that he had never considered leaving Usha behind and believed that most experienced climbers would have done the same as him. But the rescue has refuelled the debate about whether climbers have a responsibility to try to rescue those in trouble.

Terence “Banjo” Bannon, a veteran Irish climber, wrote in an open letter last week: “I have been climbing for 25 years, and I’ve seen people risking their lives to save others. Those who say there was nothing they could do are lying.”

Heroes on high

— Rescue missions are not usually carried out at Trollveggen in Norway, Europe’s highest cliff, so when the British climber Michael Garton fell during a solo attempt on the face last year, he was sure he would die. But a tourist with a telescope spotted him dangling upside down with a broken neck from a ledge and the Norwegian Air Force came to rescue him

— When Claudio Corti and Stefano Longhi floundered halfway up the north wall of the Eiger in 1957, 50 of Europe’s best climbers scaled the mountain with heavy equipment and set up a pulley and cable system from the top to haul the climbers up. Corti was saved; Longhi could not be reached.

DESERT DWELLER OF MEXICO

In my travels, I have found many poor people living in terrible conditions as this family out in the middle of the desert of upper Mexico without any neighbors for a long way. When the dust kicks up it's heels, it sweeps into the little stick hut making life very difficult. There would be little shelter from the cold in the upper desert in winter. What I have found is that these simple people are bound together to survive the harsh realities of their life as a family, where as those who have wonderful homes, jobs, cars, the nice things of life sometimes seperate, divorce and lead terribly sad lives.
See more pictures of my work in Mexico click here

WELCOME TO PLANET EARTH ~ HOW MUCH DO WE CARE ABOUT WHERE WE LIVE?.

How much do we really care about earth... about fixing problems that is causing global warming, the destruction of forest lands, and all sorts of things that are being done that is causing our planet to slowly die.

Welcome to Planet Earth Credit: Apollo 17 Crew, NASA


Explanation: Welcome to Planet Earth, the third planet from a star named the Sun. The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock. Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water. The planet has a relatively thin atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Earth has a single large Moon that is about 1/4 of its diameter and, from the planet's surface, is seen to have almost exactly the same angular size as the Sun. With its abundance of liquid water, Earth supports a large variety of life forms, including potentially intelligent species such as dolphins and humans. Please enjoy your stay on Planet Earth.

TWO MILLION PEOPLE IN PRISON


OVER TWO MILLION PEOPLE IN THE US PRISONS IN 2005 WITH THE NUMBERS GOING UP. HOW CAN WE STOP THIS? WILL YOUR CHILD END UP IN PRISON? IF YOU DON'T TRY AND DO SOMETHING, THEY COULD. TEACH BY EXAMPLE. THE WELL-BEING OF A CHILD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL THE THINGS IN THE WORLD YOU COULD HAVE. CLICK HERE
On December 31, 2005 --
-- 2,193,798 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails -- an increase of 2.7% from yearend 2004, less than the average annual growth of 3.3% since yearend 1995.
-- there were an estimated 491 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents -- up from 411 at yearend 1995.
-- the number of women under the jurisdiction of State or Federal prison authorities increased 2.6% from yearend 2004, reaching 107,518 and the number of men rose 1.9%, totaling 1,418,406.

At yearend 2005 there were 3,145 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,244 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 471 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.In 2003 there were an estimated 650,400 State prisoners serving time for a violent offense. State prisons also held an estimated 262,000 property offenders and 250,900 drug offenders.

FINDING HOPE IN UNEXPECTED PLACES ~ PRISON DOG PROGRAM

Finding hope in unexpected places. My cellmate and I are helping others

By Charles Huckelbury For New Hampshire the MonitorJune 17. 2007 10:00AM

Living in a prison cell is always a battle with clutter, but my cell is a bit more crowded than usual these days since Joey moved in. No, Joey isn't your typical slug who doesn't know how to do time. He's a Labrador retriever, just shy of two years old, smarter than most of the guys I hang around with, and still full of puppy mischief in ways I would love to describe if I could be sure his trainers weren't reading this.But there's much more to Joey than cute, something I discovered when I was fortunate enough to be among the men selected to participate in Pathways to Hope, a national program conceived by Sister Pauline Quinn and implemented here at the state prison to train service dogs for people with specific disabilities.After careful vetting by the administration, those of us who made the cut as handlers underwent an introduction to Dog Training 101, courtesy of Gail Fisher and her staff at All Dogs Gym and Inn in Manchester. Dogs had been my constant companions before I came to prison, but the type of training Gail introduced opened my eyes to possibilities I had never considered.

Our primary job was to teach the dogs basic commands (e.g. sit, stay, down, come) and socialize them in order to prepare them for the more intensive and precise training they would need to undergo prior to being assigned to particular clients. Along the way, we also taught them other things that werefun for us and the dogs, things like retrieving specific objects from a collection, turning lights on and off, and removing items of clothing.

