Mission East 12 Tajikistan – Prepared for the NUMBER 1 / SPRING 2007 Flood
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
8 Afghanistan – hygiene education saves lives 10 Romania – family received help when all hope seemed lost Mission East 12 Tajikistan – prepared for the NUMBER 1 / SPRING 2007 flood FOCUS Handicapped children in Armenia: Special needs school creates hope for a better future 2 Contents 4 Armenia 8 Afghanistan – The Managing Director's ten-year-old – When Lailo learned to son visits a school for the handicapped wash her hands “You learn to not only think of Six-year-old Lailo lost two siblings yourself,” says ten-year-old Philip in early childhood. They died from Wikborg Hartzner, son of Mission diarrhoea because the family was East's Managing Director. He has not familiar with good hygiene. visited one of the schools for children Now the village has received who are handicapped or who have education in preventing diseases. learning difficulties that Mission East helps in Armenia. 10 Romania 12 Tajikistan – Help arrived at the exact – This time Saidjamol is moment Olga needed it prepared for the flood Olga used to live in a one room house During the past 14 years the villages with her eight children. She did not along the Yokshu River have have a job and her husband could not experienced about one flood a year. endure their poor situation and left Saidjamol Saidulleov's family lost her for another woman. almost everything when their home and land was flooded. Front page photo: Mission East Head Office in Hellerup, Denmark Board At the Gavar Special School is a Danish international aid organisation. Managing Director Dr. Kim Hartzner Chairman: Dr. Thomas Ploug handicapped and children We exist to deliver relief and development Vice Managing Director Peter Blum Deputy chairman: with learning difficulties are assistance to vulnerable communities with a Samuelsen Kenneth Whitelaw-Jones primary focus on Eastern Europe and Asia. given the opportunity to Communications Director Jesper Holst Robert Kelley Based on Christian values, Mission East aims Journalist Tania Rusbjerg Turi Nørholm develop their individual talents. to support the most vulnerable, making no Liason Officer Henrik Gunnertoft Dr. Peter Bernhard Approximately 700 children racial, political or religious distinction between Bookkeeper and Office Assistant Tina Bartels in the region need special those in need. Editorial staff education – and in spite of the Mission East currently operates in Afghanistan, Mission East Office in Brussels, Belgium Kim Hartzner fact that the school has room Armenia and Tajikistan, and we co-operate Operations Director Mags Bird Tania Rusbjerg for 200 children, it currently with local partners in Bulgaria, Romania and Finance Director Peter Drummond Smith Nepal. only has about 100 students. Finance Manager Terry Gould and Marianne Graphic design The assistance offered by Mission East is sup- Le Floch www.munchogmunch.dk ported by a range of private and public donors Project Support: Richard Peppiette ISSN 0908-2042 such as the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Desk Officers: John Karren, Alex Ramos-Peña EU and the United Nations. Jacques Dailloux, Graeme Glover Mission Øst · Postboks 149 · Skt. Lukas Vej 13 · 2900 Hellerup · Tlf. +45 39 61 20 48 · Fax +45 39 61 20 94 · Giro 773 1566 · CVR 1472 3692 · [email protected] · www.miseast.org EDITORIAL 3 Not just about numbers Mission East has helped around enormously thanks to relatively 250,000 people in 2006. But our simple interventions. support is much more than a number. This magazine is dedicated A child in Afghanistan learns to some of the individual lives we how to wash her hands and have changed with your help. understands for the first time how this will protect her health. A Somehow the world we live in mother in Romania learns to hope seems to get faster and faster. 2007 again because someone reaches corner of the country. As we look is already well underway, and we out to help her in the midst of at the stories in this magazine, wonder how it came so quickly. poverty. A man in Tajikistan is we draw hope and inspiration in Life for Mission East, whether for reassured that his family is better a busy world from the thought our teams in the field, or staff at prepared for the annual flooding. that it’s not just about numbers. headquarters just seems to get Each story is a life changed, for Each well, each hygiene training busier and busier. There is so which we offer thanks. Thanks session, each flood early warning much to do….! Sometimes the lists which is in a large part due to system, changes the lives of of things to do are so long that we our faithful supporters who individuals in an amazing way. forget to take a step back and look make the work possible – and And amidst the daily rush, that at what we have achieved. of which we have just reached a thought helps us to keep going. I total of 7,000, another cause for hope it is also a reflection which This magazine presents some celebration! brings you encouragement and of those achievements. And keeps you with us through 2007 in a world that increasingly So, we look on towards the rest of – thank you for your ongoing talks in terms of trends and 2007 and imagine the hundreds support. generalizations, it also presents of thousands more lives we’ll be us with a chance to stop for helping change along the way. We a moment and focus on some hope that an increasing number With gratitude, individuals. Some real, individual of these will be in Nepal, where people in different situations we are working towards setting up for whom life has changed projects in the most remote and Dr. Kim Hartzner poverty-stricken mountainous Managing Director of Mission East 4 ARMENIEN The Managing Director’s ten-year-old son visits school for the handicapped “They were not really familiar with technology,” Philip Hartzner (left) says about the children at the school in Gavar. “They did not know what a television and a mobile phone is. I took out my mobile phone and they all wanted to look at it. They were pointing at it and looked like they wanted to ask me “What does that thing do?”” school were OK because the toilets and showers had been renovated by Mission East. But the windows were so rotten that you couldn’t open them. It is not so bad in the winter but, when it gets really hot “You learn to not only think of By Tania Maria Lüders The children on the other side of in the summer then it is a problem yourself,” says ten-year-old Philip Rusbjerg, Mission East the walls of this boarding school that the children can’t get fresh air Journalist Wikborg Hartzner, son of Mission come from some of the poorest in the room while they sleep,” says East’s Managing Director. Together families in the country. They are Philip. with his classmates he has vi- socially vulnerable, handicapped “Their beds were really hard. I sited the Gavar Special School for and children with learning tried lying on one of them and it handicapped and children with difficulties, who need extra help to was like I was lying on bricks. I learning difficulties in Armenia. survive and develop. would never be able to fall asleep Ten-year-old Philip Wikborg if I went to bed there.” One winter’s day, three white Hartzner was one of the “The classrooms were decayed. minivans rolled up in front of the passengers. He has been living in The walls were falling apart, the Gavar Special School in Armenia. Armenia since August with his paint was flaking off, the tables During the following couple of mother, two brothers, and his were scratched, and the windows hours, the passengers, thirty dad, Kim Hartzner, who is there were rotten, too.” students from the International “Their beds were really the Managing Director of School in the capital Yerevan, got hard. I tried lying on one Mission East. That winter's “As if they had a glimpse of a world very different of them and it was like day he experienced how never seen sweets” from their own. Far from the flat I was lying on bricks. I children in one of Armenia’s The visit is part of a project screen televisions, the mobile would never be able to poorest regions live. carried out by the International phones and the designer clothes fall asleep if I went to bed “I can’t imagine a school like School in co-operation with they are used to. Far from warm there.” that in Denmark. It wouldn’t Mission East. The goal is to raise rooms, quilted covers and the Ten-year-old have been allowed – they money to renovate the decaying regular filling meals. Philip Wikborg Hartzner would have pulled it down building and create better learning 20 years ago. Parts of the environment for the children. 5 Getting the right education is little these children have, and the crucial to these children’s future. stark contrast when compared to The one thing Philip remembers their own lives.” most from the visit is how gifted Philip adds: the children turned out to be in “You learn to not only think of spite of their handicaps. yourself. You see how good you “I was surprised and impressed to really have it. After the visit I see how talented they are. I had talked to my best friend who never imagined that they could comes from a rich family in “They are not good at do all the things they could do.