KBI Current Missions

PLEASE visit us often as UPDATED information will be posted again very soon...

2012-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

KNIGHTSBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL

" The work continues..."

OUR NEXT

HUMANITARIAN MEDICAL MISSION
IS IN THE PRELIMINARY STAGES
WITH A TENTATIVE DATE IN
MID-MARCH....

WE ARE GOING BACK TO
BASILAN ISLAND
AND
ZAMBOANGA CITY

City of Zamboanga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamboanga_City

Basilan Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilan

WHERE...
WE WILL BE PROVIDING 50 +
CLEFT LIP AND PALLATE PATIENTS WITH FREE OPERATIONS
THAT THEY MAY NOT
OTHERWISE RECEIVE...

* There are some of the patients what could not partipate in our previous

Medical Mission on December 13-16, 2011.

DETAILS HERE SOON....

*******

PLEASE DONATE TO

THE PHILIPPINE RED CROSS

***** URGENT APPEAL *****

Help the thousands of flood

victims in the Philippines of...

***ALL FUNDS ARE TO BE

SENT DIRECTLY TO ***

Typhoon “Sendong”

**You can STILL help the victims NOW by** Contacting:

**********

*** The Philippines Red Cross

http://www.redcross.org.ph/

http://www.redcross.org.ph/donatenow

http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate

Volunteer Service Office
2/F PRC Bldg. Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila
Phone: 527-0862
E-mail Address: volunteer@redcross.org.ph

or the

*** The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)

http://www.dswd.gov.ph/

For Volunteer Service and Donations, please call the following:National Resource Operations Center (NROC)
NAIA Chapel Road, Pasay City

Tel. Nos. 852-8081, 851-2681

***ALL FUNDS ARE TO BE

SENT DIRECTLY AS ABOVE***

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY FUNDS TO

KNIGHTSBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL IN THE USA...

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

***SEE POST MISSION PHOTOS BELOW***

Medical Mission

December 13-16, 2011

City of Zamboanga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamboanga_City

Basilan Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilan

Zamboanga City & Basilan Island

20 Patients with Cleft Lip / Cleft Palates

These surgeries will be done in Zamboanga City as the security situation on Basilan

is such that we would not want to cancel this Mission again.

POST MISSION PHOTOS

A dedicated Team of Volunteer

Medical Professionals and others from

Makati City & Zamboanga City

joined in the spirit of the season...

" A SMILE IS FOREVER "

Happy Holidays 2011

//////////

I encourage you to read this wonderful story
about HOPE...

Gwapa 'Beautiful' - An Inspirational Documentary

http://www.gwapafilm.com/Videos.html

(QUOTE)

**********************

NEWS FROM

KNIGHTSBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL

MISSIONS UPDATE

Medical Missions are being scheduled now for the following dates and or locations.

December 2011 # 20 of 49 Patients from Isabela, Basilan.

These surgeries will be done in Zamboanga as the security situation on Basilan

is such that we would not want to cancel this Mission again.

January 2012 (TBA) # 50-75 Patients from

General Santos City (DELAYED)

February 2012 (TBA) # 100-Plus Patients from

Dumaguete City (DELAYED)

STAND BY FOR

NOTICES BELOW...

****************

There is an up date on my health below and that is all there is to it.

I can either be a victim here of go on living my life for all the right reasons.

I have lived a great life, helping more people than I ever thought possible.

I have truly been blessed.

******************

This is what I know....

I wanted to share what I know so far about the long effects I can expect from the stroke that I suffered on July 24, 2011.

Here is what I know for certain...

Yes, it is true that I had a stroke but I can assure that I am not yet dead, far from it.

Yes, it is true that I am slower to catch the ball when you throw it to me but I still know the rules of the game and which end the bat hits the ball out of the park.

Yes, I am going to be somewhat slower to understood at times but that was always the case even when I had my mind set on doing whatever it would take to get a Mission out of the Talking Stage in to the Action Stage.

I had some brain damage which effected my right & left hands with loss of feeling and tremors and my left leg with loss of feeling as well.

These caused minor paralyses which effect my ability to eat, getting dressed and things such as buttoning my shirts etc. at in the scheme of things these are only minor inconveniences and I am helpful for what for I have and I am very, very thank you.

But I am sad to said that I have lost most of my ability to speak for other than some few words that might try to join with their friends into making a sentence.

I have to live with the reality of the world as I now know it and trust me I will do all that I can to continue to help the poor around the world.

Language Difficulties

Aphasia is a communication disorder that may affect all aspects of language processing. could have problems reading, writing, naming (word finding), understanding spoken words.

Receptive Aphasia is the difficulty understanding spoken language or written words. Stroke Speech therapy for this type of aphasia focuses on regaining comprehension skills.

Sir Edward Artis, Chairman, Co Founder

July 1945-

***********

Operation Smile-Philippines

Medical Mission - Cotobato City

June 7-12, 2011

202 + Patients were Registered

And

Thanks to the many partners involved

in this mission and through use of the

National Cleft Registry

Which is detailed below...

93 Children received FREE Cleft Lip

and or Cleft Palate Operations

*** Additional Photos, videos and Links will soon be posted...

PLEASE HELP US FIND AND TREAT

MORE OF THESE CASES.

IT COSTS YOU NOTHING

TO DO THAT OTHER THAN

A FEW MINS. OF YOUR TIME

TO MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE

IN A CHILD'S LIFE...

******

The Philippine National Cleft Registry

PLEASE see details below....

If you are a parent, relative or know of a child with either a Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate and would like to have that child's name added to this registry where they may be able to receive FREE Medical care PLEASE
Download, Print, Complete and email the form shown directly below this message with three color photographs.

# 1 Full Face, mouth closed, Holding a small placard with Name, Age , Gender and Location ( Province Only Please ).

# 2 Front view, head tilted back, mouth open showing interior of the mouth.

# 3. Right side profile.

to:

PhilippineNCR@aol.com

Once we have received this information and requested photos we will contact you with further details on what the next steps of this process will be.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO ENLARGE, SAVE AND PRINT IT

ALSO PLEASE NOTE

******

If you are a member of either a Rotary Club, Lions Club or other Civic Organization or LGU and would like to act as a local coordinationor for this project in your area PLEASE send us your complete contact information, including cell number via email to:

PhilippineNCR@aol.com

******

Recent News and UPDATES

April 18, 2011

Patients Registered or in process to date by Province

Cotabato 93 ***

Davao 35 ***

Basilan 20 ***

Palawan 50

Bacolod 28

Maguindanao 53

Lanao del Sur 16

*** Cotobato Mission 6/7-6/12/2011.

93 out of 202 Registered patients as of the first day of this mission were operated on. A follow up mission is to be scheduled for later this year or early next year to address the needs of those who were unable to be operated on due only to the lack of time and certain medical items which were unavailable when needed.

******

April 5, 2011

Banner promoting the forum hosted at The Asian Institute of Management

"Global Public Private Partnership Advancing Literacy and Healthcare in the Philippine(ARMM)"

An iInvestForun.com event

( Not shown in this Photo is Guest Speaker Quintin V Pastrana , Founder of the Library Renewal Program )

Some of the more than 40 people who attended the very informative forum held at
The Asian Institute of Management
Makati, City, Philippines on April 5, 2011

TOPICS DISCUSSED

The National Cleft Registry, it's value and possible impact on the
provision of health care for the poor in the Philippines
Sir Edward Artis, Chairman, Knightsbridge International

Operation Smile-Philippines
Dr Owen Loh, 18 year Volunteer Plastic Surgeon for Operation Smile-Philippines

The Library Renewal Program
Quintin V Pastrana,, Founder

AND

A VERY SPECIAL THANKS GOES TO

The Asian Institute of Management

Global PPP 040511 TEAM

Aleem Guiapal, Program Management
Zidni Marohombsar, Program Management
Audrey Lee, Logistics
Alan Holmes, Program Support

////

We are now in the process of accepting patient registrations for

The Philippine National Cleft Registry.
*** Detailed below

If you are a parent or relative of a child with either a Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate and would like to have that child's name added to this registry where they may be able to receive FREE Medical care PLEASE contact us by email at:

PhilippineNCR@aol.com

and we will send you complete information packet on the registration process.

If you are a member of either a Rotary Club, Lions Club or other Civic Organization or LGU and would like to act as a local coordinationor for this project in your area PLEASE send us your complete contact information, including cell number
via email to:

PhilippineNCR@aol.com

**********
UPDATE
PLEASE VISIT US AGAIN
SOON AS
A DOWN LOADABLE
PATIENT SURVEY AND
REGISTRATION FORM
WILL SOON BE POSTED
IN THIS SPACE.

BY FILLING IT OUT
AND RETURNING IT TO US,
YOU WILL BE ABLE TO
HELP US HELP OTHERS

THANK YOU
**********

/////

This photo was taken in Bongao, Tawi Tawi, Southern Philippines

September 26, 2009

As many of you may know by now, Knightsbridge International has been working diligently in the Philippines and elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia and many other parts of the world for many, many years, primarily by providing medical equipment and supplies as well as educational materials to various vetted local NGO partners and agencies. These efforts will always be ongoing and your continued financial support will always be greatly needed and appreciated for those efforts. In fact we have 5 containers of medical supplies available and ready to ship if we can raise the funding to pay for the costs of getting them here, which we estimate to be approximately $ 13,500.00 - $ 18,500.00 for each container, delivered right to the end user.

*** In addition to the above we have also been involved with many more specialized Medical Missions in concert with both local and foreign medical teams, which brings us to my explaination of how the photograph shown above had such a profound impact on me personally and more so how it contributed to the newest of our projects which I will attempt to explain below.

The establishment of a PHILIPPINE NATIONAL CLEFT REGISTRY first here and then by invitation which by the way we have already received in Vietnam and Cambodia.

In September 2009 while participating in a medical mission in Bongao, Tawi Tawi, one of the most southern Provinces in this country, with our very good friends at Operation Smile-Philippines, a mission which took us nearly three or four months to coordinate and during which we were only able to locate and operate on 20 patients because we just did not have enough information on the total number of patients who might be needing these surgeries. This child was handed to me the day we had already packed up to leave and return to Manila.

The mother had not heard about the mission until the day we started it and we did not know that this child even existed and would be needing surgery and it took her nearly three days to get from the outter island where she lived to Bongao where we were set up and operating. This broke my heart, but at the time I did not have any idea on how often something like this could happen or how to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. I now know how to prevent it…and I need your help in seeing to it that no child or anyone else needing these FREE surgical proceedures ever misses what could very well be their once in a life time opportunity to receive them simply because they were not listed in a date base somewhere.

I have learned that in the Philippines alone

Therefore it is our goal to establish:

The Philippine National Cleft Registry

and then Sister Registeries in Vietnem and Cambodia

My Asian Smile

http://my.asiansmile.org/

Why develop such a Registry?

Because it has been my experience over the past three plus years of being involved with these very specialized missions, that once a decision has been made to hold one, that it can take up to a year to finally do the first operation with between 90 and 180 days of that year or more being spent to locate and preliminarily screen the patients, of which as high as 20 % will not be able to be operated on the during the planned mission itself as they will be disqualified for any number of health reasons, including being malnourished and underweight, suffering from a cold or other upper respiratory illnesses and in some cases even TB. Unfortunately in many cases once these patients have been rejected and leave the mission site they may never be contacted again or if they are they may not feel like they have any real chance of being treated because of their previous experience. We can make sure that those who may have been turned away do not slip through the cracks and do in fact have another opportunity (ies) to get the medical care they need and deserve and which in most cases is available to the for free..

How…?

Through the development of a very simple, user friendly interactive online registry where parents can register their children through the email submission of a single page very user friendly, fill in the blanks patient survey form and two or three color photographs. These patient survey forms can also be submitted by any group or organization such as Rotary Clubs etc. who wish to join with us in this effort. Once these forms have been submitted they will be screened and clustered by Province and available online to any organization who is engaged in providing these operations FREE of Charge to those in need, provided that is that anyone who should not be operated on for any reason is immediately returned to the registry for future consideration.

NO SINGLE organization will own this database or have exclusive access to this information as it would be open source to any organization engaged in the provision of these Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate Operations.

Who….?

Through and in association with various organizations such as:

The Philippine Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (PAPRAS)

http://www.papras.org/

Operation Smile-Philippines

The Philippine National Red Cross

The Armed Forces of the Philippines / Civil Military Operations ( CMO ) Units

The Philippine National Police / Medical Service Corps

The Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassion and Relief Foundation

The US Embassy JUSMAG-P and JSOTF-P

Rotary Clubs and other civic organizations as well as Local Government Organizations.

And others yet to be announced as this program develops …

PLEASE help my friends and I prevent any of us who may ever have another child handed to us by a parent or climbs up into our laps on their own after having been turned away at the end of a medical mission say anything other than “ I promise you that you will be called back again and again if need be until we can give you the SMILE that you deserve…”.

PLEASE help us help those in need by sending your generous donation today.

There are two ways that you can do that...

# 1

Immediate Donations can be made online via PayPal by visiting our website which is located at:

http://www.kbi.org/

# 2

* via checks ONLY made payable and sent to:

Steps For Recovery

A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

Federal ID # 95-4472343

PLEASE remember if sending a donation via check to clearly mark your donation .....

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

* Checks are being coursed through Steps for Recovery at this time due to the long delays that we have experienced in getting our mail forwarded to us in the Philippines in a timely manner.

All donations via check are being processed through Steps for Recovery who will also issue the appropriate receipts for those of you who may need them for tax purposes.

Thank you, Merry Christmas and Happy Hoildays...

Ed Artis, Knightsbridge International

December 23, 2010

Manila, The Philippines

/////

And also in the Spirit of Christmas....

I would like to take this opportunity share with you a story about one of the very Special Medical Cases that we have been working on here in the Philippines for more than two years.

Attached below are some very early photos of Carla Gomez a lovely, always smiling little girl from, Angeles City, Pampanga Province, who unfortunately was born with an Imperforate Anus and some more recent pre and post op photos as well.

She had her final surgery at Philippine General Hospital, in Manila on December 16 th.

And while we actually started this special medical case more than 2 years ago it is only during this Christmas Season that we all would receive the best gift that we could have ever hoped for.

Carla will be going home very soon as a healthy, normal 3 plus year old beautiful little girl.

I sincerely wish to thank The PGH Medical Foundation Inc., the outstanding and very compassionate surgical teams at PGH for their dedicated public service, sincere compassion and assistance in helping make this happen for this lovely little girl and her family and a very special thank you to her parents JR and Chelsea for all of their very hard work and tireless efforts, our donors as well as our very good friends Steve Fletcher and Wayne Johnson of Angeles City for bringing this very special opportunity to our attention and for their continued support and encouragement during the past more than two years as we all worked through the process of getting Carla healthy enough to receive this life altering surgery.

First Photos that we received of Carla at age 13 months.

Carla at age 26 months +- with her parents JR, Chelsea and I at PGH

Pre Operation # 1 Last Year.

Carla Age 3 with her mother Chelsea and I at PGH Pre Op

for what will be her FINAL Operation.

December 14, 2010

Carla Gomez with her parents JR and Chelsea

at PGH four days Post OP and just days before

they will all be home for Christmas.

UPDATE

JR, Chelsea, Carla Gomez and I at PGH

Early this morning, December 24, 2010 as

they were discharged from the Hospital and allowed to go home.

What a GREAT Christmas gift this is for all of us.

Ed Artis, Knightsbridge International

Manila, Philippines

Wednesday December 22, 2010

and

Should you wish to help us help other children like Carla you can do that by sending us your donation today.

There are two ways that you can do that...

# 1

Immediate Donations can be made online via PayPal by visiting our website which is located at:

http://www.kbi.org/

# 2

* via checks ONLY made payable and sent to:

Steps For Recovery

A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

Federal ID # 95-4472343

PLEASE remember if sending a donation via check to clearly mark your donation .....

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

* Checks are being coursed through Steps for Recovery at this time due to the long delays that we have experienced in getting our mail forwarded to us in the Philippines in a timely manner.

All donations via check are being processed through Steps for Recovery who will also issue the appropriate receipts for those of you who may need them for tax purposes.

/////

PLEASE STAND BY....

as this BLOG is about to be UPDATED

with information regarding the establishment of a series of

NATIONAL CLEFT REGISTRIES

http://my.asiansmile.org/

first in The Philippines

and then in Vietnam and Cambodia,

as well as details on

our series of pending

Surgical Medical Missions to:

Basilan, Jolo, Tawi Tawi, Palawan and

Zamboanga City...

//////////

PLEASE VISIT:

http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/adn/guestbook.aspx?n=walter-ratterman&pid=139692184&sign=3

AND FEEL FREE TO LEAVE A COMMENT AND FAVORITE PHOTO

OF OUR BELOVED FRIEND

AND

BROTHER KNIGHT

SIR WALT RATTERMAN

"MAY HE REST IN PEACE"

//////

February 20, 2010

Friends remember Walt Ratterman, Washougal humanitarian killed in Haiti quake

By Allan Brettman, The Oregonian

Photo by Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

Bagpipers lead the family of Walt Ratterman from the sanctuary of Grace Foursquare Church in Camas, Wash., where a memorial was held for the Washougal man. Ratterman, 57, died Jan. 12 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where he was checking on projects for his nonprofit, SunEnergy.

CAMAS, Wash. -- When he was a 12-year-old boy living in the Baltimore area, Walter John Ratterman started a house painting company, and he never stopped working.

Eventually, he steered his entrepreneurial drive toward helping some of the neediest people on Earth, becoming a hero in the eyes of friends, family and strangers.

Today, some of them remembered "Walt" as a determined, principled man with a wry sense of humor and a deep sense of purpose.

Ratterman, 57, was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12 when an earthquake destroyed much of the city and killed an estimated 230,000 people.

The co-founder of SunEnergy Power International, a nonprofit that promotes renewable energy in remote parts of the world, had been in Haiti since early January, checking on projects at schools and hospitals.

Days after the disaster, people around the world, connected by a Facebook page, held out hope that Ratterman would be miraculously found alive. The U.S. State Department called Ratterman's wife Feb. 7 to tell her his body had been found.

"Our prayers were answered," Jeanne Ratterman said. "They just weren't answered the way we'd want."

Jeanne Ratterman honors her husband, Walt Ratterman of Washougal, who died in the collapse of the Montana Hotel in Haiti.

Photo ByThomas Boyd/The Oregonian

About 200 people gathered today at Grace Foursquare Church, west of the Ratterman home in Washougal, for a memorial service. About a quarter of the people traveled from outside the Northwest and a handful from outside the United States.

As she has collected her thoughts and sifted through possessions over 38 years of marriage, Jeanne Ratterman said she's had time to marvel at her husband's worldwide accomplishments.

Photographs of Ratterman's journeys to far-flung locations flashed on two large screens before and after the service.

Images from Burma and Afghanistan appeared most often. The flags of 21 countries adorned the stage, along with the American flag, representing places Ratterman had visited. He traveled to at least 10 additional countries on humanitarian missions.

"How did he do all this? How did he do all these things?" said Jeanne Ratterman. She wore a geometric pattern dress that her husband had purchased at some distant location and stood at a lectern in bare feet because "Walt was a barefoot kind of guy."

Jeanne Ratterman said she'd decided that her husband managed to do so much because "he did things one step at a time and he planned," filling journals along the way.

Before hearing about the globe-trotting philanthropist, those attending the service heard about his days at Towson Catholic High School in Maryland. That's where he met his future wife, and each decided within four months that they would be married. And they were, at age 19.

Ratterman once was nearly expelled from school for his role in a harmless prank but negotiated his sentence down to a two-week suspension, Jeanne Ratterman said.

He used the time to make money painting houses for his Otis Painting Co., named for rhythm and blues singer Otis Redding. He graduated as class salutatorian.

After pursuing an electrical engineering degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Arizona State University, Ratterman built a successful career managing projects an electrical construction company.

In 1985 he started his own company, and in 2004 he was one of three founders of SunEnergy, based in Washougal.

His humanitarian work blossomed during a relief trip in early 2001 to Afghanistan.

"We were Christians helping Muslims with Buddhist money," said Ed Artis, who worked with Ratterman on several overseas projects.

Artis referred to the aid recipients as well as the Taiwan-based Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi Foundation, which honored Artis and Ratterman as its only non-Asian commissioners.

Ed Artis holds a piece of crystal, he brought back from the Montana Hotel, perhaps from a chandelier, to remember Walt Ratterman of Washougal who died in the collapse of the hotel in Haiti. Artis was one of Ratterman's friends who went to Haiti in an attempt to find him.

Photo by Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

One of Ratterman's many facets was a love for music. As a young man, he received a diploma from the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore Conservatory of Music.

As a father, he would sing his daughter, Briana, to sleep with Billy Joel's "Lullaby (Good Night My Angel)." He also had a son, Shane.

A singer performed the song at the service.

I promised I would never leave you

And you should always know

Where ever you may go

No matter where you are

I never will be far away

Written by Allan Brettman

For

The Oregonian

//////////

The Inspiring Legacy of Walt Ratterman

The actions of Walt Ratterman speak more clearly about his character than anything I could write. He has personally brought light to thousands of people around the world. In Burma alone, he was the driving force behind bringing solar power to 37 medical clinics, serving over 170,000 internally displaced people a year. We had the honor of knowing and learning from Walt, an exemplary humanitarian dedicated to improving life around the world with renewable energy. We traveled and worked together in Thailand, Laos, the Philippines, Peru and Nicaragua, while he was Program Director of Green Empowerment from 2003-2006. He worked side by side installing solar panels with Shuar natives in the jungles of Ecuador, traversed the rapids of rivers in Borneo to help on a micro-hydro project, and taught renewable energy in the highlands of Peru. He could easily make friends with people around the world, despite the language barriers, because anyone could relate to his sense of humor and down-to-earth friendliness.

In 2006 he founded SunEnergy Power International, carried on his long-time work with Knightsbridge International and continued to inspire everyone with his hard work, unwavering sense of justice and belief that everyone deserves to be treated as equals. In January, 2010, his dedication to humanity brought him to Haiti, where he was working on the installation of solar power for medical clinics. He was there when the earthquake hit. Friends and family searched for him in the ruins and sent their prayers. Tragically, he did not survive, but his legacy lives on. He has taught me, and hundreds of others, that humility is a powerful force that can change the world.

He will be greatly missed,

-Anna Garwood and the Green Empowerment team

As a testiment to how many lives he has touched, as of writing this, there are 1882 fans of his Facebook page...

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walt-Ratterman-Haiti-Mission/275563896042?ref=mf

SunEnergy Power International

http://www.sunepi.org/SunEPI/Welcome.html

Knightsbridge International

http://www.kbi.org/

View a slide show of pictures here.

http://www.slide.com/r/gN3WFVdk6z-hM5qnISLWAriTyOt2EFeD?previous_view=TICKER&previous_action=TICKER_ITEM_CLICK&ciid=2449958197755448116

/////////

R.I.P. Walt Ratterman

In addition to the above we have also been involved with many more specialized Medical Missions in concert with both local and foreign medical teams, which brings us to my explaination of how the photograph shown above had such a profound impact on me personally and moreso how it contributed to the newest of our projects which I will attempt to explain below.

The establishment of a NATIONAL CLEFT REGISTRY first in The Philippines and then by invitation which we have already received in Vietnam and Cambodia.

In September 2009 while participating in a very specialized medical mission in Bongao, Tawi Tawi, one of the southern most Provinces in this country, with our very good friends from Operation Smile-Philippines, a mission which took us nearly three or four months to coordinate and during which we were only able to locate and ultimately operate on 20 patients because we just did not have enough information on the total number of patients who might be needing these surgeries.

This child was handed to me the day we had already packed up to leave and return to Manila.

I have learned that in the Philippines alone there are between 4-5,000 children born every year with either a Cleft Lip, Cleft Palate or both and that the majority of them may well will go untreated simply because they were born into families just too poor to be able to afford to pay for these surgeries. I have also learned that there are more than a few very well run and dedicated organizations both domestic and foreign who provide thousands of these surgeries here each year for free. And each of organizations often have similar problems with regard to locating these patients in a timely manner which will insure that they see and treat as many patients as possible during their respective surgical missions. The services are often available…Let’s work together to connect those in need with them.

Therefore it is our goal to establish:

The Philippine National Cleft Registry

then sister registeries in Vietnam and Cambodia under.

My Asian Smile

http://my.asiansmile.org

Why develop such a Registry?

How…?

Through the development of a very simple, user friendly interactive online registration process where parents can register their children through by email through the submission of a single page, fill in the blanks patient survey form and two or three color photographs. These patient survey forms can also be submitted by any group or organization who wishes to join with us in this effort. Once these forms have been submitted they will be screened and clustered by Province and available online to any organization who is engaged in providing these operations FREE of Charge to those in need, provided that is that they agree that anyone who should not be operated on for any reason is immediately returned to the registry for future consideration.

Who….?

Through and in association with various organizations such as:

The Philippine Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (PAPRAS)

http://www.papras.org/

Operation Smile-Philippines

The Philippine National Red Cross

The Armed Forces of the Philippines / Civilian Medical Operations Units

The Philippine National Police / Medical Service Corps

The Tzu Chi Buddhist and Compassion Relief Foundation

The US Embassy JUSMAG-P and JSOTF-P

Rotary Clubs and other civic organizations as well as Local Government Organizations

And others yet to be announced as this program develops …

PLEASE help my friends and I prevent any of us who may ever have another child handed to us by a parent or climbs up into our laps on their own after having been turned away say anything other than “I promise you will be called back again and again if need be until we can give you the SMILE that you deserve…”. Sir Edward A Artis December 22, 2010

PLEASE help us help those in need by sending your generous donation today.

There are two ways that you can do that...

# 1

Immediate Donations can be made online via PayPal by visiting our website which is located at:

http://www.kbi.org/

# 2

* via checks ONLY made payable and sent to:

Steps For Recovery

A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

Federal ID # 95-4472343

PLEASE remember if sending a donation via check to clearly mark your donation .....

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

* Checks are being coursed through Steps for Recovery at this time due to the long delays that we have experienced in getting our mail forwarded to us in the Philippines in a timely manner.

All donations via check are being processed through Steps for Recovery who will also issue the appropriate receipts for those of you who may need them for tax purposes.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my friend Walt Ratterman, who was at the Hotel Montana in Haiti when the earthquake hit. Walt's wife Jeanne received an email only 10 minutes before the quake, which placed him in the courtyard, where he would have been OK. After the quake there was an eerie silence. We all assumed that Walt was helping those injured in the quake and that he and his friends would surface when they got a break. Those who knew Walt understand the passion he brought to many relief operations. Walt was known for sneaking into Myanmar in the bottom of a boat where, if discovered, he would have been summarily executed. Walt was the subject of the documentary Beyond the Call, which showed him braving Afghanistan a month after 9/11, Myanmar, and the most dangerous region of the Philippines.

Walt's love of helping people who, for no fault of their own, couldn't help themselves caused him to relocate his family to the West Coast, to be better able to continue his work. Walt traveled the world to help the needy, visiting Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America. Each time he brought food, medical relief, and solar power, and had a sustaining impact on all the lives he touched. Walt was part of a team brought into Haiti by USAID (United States Agency for International Development) to bring solar power to Haiti. Walt was working there on several projects, including a few hospitals where electricity brought them out of the dark ages, allowing them to perform surgeries and other treatments that were unavailable in Haiti previously. Many of the projects were completed prior to the quake and provided much-needed support for the injured, saving countless lives.

The great irony is that Walt almost never stayed in nice hotels. He stayed with those he helped.

The men and women who loved Walt mobilized to raise money and travel to Haiti. My own readers have been very generous. Six teams made their way at various times throughout the search and rescue phase of the operation. Each of those teams brought much-needed food, water, or medical relief. Dr. Sir James Laws hired a bus in the Dominican Republic and loaded it with bottled water that was given to many who were thirsty in Haiti. Sir Edward Artis loaded a 20-foot truck with food and braved the road from the Dominican Republic as well, in spite of reports of looting and hijacking of other vehicles on the road. The first team was given the emotional task of handling the morgue at the Hotel Montana. Without complaining, each member of that team stepped up and did what was asked of them. Each night this team cried themselves to sleep from the emotional toll of dealing with the dead that day. Each of the Knights and friends of Walt reached out to their entire networks and brought awareness to the search for Walt and the hundreds of others trapped in the rubble at the Hotel Montana.

As time wore on it became obvious that a miracle wasn't meant to be. Hope gave way to preparation for the inevitable. Walt's backpack and laptop were found a few days before his body was discovered. And then there was a wait for positive identification, before dental records confirmed that Walt was a casualty of the devastating earthquake. He was one of more than two hundred thousand souls separated from their bodies in that quake. No doubt Walt was busy in the spirit world, calming and organizing this mass of men, women, and children for their trek to meet their maker.

Each of us who has been involved in the life of Walt, and now with his untimely death, knows that he lived a life of honor and that he died doing the work that he loved. His death was certain to be a death of honor because of the way he chose to live his life. Each of us has the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to living our lives in a manner more aligned with the values that Walt applied every day he was here.

Walt stared death in the face so many times and lived, that we all expected him to be immortal.

Each of us has limited time on this planet, and we can use Walt's example to make that time count.

You, gentle reader, have given generously to make a great deal of difference in Haiti and over the years to Knightsbridge. Would you join me one more time to honor the life and work of our fallen hero Walt Ratterman? The world does not have enough Walts, and he will be sorely missed. Rest in Peace, my friend.

Please make your generous donations today, by sending a check made out to "Steps for Recovery" but clearly marked "FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE / HAITI" to:

Steps For Recovery

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

(A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

Federal ID # 95.4472343)

Or you can make an immediate ONLINE donation via PayPal, by going to the Knightsbridge website, located at: www.kbi.org/ and hitting the Donate icon found there.

There will be two memorials. Click here for details. https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1403664.6599887325/rid:c59296f8c03405402c1abafdccace3fc

Reprinted with permission from John Mauldin's " Thoughts from the Frontline, Friday February 12, 2010

/////////

Washougal family prepares memorial for Haiti quake victim

By Amy Troy KGW.Com

Newschannel 8 / Portland

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 6:26 PM

******

Remains of Washougal man found amid Haiti quake ruins

After weeks of praying for a miracle, a Washougal family is dealing with some tough news from Haiti. Search teams at the Hotel Montana, in Port Au Prince, found the body of Walt Ratterman.

Jeanne Ratterman heard the news from the State Department Monday.

"I was waiting for my miracle."

Now filling out the necessary documents to bring home her husband's body, which is at Dover Air Force Base. They hope he will be home in about a week.

Once he's home in Washington she plans to hold a memorial. It will be open to all the friends, near and far, who have supported her family since the earthquake January 12th.

Walt Ratterman was in Haiti installing solar energy panels at rural Haitian churches. He was inside the Hotel Montana, in a second floor conference room, when the quake hit. He always carried a backpack with food and water, he'd survived in war-zones, so his family believed he would survive this too.

Last week, with help from humanitarian groups, Jeanne Ratterman visited Haiti. She wanted to find her husband, her friend of 40 years.

She describes standing over the hotel rubble where her husband was last seen.

"It was good and it was sad."

She says it provided some closure for her. The volunteers were painstakingly combing through debris, searching for open "voids" where someone may have been buried.

Though volunteers didn't find her husband until after she left Haiti, she did witness his impact on several communities, -- hospitals, outfitted with Ratterman's SunEnergy Power

International solar panels, were among the few facilities with electricity after the quake.

"Definitely exciting to see all the Partners In Health hospitals are running and helping people."

Now, back home in Washougal, she continues reading Walt's Facebook page. It's filled with anecdotes and inspiring stories from all corners of the world where Walt worked with humanitarian groups.

She says those tales make all the difference.

"We couldn't have done this without all that help."

/////////

Breaking News, Clark County, Washington »

Remains of Washougal's Walt Ratterman found in Haiti after quake

By Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

February 08, 2010, 9:15PM

The remains of Walt Ratterman, a 57-year-old Washougal man, are found in Haiti.Sunday night, hours after she returned from Haiti on a mission to find her husband, Jeanne Ratterman got a phone call from the U.S. State Department.

The remains of Walt Ratterman of Washougal had been found at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, where he was staying last month when an earthquake struck Haiti.

The discovery ended a nearly four-week search and rescue effort that included several crews of friends and colleagues, from international aid workers to "Big Kenny" Alphin of the country music duo Big and Rich.

More

Read The Oregonian's coverage of the search for Walt Ratterman.The search for Ratterman, chronicled on his family's Facebook page, drew followers from around the world who posted prayers and good wishes for the family.

"He has inspired thousands of people," his daughter Briana Ratterman said Monday afternoon. "It's so clear from Facebook and even beyond. People are constantly e-mailing me, looking for ways to continue his vision."

Walt Ratterman, 57, co-founded SunEnergy Power International, a nonprofit that promotes renewable energy in remote parts of the world. He had been in Haiti since early last month, checking on projects at schools and hospitals.

Ratterman was at the Hotel Montana on Jan. 12 when the earthquake destroyed much of the city and killed an estimated 200,000 people.

Not all the details regarding the recovery of his remains had been released by Monday afternoon.

But the family learned in a conference call with other families of missing Americans that two sets of remains were found last week and two more sets Sunday.

The family was not told where Ratterman's remains were found. But Briana Ratterman said search crews had recently been looking in the area around the hotel lobby, the coffee shop and the second floor.

Jeanne Ratterman received an e-mail from her husband less than 10 minutes before the quake hit.

After weeks of waiting for news in Washougal, she went to Haiti last week for a first-hand look at the recovery effort. She said that when she arrived at the site of the hotel, all she could do was "look and cry."

News of Ratterman's death spread quickly Monday after his family posted a note on Facebook.

The message said a memorial would be held soon.

Thank you for your love, prayers and support," the message said. "We look forward to speaking with each of you personally when we are able."

It was met with an outpouring of condolences.

They came from friends and colleagues. They came from people writing in broken English. And they came from people who did not know Ratterman but were drawn to his story.

"He was such a magnificent man," said Ellen Marie Hannan, a Portland friend. "He was a real American hero."

Ratterman did dangerous work, his friends said Monday. He traveled to remote outposts where other nonprofits were reluctant to go: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere.

When he couldn't get where he needed to go, he improvised. Once, a friend said, he slipped into Burma amid a pile of rugs stashed on the bottom of a boat.

"This is a guy who would risk his life just to help other people get the basic human needs," Hannan said. "The last time I saw him he was heading off to Rwanda the next day."

-- Lynne Terry--

//////////

PLEASE STAND BY

FOR

UPDATED INFORMATION

/////////

7.3 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE

HITS HAITI

THOUSANDS FEARED DEAD AND THOUSANDS MISSING

TENS OF THOUSANDS MORE LEFT HOMELESS

KNIGHTSBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL
TEAM MEMBER

UNACCOUNTED FOR AT THIS TIME.

Walt Ratterman

AFGHANISTAN 2002

SUN ENERGY POWER INTERNATIONAL

http://www.sunepi.org/

FACEBOOK INFO ON WALT

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walt-Ratterman-Haiti-Mission/275563896042?ref=search&sid=1053558430.3976548040..1&v=wall

WALT WAS ALSO FEATURED IN ADRIAN BELIC'S

2006 AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY FILM...

" BEYOND THE CALL..."

http://www.beyondthecallthemovie.com/

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/beyondthecall/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/beyondthecall/ratterman.html

WALT WAS STAYING AT *** THE HOTEL MONTANA,

WHICH ACCORDING TO RECENT REPORTS WAS

COMPLETELY DESTROYED,

WHILE IN HAITI WORKING ON A SERIES OF

RENEWALBALE ENERGY PROJECTS WITH

SUN ENERGY POWER INTERNATIONAL

WHEN THE EARTHQUAKE HIT.

NO ONE HAS HAD ANY CONTACT WHATSOEVER WITH

HIM SINCE THEN...

A RESCUE AND RELIEF TEAM INCLUDING MEDICAL

PERSONNEL AND

TWO OR POSSIBLY THREE VERY SKILLED

" LIVE FIND K9 TEAMS "

IS HEADED TO HAITI

THIS COMING FRIDAY OR SATURDAY FROM THE US...

/////////

*** NEWS FLASHES ***

PLEASE READ

AND

SHARE THESE ARTICLES

WITH YOUR FRIENDS...

//////////

The once five story Hotel Montana lies in a heap of rubble
after an earthquake measuring 7 plus on the Richter scale
rocked Port au Prince Haiti just before 5 pm, January 12, 2010.
Shown Before in top photo and after the earthquake in the lower photo.

UN Photo/Logan Abassi United Nations Development Programme

The Red Circles Mark the spot where we think Walt was last located in preparation for a meeting.

//////////

Dr James G Laws from Dayton Ohio (L), the current Team Leader of the Knightsbridge International

contingent of a small rescue and assessment team and fellow team member Dr Charles Hanshaw (R) also from Dayton

take a break while working to clear rubble at what was once the Hotel Montana,

in an effort to recover survivors in Port-au-Prince on January 19, 2010.

They are currently in Haiti assisting in the search for missing Knightsbridge Team member Walt Ratterman,

who was there working on various alternative energy projects with Sun Energy Power International ( http://www.sunepi.org/ )

an NGO that he co founded, as well as doing a survey into setting up additional appropriate long term relief efforts and

reconstruction projects for Knightsbridge Intl. and their network of international partner NGOs.

PLEASE VISIT THIS LINK FOR MORE PHOTOS AND ARTICLES ON THIS MISSION
http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/walt%20ratterman/photos.html

//////////

By Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

January 18, 2010

Group looking for Washougal man in Haiti
arrives at collapsed hotel

Bruce Ely/The Oregonian
Joel Battistoni comforts Boyce Fish from Dayton, Ohio,
after they finished pulling bodies from the rubble of the Hotel Montana in Haiti.

Their goal: to find Ratterman, co-founder of SunEnergy Power International, a Washougal nonprofit that promotes renewable energy. He had been in Haiti checking on projects at schools and hospitals.

He reportedly was last seen at the upscale Hotel Montana, which sits on a hill in Pétionville, overlooking downtown Port-au-Prince. Most of the hotel collapsed in the quake.

When Battistoni and his group finally arrived at the gates down the hill from the hotel, they stated their mission, first to a military officer in charge of the site, and then to a canine search-and-rescue team member from Massachusetts.

We are, they said, here to help in any way.

The response wasn't exactly what they expected -- and would have discouraged less-hardy souls:

If you are here only to find your friend or other Americans trapped in the rubble, you can get back on your bus.

"There were Americans here, and when they got the Americans out, they left," said Fred Golba of Chicopee, Mass. Golba runs Coast to Coast Canine, a search-and-rescue unit that helped look for Natalee Holloway, the young American tourist who disappeared in Aruba in 2005. Now he's helping in Haiti.

But we'll help in any way, Battistoni and the others told him.

So Golba, as if to test their resolve, offered to let the group -- some of whom belong to the disaster relief organization Knightsbridge International -- do the basic tasks.

He said the group, led by cardiologist Dr. James Laws of Dayton, Ohio, could help by tending to the rescue dogs during their breaks, scrubbing down the searchers with decontaminants after each shift change and taking on sanitation duties at the garbage-strewn hotel grounds.

Yes, Laws replied to each assignment.

Then came the nastiest job.

Golba asked whether they would climb down a spiral marble staircase to an unventilated chamber and remove the bodies and partial remains piled inside. The stench was exactly as bad as one might think, six full days after the quake hit last Tuesday.

"It's going to be a stinking, nasty, filthy mess -- anybody not want to do this?" Laws asked his group.

Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

The bus carrying 10 Americans searching for Walt Ratterman waits at the Haitian
border while they fill out paperwork. Ratterman of Washougal, Wash.,
had been visiting Haiti to check on a solar-power project at the time of the earthquake.

By now, the answer was not surprising.

Battistoni and his makeshift band of brothers -- the Mississippi medical student, the retired Florida banker, two of Laws' second-year emergency room residents, an internal medicine specialist, an anthropologist, a chemical engineer from Houston and an environmental engineer from Panama -- again said they would do it.

This wasn't exactly what Battistoni had in mind when he pledged to help Ratterman, who is the husband of his wife's close friend.