Joey was ahead of the curve when it came to removing clothing. Unfortunately, before he perfected his technique, removing my jacket, for example, also resulted in numerous surprises: First he removed my jacket's cuffs, then the collar. Imagine a 75-pound animal working like crazy because he knows he'll get a treat at the end of the exercise, and you'll have some idea of how that must have looked.

Gail and her staff regularly check our progress. They assign us additional tasks to teach the dogs, since it quickly became obvious that they were smart enough to accomplish their original goals in spite of our own limitations in training techniques. Their progress has been amazing, because they are incredibly smart.

A year and a half into the program the dogs are getting ready to graduate and leave for their specific training, which will naturally create a huge hole until we have three more to continue the process. But the consolation, of course, is the knowledge that they will be going to someone who needs them far more than we do. For example, for every soldier killed in Iraq, at least eight more are wounded, many critically. What greater service could these dogs provide than helping those men and women who have given so much for the rest of us?It is impossible to convey what being a part of this program has meant for us in here. In an environment that ridicules affection, where claims of loyalty are only lip service to expediency, and where the only beauty is found in a three-hour visit with my wife twice weekly, Joey has added a dimension to my life that I never would have expected.

I came to prison when I was 27. I am now 61. By traditional standards, I would hardly be described as lucky, and yet I am. Never have I smiled or laughed more than since Joey has come to live with me. Never have I felt such satisfaction in being able to do something worthwhile. And never have I felt such a sense of accomplishment than when looking into those soulful eyes - even when I know he's hustling me for an extra treat.

Pathways to Hope is thus the most appropriate name of this program. While I probably don't share a common religious faith with the people Joey will eventually help, we do share a common hope for a brighter future. And it will be brighter in no small measure because this program makes it possible for us to give what we can to make another person's life more rewarding.
If Joey can help one wounded soldier walk again, If he can help one blind person navigate the streets and shops in Concord safely, all of us will be better for the experience.

By allowing us to be a part of something much bigger than prison, Pathways to Hope therefore defines us in terms of our potential as human beings and not as mere statistics or, worse, the last bad thing we did. I can't make yesterday better, but because of this astonishing program, with Joey's help, I can improve someone else's tomorrow.

(Charles Huckelbury is serving a murder sentence at the state prison.)


------ End of articleBy CHARLES HUCKELBURYFor the Monitor

Friday, October 26, 2007

JUSTICE ~ AT A PRICE

Man Exonerated After 22 Years in Prison
Date: Thursday, July 13, 2006
It’s been one stop after another for freed inmate Alan Newton, who was released from prison last week after 22 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
After a week of parties, picnics and public appearances, Newton, a former bank teller from the Bronx, is adjusting to life on the outside after DNA testing cleared him in the vicious rape and beating of a Bronx woman whose shaky identification sent him away for nearly half his life.
VIDEO: DNA Clears Wrongly Convicted Man for Rape
“I kept my hope alive,” an emotional Newton said outside the courtroom where a judge vacated his conviction after a joint motion from his lawyers and prosecutors. “I didn’t know when it was going to happen. I kept my spirits up for 22 years.”
Newton, whose mother died while he was in prison -- when Ronald Reagan was president, and gasoline was $1.20 a gallon -- is now adjusting to a new world of cell phones, Ipods and digital cameras, not to mention the joys and challenges of new-found freedom.
That transition is likely to be made easier if Newton collects on what is expected to be a multi-million dollar wrongful imprisonment lawsuit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Innocent Man Freed After 14 Years
Oct 9, 2007
Ronald Taylor was released from prison Tuesday after serving 14 years for a rape he didn't commit. Oct. 9, 2007. Video by Meg Loucks.
Instead of going directly to his mother's kitchen for the home cooking he'd been denied while serving 14 years for a rape he didn't commit, Ronald Gene Taylor's first order of business after getting out of prison Tuesday was to confront the mayor at City Hall. He urges City Hall to prevent the same ordeal from happening to another innocent person. SEE VIDEO CLICK HERE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 25, 2007
Innocent man shares his 20-year struggle behind bars
Willie "Pete" Williams had no idea when he was pulled over by police that the criminal justice system was about to steal away half his life.
Sitting in the flashing glow of Atlanta squad car lights along Georgia State Road 400, the 23-year-old part-time house painter didn't know police were looking for a rapist who had struck nearby three weeks earlier.
Police questioned -- and then arrested Williams, triggering a series of mistaken witness identifications that led to his unjust conviction for rape, kidnapping and aggravated sodomy. FULL STORY CLICK HERE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After 21 Years in Prison – including 16 on Death Row – Curtis McCarty is Exonerated Based on DNA Evidence
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VIKTOR FRANKL ~ MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING

Through Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning, I learned the value of suffering and how to bring meaning into your life through suffering. He was a Holocaust Survivor, helping others learn how to cope with the pain through helping others. More Information...

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering."