Scientology Disaster Response Specialists Graduation in Tanzania

Students at the Lord Baden Powell Memorial School in Dar es Salaam earn certificates from the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Africa Goodwill Tour.

A special graduation June 13^th at the Lord Baden Powell Memorial School in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, acknowledged students who completed Disaster Response Specialist Training through the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Africa Goodwill Tour.

The training, which included basic organizational and communication skills, was delivered by a team of Volunteer Ministers from South Africa who bring their mobile training center to countries throughout Africa. Training also covered basic Scientology Assists—technology developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that address the spiritual and emotional factors in stress and trauma.

School director Col. Kipingu Iddi Omari opened the ceremony and the students who completed the program received certificates and Volunteer Minister ID Cards identifying them as disaster response specialists.
Singer Grace Paul sang an original Swahili song based on the motto of the Volunteer Ministers, with Lord Baden Powell students joining in the chorus: “No matter the situation, something can be done about it.”

Volunteer Minister Goodwill Tour Leader Carl von Pfeil urged the students to use what they have learned to accomplish their goals: “You have learned simple truths: you can make yourself heard, you can learn anything, you can organize to accomplish what you set out to achieve. You can do something about it.”

Scientology Volunteer Minister Teams Up With Archangel Airborne To Provide Emergency Medical Training In Haiti

Scientology Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman is carrying out his 6th humanitarian mission to Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake. Since arriving May 14, he has trained more than 1,100 community health personnel, families and first-responders in simple skills that save lives.

Lindeman, a 20-year veteran emergency medical technician and licensed practical nurse, trained some 400 people the first week there, and teamed up with Archangel Airborne May 22 for a series of training sessions and clinics for persons with little or no medical training. These sessions were organized by Archangel Founder and President Stuart Hirsch.

Each of the workshops cover basic medical and first-aid skills for coping with disasters and epidemics. Lindeman incorporates techniques from The Scientology Handbook for the relief of trauma and confusion and provides practical know-how learned over the past decade through service in ten major disasters including the January 2010 Haiti earthquake.

As cholera has killed more than 7,000 Haitians and sickened more than 531,000 since the epidemic began in October 2010, Lindeman’s workshops feature training on how to cope with and prevent the spread of cholera: what the disease is, a very inexpensive and simple way to make safe drinking water, and an oral rehydration formula to assist those who do contract the illness to survive.

Workshops also include how to deal with life-threatening injuries and conditions in the harshest of circumstances; basic first-aid including bleeding control, injury stabilization and spinal protection despite lack of supplies; and transporting of patients using material easily found even in a disaster zone.

Archangel Airborne is a nonprofit organization of aviators, clinicians and multidisciplinary specialists whose mission is to provide medical, logistical and consultative support to areas in need of restabilization. The team utilizes aircraft to transport clinicians, advisors, supplies and equipment to underserved areas.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour Tackles Solomon Islands Literacy

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour has completed a series of seminars on Study Technology developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. Delivering to teachers and students from 31 schools in Guadalcanal, the volunteers addressed education as the key issue to improve conditions for the island.

The Solomon Islands ranks 142 of 187 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), which measures life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life. The Solomon Islands also ranks 126 out of 160 countries in the most recent United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report. The key to improving these rankings and the standard of living in the Solomon Islands is education.

“It was interesting and stimulating to attend the Scientology seminar which addressed our real needs as teachers,” said a teacher from the Lunga School.

“Now we understand what our difficulties are with our students, and why.”

“The workshop cleared my confusion about how to study and how to teach,” said a teacher from the Tamboko School. “It helps me solve the barriers of study and develop my teaching.”

“I am very grateful for this seminar on ‘The Technology of Study,’” said the senior teacher at the Verahue Primary School. “I now know their weaknesses in learning and can tell and show them what to do so that they get a good education.”

“Scientology is for people from all walks of life, any race, color, culture or belief,” says Mathew Andrews, leader of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour. “Anyone can learn more about life from The Scientology Handbook, which includes a chapter called “The Technology of Study” and 18 additional subjects, all of great importance to the individual.”

For more information on Scientology Volunteer Ministers, Click Here.

Scientology Disaster Response In The Wake Of Fiji Floods

Scientology Volunteer Ministers, mobilized in the wake of recent floods, are providing relief and helping in the cleanup operation in Vita Levu, the main island of Fiji.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates the flooding of early April 2012, the worst in decades, caused $71.3 million in damage. And although the waters have receded, entire villages were submerged in floodwaters and the damage continues to impact the lives of thousands.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers, active since the state of emergency was declared April 1, are helping cleanup crews remove mud and debris from homes. They have teamed up with the Fiji Red Cross and the Islamic Development Organization to distribute clothing and shoes, bedding and mattresses, food, kitchen utensils, and school supplies in coordination with the military and under the direction of the district government.

The Fiji Scientology Volunteer Minister teams are comprised of local residents, introduced to the program in 2006 when the Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour spent several months in Fiji.
The South Pacific Scientology Volunteer Ministers Tour, now in the Solomon Islands, is one of 10 teams traveling through Oceania, Asia, Latin America, Africa, Australia, Central Europe and the Indian subcontinent, dedicated to helping people in remote areas with practical help for everyday life.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Provide Free Seminars In Guadalcanal

The official launch of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour in Honiara, capital of Guadalcanal Province of the Solomon Islands, signals the launch of a month of free seminars on the 19 subjects of the Scientology Handbook.

At the opening ceremony on April 21^st of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour in Honiara, capital of Guadalcanal Province, Hon. Ileen Sulukonina, Guadalcanal’s Minister for Women, Youth, Children and Sports, welcomed the Volunteer Ministers to the region on behalf of the Guadalcanal Provincial Government. Hon. Sulukonina, who herself attended all 19 seminars when the Goodwill Tour first arrived in the Solomon Islands in Fall 2011, encouraged those present to take advantage of the training.

“The seminars will teach and inform people about the tools in knowing to know yourself and relationships with others in order to survive,” she said. “Come with an open heart to learn, as Man’s survival will depend on his knowledge about himself, others and his environment.”

The Waru Panpipe Band and the Kakona Traditional Group performed traditional songs and dances and guests toured the traditional hut built for the occasion at Town Ground, and Mathew Andrews, leader of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour, gave an overview of the program with specific examples to illustrate the 19 topics the group will cover in the seminars—including how to communicate and understand others better; how to improve one’s standard of living; solutions to alcohol and drug abuse; how to improve the ability to study and learn; what makes a successful marriage; and how to be an effective leader.
“Our aims are to pass on the knowledge of Scientology so people can overcome problems that trouble them or those they care about,” he said.

Philanthropist Brings Scientology Volunteer Ministers Program To Democratic Republic Of Congo

Thousands lined the streets and filled Stadium de L’Espoir (Stadium of Hope) in Kananga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to welcome the team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers who arrived this week from Uganda, Québec and Brussels to implement Volunteer Minister training for 2,000 Congolese.

Organized by a local philanthropist Francois Muepo, the training is to provide the leaders of Kassaï-Occidental Province with tools to successfully deal with the serious social challenges the region faces: poverty, illiteracy, drug abuse, corruption and the consequences of decades-long conflict that has decimated the country.

Through the Volunteer Ministers International office, Muepo arranged for a group of experienced, French-speaking Volunteer Ministers to train a team of trainers in the technology of the Scientology Handbook.

On arriving in Kananga, the Volunteer Ministers met with local mayors, provincial ministers and other officials to finalize the planning for two 1,000-participant training sessions to be conducted by Canadian Volunteer Minister Alain Lefrancois on April 26.

The Volunteer Ministers then trained a core of 80 civic, community and religious leaders including state ministry staff and local mayors and their assistants who will help supervise the training of Thursday’s major training sessions and will make the program available to people throughout the region.

On a trip to Belgium in 2010 to find effective programs to uplift his country, Muepo first learned of the Volunteer Ministers and other Scientology-sponsored humanitarian programs at the Brussels-based Churches of Scientology for Europe. After studying the Scientology Handbook and experiencing the effectiveness of the technology firsthand, he determined to bring the program to the Congo.

His reason: despite the many riches of the Congo—gold, copper, diamonds and more—71 percent live in poverty. The 1998–2003 Second Congo War and conflicts that continue to this day in the eastern provinces of the country caused the deaths of an estimated 5.4 million people by 2008, mostly from disease and starvation. Rape by combatants and other acts of violence against women was described by a UN official as “worse than anywhere else in the world.” Efforts to rectify these problems are hampered by illiteracy.
Muepo’s goal in implementing the Volunteer Ministers program is to enable his people to fully benefit from the enormous natural and human resources they possess. He says the 80 leaders selected to become trainers are inspired with the skills they have learned so far and confident for the first time that they have the tools to reverse the ravages of years of turmoil and corruption and bring to the people of the Congo the quality of life they deserve.

SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTERS HONORED IN THE PLACE THAT TIME FORGOT

The Savulei Paramount Council of Chiefs of the Solomon Islands endorsed the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program in March 2012 and welcomed the volunteers to the island in a traditional ceremony that dates back from the dawn of time.

Lambi is home to Paramount Chief Savulei whose authority extends over the 56 chiefs of the Savulei Council of Chiefs. So impressed was he by the results he saw in his village, he and his council officially endorsed the program and invited the Volunteer Ministers to return for a traditional welcoming ceremony.

