thank you to: all the participants, VSA, PSBC and the audience!
We could not have done this with out each and one of you!!
Thank you!!!
*highlights from the show coming soon! stay tuned!!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
CULTURE SHOW TONIGHT!!!
SEASA culture show TONIGHT!!!
GASSON 100 @ 6:30!
FREE FOOD! FREE ENTRY!!!
come see your amazing friends perform!!
love,
your seasaeboard08-09
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Dying, and Alone in Myanmar
International Herald TribuneA 49-year-old man in the advanced stages of H.I.V. has not told friends about his situation because of the social stigma attached to the disease. "The worst thing for me is the loneliness," he said. Two weeks after this photograph was taken, he died.
Dying, and Alone, in Myanmar
April 1, 2009
By SETH MYDANS
BANGKOK — The most heartbreaking moment for doctors and nurses treating people with H.I.V./AIDS in Myanmar is the arrival of a new patient. Running short of funds and medications, clinics have started turning dying people away.
“They continue to knock on our doors, even though we can’t take in most of them,” said Joe Belliveau, operations manager of the international aid group Médecins Sans Frontières.
The 23 clinics run by the group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, are the primary dispensers in Myanmar of the antiretroviral drugs that can prolong the lives of those infected with H.I.V., the virus that leads to AIDS. So most of the people it cannot treat are likely to die.
The people of Myanmar, a country that seems to have been marked for suffering, receive little foreign assistance — the country ranks among the lowest per capita for such aid in the world. The same is true for assistance for people with H.I.V./AIDS.
Médecins Sans Frontières estimates that 240,000 people are currently infected with H.I.V. in Myanmar and that 76,000 are in urgent need of antiretroviral drugs. Every year, about 25,000 people with the virus die.
The group’s clinics have been providing 11,000 people with the antiretroviral drugs that keep them alive. The longer they live, the more treatment they need. The group says it is unable to increase its budget there without taking money away from people in need elsewhere.
Last year it made the difficult decision to stop accepting any new patients in order to continue treating the old ones. It has opened its doors a little bit this year, accepting 3,000 new patients, still a fraction of those in need.
“When we stopped last July it was devastating for the staff,“ Belliveau said. “They couldn’t even treat the ones dying on their doorsteps.”
This year, the United Nations-backed Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has applied for government permits to bring antiretroviral drugs into Myanmar, and the number of people receiving treatment is likely to rise.
But that will only be one step. Fewer than 20 percent of those who need the drugs receive them, either from international groups or, in very small amounts, from the government, Médecins Sans Frontières said in a report released in November.
When a photographer visited a clinic a few months ago, he found anguish and fatalism among the people who had not received the drugs.
“I can only live longer if I have ART,” said one 28-year-old woman, referring to the antiretroviral treatment she needs. “Most of the money and possessions I had are already gone. My family sends me food from the village, but they cannot support my treatment. If I get ART I will be able to live, if not, I will die.”
In one room the photographer found a 49-year-old man, gaunt and weak, sitting on the side of a bed. He had no family, and because of the stigma of the disease he was ashamed to tell his friends or co-workers about it.
“The worst thing for me is the loneliness,” he said.
Two weeks after his picture was taken, he was dead.
The people of Myanmar, a country that seems to have been marked for suffering, receive little foreign assistance — the country ranks among the lowest per capita for such aid in the world. The same is true for assistance for people with H.I.V./AIDS.
Médecins Sans Frontières estimates that 240,000 people are currently infected with H.I.V. in Myanmar and that 76,000 are in urgent need of antiretroviral drugs. Every year, about 25,000 people with the virus die.
The group’s clinics have been providing 11,000 people with the antiretroviral drugs that keep them alive. The longer they live, the more treatment they need. The group says it is unable to increase its budget there without taking money away from people in need elsewhere.
Last year it made the difficult decision to stop accepting any new patients in order to continue treating the old ones. It has opened its doors a little bit this year, accepting 3,000 new patients, still a fraction of those in need.
“When we stopped last July it was devastating for the staff,“ Belliveau said. “They couldn’t even treat the ones dying on their doorsteps.”
This year, the United Nations-backed Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has applied for government permits to bring antiretroviral drugs into Myanmar, and the number of people receiving treatment is likely to rise.
But that will only be one step. Fewer than 20 percent of those who need the drugs receive them, either from international groups or, in very small amounts, from the government, Médecins Sans Frontières said in a report released in November.
When a photographer visited a clinic a few months ago, he found anguish and fatalism among the people who had not received the drugs.
“I can only live longer if I have ART,” said one 28-year-old woman, referring to the antiretroviral treatment she needs. “Most of the money and possessions I had are already gone. My family sends me food from the village, but they cannot support my treatment. If I get ART I will be able to live, if not, I will die.”
In one room the photographer found a 49-year-old man, gaunt and weak, sitting on the side of a bed. He had no family, and because of the stigma of the disease he was ashamed to tell his friends or co-workers about it.
“The worst thing for me is the loneliness,” he said.
Two weeks after his picture was taken, he was dead.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Betrayal
Fulton 511 @ 7PM FREE FOOD AND DRINKS
During the Vietnam War, the United States government waged its own secret war in the neighboring country of Laos. When the U.S. withdrew, thousands of Laotians who fought alongside American forces were left behind to face imprisonment or execution. One family, the Phrasavaths, made the courageous decision to escape to America. Hoping to find safety, they discovered a different kind of war.
Epic in scope yet devastatingly intimate, The Betrayal is a testament to the resilient bonds of the family and an astonishing tale of survival.
Epic in scope yet devastatingly intimate, The Betrayal is a testament to the resilient bonds of the family and an astonishing tale of survival.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
LOUNG UNG TMRW NIGHT!!!!
LOUNG UNG:who is she: is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia, one of the bloodiest episodes of the 20th century - 2 million Cambodians- out of a population of just 7 million-died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime.
what does she do: author of her memoir, First They Killed My Father, a featured speaker on Cambodia, child soldiers, women & war, domestic violence and landmines. She worked for the Vietnam Verans' of America Foundation's (VVAF).
where has she been: she has been featured in NYtimes, Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Today Show, ABC news nightline, and many more.
reviews:
Angeline Jolie (United Nations High commission for Refugees)
"I encourage everyone to read this deeply moving and very important book. Equal to the strength of the book is the woman who wrote it. She is a voice for her people and they are lucky to have her."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Breaking news: C bomb exports permanently banned!
Hey guys! Check out the article below about the banning of landmine and cluster bomb exports in America. This is a cause that SEASA and BC faculty have been advocating for years. Read about this recent breakthrough!
© 2009 US Campaign to Ban Landmines | Friends Committee on National Legislation, coordinator | 245 2nd Street NE Washington, DC 20002 | 800-630-1330. Powered by ARCOS.
US Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs
Friends Committee on National Legislation, coordinator
U S C B L e - a c t i o n
March 2 0 0 9
Breaking news: President Obama will sign a law today that will make permanent a ban on nearly all cluster bomb exports from the United States. Congress included the export ban in an omnibus budget bill that passed the Senate last night. This provision will move the U.S. one step closer to the position of the nearly 100 nations--including our closest NATO allies--that signed a treaty banning cluster munitions in December.
The legislation states that cluster munitions can only be exported if they leave behind less than one percent of their submunitions as duds, and if the receiving country agrees that cluster munitions "will not be used where civilians are known to be present." Only a very tiny fraction of the cluster munitions in the U.S. arsenal meet the one percent standard. This export ban was first enacted in a similar budget bill in December 2007, but that law mandated it for only one year.
U.S.-exported cluster bombs were most recently used by Israel in Southern Lebanon, where dud rates were reportedly as high as 40 percent; hundreds of civilians and deminers have been killed or maimed since the fighting ended in 2006.
Now Congress needs to take the next step and ban U.S. use of these deadly weapons. Nearly one in four senators have already cosponsored the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S. 416), introduced one month ago, which would stop the military from using virtually all of the cluster bombs in its vast arsenal by applying this same one percent standard to U.S. use. Do your senators support this bill? If not, urge them to co-sponsor today. If it's unacceptable to export high dud-rate cluster bombs, then it's unacceptable to use them. Growing Senate support for S. 416 will show President Obama that the U.S. public stands with the rest of the world in supporting a ban on cluster bombs.
As 17 year old Soraj Ghulam Habib from Herat, Afghanistan, who lost both legs to a U.S. cluster submunition in 2001 observes, "You'd ban them for sure, if you had them here." Click here to see what a cluster bomb would do to your neighborhood.
A live, U.S-made M77 cluster submunition in a citrus orchard in Southern Lebanon--one of an estimated 4 million dropped in 2006.
© 2009 US Campaign to Ban Landmines | Friends Committee on National Legislation, coordinator | 245 2nd Street NE Washington, DC 20002 | 800-630-1330. Powered by ARCOS.
Monday, March 9, 2009
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