Back home in Stevenson, hardship means inconvenience, such as having the Postal Service refuse to deliver to your home. But in Haiti, hardship takes on new meaning, and these were the jobs those in charge assigned them. So they began to distribute tons of bottled water to rescue workers, cared for the injured, worked on ways to use the hotel swimming pool to clean searchers and, when they could, searched for Ratterman.

It was grim work, taking corpses from one makeshift morgue to another. But Ratterman's body wasn't among those they moved.

"We are, they said, to help in any way," Battistoni said.

So they did.

As darkness fell, some of the workers thought they heard moaning from the ruins of the hotel. So the search continues.

And from down the hill in Port-au-Prince, the sound of a church choir and drums rolled through the night.

//////////

KGW Newschannel 8

Portland, Oregan

Broadcast on January 15, 2010

Well-known Washougal man missing in Haiti

by Eric Adams and Mike Benner

PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINK

TO VIEW THIS VERY MOVING BROADCAST

AND BETTER UNDERSTAND

WHY WE ARE SO COMMITTED TO

FINDING OUR VERY GOOD FRIEND WALT RATTERMAN

http://www.kgw.com/home/Well-known-Washougal-man-missing-in-Haiti-81810272.html

WASHOUGAL, Wash. -- A Washougal resident who was working on renewable energy projects for rural Haitian hospitals has not been seen since Tuesday’s earthquake, according to friends and associates.

A humanitarian relief organization was dispatching a team to Haiti to help look for Walt Ratterman, the co-founder of Washougal-based nonprofit Sun Energy Power International. "They're thinking of going into other places and backtracking into Haiti, whether it's on a boat or driving up or whatever," said wife Jeanne Ratterman.

Ratterman has worked around the world as an electrician and renewable energy contractor, according to KnightsBridge International.

The Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince at which Ratterman was registered, according to his family, was destroyed in the earthquake. "It looks like he could be trapped, but it looks hopeful, very hopeful," added daughter Briana Ratterman.

KBI said Friday that it was sending a “live-find K9 team” that included medical personnel in order to help with the Haiti devastation. The team also would work to locate Ratterman, according to a statement.

Briana Ratterman of Washougal said the family was waiting to hear any information about her father and that updates were available on Walt Ratterman’s Facebook page. "He has such good control over himself," said Briana. "But I can also imagine he's out working and helping people and not able to find a communication source."

//////////

Associate of Carbondale's SEI missing in Haiti...

Ratterman working

on renewable energy projects when quake hit

By John Stroud, Post Independent Staff

Walt Ratterman, left, pictured with associates including former

Solar Energy International instructor Carol Weis, right, in Haiti last summer.

(Photo from SunEnergyPower International website)

CARBONDALE — Friends and colleagues at Solar Energy International were anxiously awaiting word Thursday regarding a longtime SEI associate who was missing in Haiti after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.

Walt Ratterman, an alumnus, supporter and occasional instructor with the Carbondale-based renewable energy education institute, was in Haiti working on a series of renewable energy projects for rural hospitals with another nonprofit organization he co-founded, Sun Energy Power International.

“He has worked with SEI for several years, and has done projects with us all over the world,” SEI Director Johnny Weiss said. “He is a friend and mentor, and works in adverse conditions throughout the world. We're really hopeful that some miracle is going to happen, and that he will be OK in all of this.”

Ratterman was featured in Adrian Belic's 2006 award-winning film, Beyond the Call, a documentary about Knightsbridge International (KBI), a humanitarian relief organization which Walt was part of.

KBI is in the process of sending a rescue and relief team including medical personnel and “Live Find K9 Teams” to Haiti in the next couple of days.

“SEI is asking people to please donate to these efforts, as the costs associated with moving these skilled and very dedicated volunteers and their highly trained canines and equipment is costly,” SEI wrote in a news alert posted to its website [www.solarenergy.org]. Donations can be made at KBI's website, [www.kbi.org].

Ratterman is a co-founder and CEO of Sun Energy Power International, based in Washougal, Wash., near Portland, Ore.

According to a biography posted at www.sunepi.org, Ratterman was senior vice president for projects with Foley Electric, Inc., one of America's largest electrical contractors, for 15 years. He subsequently founded TRC Electrical Construction Services, a commercial electrical contracting firm installing solar PV systems in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

In 2003, he was one of the first PV installers to pass the rigorous North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) certification exam. He earned a Master of Science degree in Renewable Energy from Murdoch University in Australia, and has extensive renewable energy design and installation experience internationally.

Ratterman has also been involved with rural solar PV installations in Nicaragua, the Galapagos Islands, southern Ecuador, Peru, Arunachal Pradesh in India, Burma, Thailand, and Rwanda, some in partnership with SEI.

Ratterman's daughter, Briana, speaking by phone from Washougal, said Thursday evening they were still waiting to hear any information about her father's fate from Haiti.

“We are posting regular updates on his Facebook page,” she said. A link to the Facebook page can be found on the SEI website.

“We have a lot of former military professionals working with Knightsbridge, but they're having a hard time getting there at this point,” Briana Ratterman said. “We're just keeping our fingers crossed with that right now.”

//////////

PLEASE DONATE GENEROUSLY
TODAY

TO THESE EFFORTS AS

THE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH MOVING

THESE SKILLED AND VERY DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS

AND THEIR HIGHLY TRAINED CANINES

AND EQUIPMENT IS COSTLY...

BUT

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT LIVES WILL BE SAVED

EACH AND EVERY DAY THAT THEY ARE

THERE AND THAT TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE...

//////////

PLEASE make YOUR generous donations TODAY either by sending your checks made out to

Steps for Recovery

but

clearly marked

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE / HAITI "

to:

Steps For Recovery

A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

Federal ID # 95.4472343

PLEASE remember to clearly mark your donations

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE / HAITI "

You can also make an immediate ONLINE donation via PayPal by going to our website located at:

http://www.kbi.org/

and hitting the DONATE ICON found there.

//////////

Horror in Haiti earthquake as up to 100,000 feared dead

Posted: 14 January 2010 0302 hrs

Haitians walk pass destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti's prime minister on Wednesday warned the death toll may top 100,000 in a calamitous earthquake which left streets strewn with corpses and thousands missing in a scene of utter carnage.

Hospitals collapsed, destroyed schools were full of dead and the cries of trapped victims escaped from crushed buildings in the centre of the capital Port-au-Prince, which an AFP correspondent said was "mostly destroyed."

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN the final death toll from the 7.0 quake could be "well over 100,000," as an international aid effort geared up in a race against time to pull survivors from the ruins.

"I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out. Because we have so much people on the streets right now, we don't know exactly where they were living," Bellerive said.

"But so many, so many buildings, so many neighbourhoods totally destroyed, and some neighbourhoods we don't even see people, so I don't know where those people are."

President Rene Preval painted a scene of complete destruction in his impoverished Caribbean nation after the quake struck on Tuesday.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," he told the Miami Herald, estimating the number of dead in the thousands.