The endorsement expresses the Savulei Council of Chiefs’ thanks to L. Ron Hubbard for developing the program:

“As Paramount Chief of Savulei and the Chairman of the Savulei Council of Chiefs I write on behalf of 56 Chiefs and the people of Savulei.

“We have come to know Mr. Hubbard through his Scientology teachings. We see him as a man of much wisdom, one who truly cares about others and we have great respect for him.

“The Savulei Council of Chiefs say thank you so much Mr. Hubbard. We look at you as our Big Chief guiding us to a better way of living.”

For more than 30,000 years, Solomon Islanders have lived much as they do today in “the place that time forgot” as the island nation is known. In villages like Lambi throughout Guadalcanal, traditional ways of living trace back thousands of years, untouched by the outside world. Villagers live in thatch-covered huts: no phones, no Internet—no electricity.

But its isolation from the rest of the modern world does not spare Lambi from the problems inherent in life, and the technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard for the Volunteer Minister program applies as much in an isolated village as it does in London, Moscow or New York.

For six weeks, beginning in November 2011, the volunteers of the Goodwill Tour lived in the village and organized workshops, training more than 100 villagers in important life skills: the underlying cause of conflicts, the barriers to study, communication, and the full array of subjects contained in the Scientology Handbook.

From the ranks of those they trained, a team of indigenous Volunteer Ministers formed up that will continue the work after the South Pacific Goodwill Tour moves on.

In the official welcoming ceremony in March 2012, the leader of the Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour and the team of local Volunteer Ministers paddled across the bay to enter Lambi. As they arrived on the shore, the chief’s warriors attacked to protect the village; the chief steps in, telling his warriors to stand down—that these are friends—and invited them to enter the village where they exchanged food and gifts.

In his speech to those assembled, the Paramount Chief thanked the Volunteer Ministers for providing the technology to bring the peace and spiritual freedom his people have been seeking.

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In creating the program in 1976, L. Ron Hubbard described the qualities of the Volunteer Minister: “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”

Scientology Volunteer Ministers have trained and partnered with more than 1,100 organizations, including the Red Cross, FEMA, National Guard, Salvation Army, Mexico’s International Rescue Brigade, Boy Scouts, and hundreds of local, regional and national groups and organizations, giving freely of their skills, their care and compassion. They have provided physical and spiritual relief at more than 200 disaster sites.

Today hundreds of thousands of individuals are trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister across 185 nations. For more information on Scientology Volunteer Ministers, visitwww.volunteerministers.org.

L. Ron Hubbard Day

I think March 13 should be designated L. Ron Hubbard Day.

The wealth of what he left behind as his legacy, he has done to help humankind, certainly merits this and much more.

Japanese Volunteer Ministers Helping Farmers Harvest Their Rice

Those who survived the earthquake and tsunami in Northeast Japan last March face many challenges. One family of farmers needed help with their rice harvest.

A team of Volunteer Ministers pitched in to cut the rice and hang it on “rice walls” to dry.

Once dry, the plants will be threshed, which separates the grains of rice from their stalks.

After a day of hard work, the job was done, and the year’s rice harvest, which might otherwise have gone to waste, was salvaged.

Scientology Disaster Response, Colombia

The coordinator of Latin America Volunteer Ministers activities, himself a veteran of the Scientology Haiti relief effort, is in Colombia from his headquarters office in Mexico City to train and man a Scientology Disaster Response Team to provide relief in the wake of flooding in and around the northern coastal city of Cartagena, which has disrupted the lives of more than 94,000 Colombians, according to the Colombian Red Cross. Additionally, in Manizales, 100 miles west of Bogotá, 150 families were evacuated this week because of landslides.

Volunteer Ministers seminars were held this week at the Centro Cultural de Dianética in Bogotá to train volunteers to assists in these and other disasters.

To join the Colombia disaster response, fill out the disaster response form at the Scientology Volunteer Ministers website.

Scientology Disaster Response, Colombia

The coordinator of Latin America Volunteer Ministers activities, himself a veteran of the Scientology Haiti relief effort, is in Colombia from his headquarters office in Mexico City to train and man a Scientology Disaster Response Team to provide relief in the wake of flooding in and around the northern coastal city of Cartagena, which has disrupted the lives of more than 94,000 Colombians, according to the Colombian Red Cross. Additionally, in Manizales, 100 miles west of Bogotá, 150 families were evacuated this week because of landslides.

Volunteer Ministers seminars were held this week at the Centro Cultural de Dianética in Bogotá to train volunteers to assists in these and other disasters.

To join the Colombia disaster response, fill out the disaster response form at the Scientology Volunteer Ministers website.