"There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them," he said, as experts spoke of the worst quake to hit the disaster-prone nation in more than a century.

With hospitals also having crumbled in the fury of the quake, medical services were struggling to cope with the flow of wounded.

There are "tens of thousands of victims and considerable damage," Haiti's ambassador to the Organisation of American States Duly Brutus told AFP, without specifying the number of dead.

"The most urgent need is to help the thousands of people who are still alive and trapped in the ruins," he added, saying the last quake of such magnitude to strike Haiti was in 1842.

Preval's wife, First Lady Elisabeth Preval, told the US daily she had seen bodies in the streets of Port-au-Prince and had heard the cries of victims still trapped in the rubble of the parliament building.

"I'm stepping over dead bodies. A lot of people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers," she said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the capital, with its population of two million people had borne the brunt of the quake which struck at 4:53 pm (2153GMT), saying vast areas had been destroyed.

While much of the rest of the impoverished Caribbean nation appeared largely unaffected, Ban gave a grim assessment of the devastation in Port-au-Prince, saying the city's few basic services had collapsed.

"There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian emergency and that a major relief effort will be required," he told a press conference in the United Nations, as he prepared to visit Haiti as soon as possible.

The temblor toppled the cupola on the gleaming white presidential palace, a major hotel where 200 tourists were missing and the headquarters of the UN mission in Haiti where up to 250 personnel were unaccounted for.

Five people were confirmed dead in the UN headquarters, and the head of the peacekeeping mission, Tunisian Hedi Annabi, was among the missing.

Jordan reported that three of its peacekeepers were killed and 21 wounded in the quake. Brazil said 11 of its peacekeepers were killed while eight Chinese soldiers were buried in rubble and 10 were missing, state media said.

An Argentine-staffed hospital was the only one left operating in the city and was struggling to cope with huge numbers of injured, its director told Argentine television.

"The situation is really critical because we cannot cope with this many dead and injured," Daniel Desimone told Todo Noticias.

"There are a lot of dead people in the streets, a lot of injured," he added.

A major international relief operation was put underway with the United States, France, Britain and Canada all promising help.

US President Barack Obama vowed a swift and aggressive effort to save lives and said search and rescue teams would arrive within hours after a "heart-wrenching" earthquake.

"This tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible," he said.

The US military on Wednesday mobilised ships, aircraft and expert teams due to arrive within hours to help the relief effort. An aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, was on the way and due to arrive on Thursday.

Planeloads of rescue teams and relief supplies were quickly dispatched from nations including Britain, Canada, Russia, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia.

As well as virtually destroying Port-Au-Prince, the earthquake also caused widespread destruction in the resort town of Jacmel, south of the capital, a witness said on Wednesday, saying he saw an entire mountain almost collapsed.

"It is a complete devastation here. Personally, I am lucky to be alive," said Emmet Murphy, local head of the US non-governmental organisation ADCI/VOCA.

"I was driving back to Jacmel in the mountains when the entire mountain seemed to fall down all around me."

*** Two hundred foreigners were missing at the Hotel Montana, French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet said.

Among the dead was the archbishop of Port-au-Prince Monsignor Serge Miot the Missionary International Service News Agency (MISNA) reported in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI urged a generous response to the catastrophe, lamenting Haiti's "tragic situation (involving) huge loss of human life, a great number of homeless and missing and considerable material damage."

- AFP / Channel News Asia

//////////

< < <

PHILIPPINES

2010-01-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010...

VOLCANO MAYON WATCH
( Status Downgraded 01/08/10 See *** Below for details )

PLUS

AN UPDATE

ON OUR ONGOING

PROGRAMS RELATED
TO

TYPHOON, FLOOD RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS AND
FORWARD THINKING

CRISIS MITIGATION
AND
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS...

" HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES IT IS NOT A MATTER OF
" IF "
BUT MORE A MATTER OF
" WHEN "
WE WILL BE VISITED AGAIN BY
EITHER ANOTHER
NATURAL OR MAN-MADE CALAMITY... "

PLEASE HELP US BE BETTER PREPADED TO RESPOND TO WHAT WILL SURELY BE THE NEXT ONE...

WE ARE NOW IN THE PROCESS OF SOLICITING, SHIPPING AND PRE- STAGING ITEMS THAT WE KNOW WILL BE NEEDED NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. BE IT A TYPHOON, FLOOD, MUDSLIDE OR VOLCANIC ERUPTION...
SUCH AS THE ITEMS SHOWN BELOW WHICH ARRIVED IN MANILA ON
DECEMBER 15TH...

This container was unloaded on December 15, 2009

Hundreds of family disaster buckets, blankets

and personal hygiene kits are currently on hand.

This represents only a very small portion of what we have already
received with much, much more on the way now.

AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION AND PREPAIREDNESS
CAN GO A LONG WAY IN PREVENTING THE
NEEDLESS LOSS OF LIFE AND HUMAN SUFFERING...

HELP US BE BETTER PREPARED...

PLEASE CONTACT US

TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN DO THAT...

//////////

STATEMENT AND APPEAL

All of OUR efforts in the Philippines since 2002 and especially those since September 26, 2009 have been in association with a very small cadre of highly dedicated individuals, local and international NGOs and GOs.

Nothing presented here is to be construed in any way shape or form as having been a singular effort of or on behalf of any one person or organization.

WE firmly believe;

" That service to humanity is the best work of life..."

( From The Jaycee Creed written by C. William Brownfield in 1946. )

and

WE believe in;

" Service above self..."

( From the Motto of Rotary International, first used by Frank Collins as " Service, not Self " in 1911

and officially adopted by Rotary International in it's current form at their National Convention in 1950. )

Since September, in addition to the hundreds of personal rescues and medical missions which were conducted by members of our partner INGOs, Local NGOs and GOs in some of the hardest hit and far flung locations in the country, WE have been able to solicit and deliver more than three million dollars worth of food, clothing, shelter, medical supplies and equipment to many devastated areas in the Philippines as well.

So far, WE have solicited, shipped and delivered five 40' cargo containers in partnership with various other international and local NGOs ( Non governmental organizations ) which contained more than 600,000 individual meals, enough equipment and supplies to re outfit four emergency rooms with enough basic equipment to function again after having been totally destroyed by the floods and mudslides which hit in September and October as well as smaller individual shipments of lifesaving medicines worth in excess of $ 500,000.00 for another group of partner INGOs and local NGOs for their use in conducting individual medical missions.

BUT

WE still have three 40' cargo containers committed and ready to ship but WE still need funding for the costs of shipping them here at approximately $ 18,500.00 each. These contain a total value in excess of $ 850,000.00 in medical supplies and equipment, PLUS WE now have an incredible opportunity to obtain nearly 2.5 million dollars worth of urgently needed medicines which will have at least 2 years life left on them upon arrival in the Philippines for only $ 50,000.00 which includes the costs of shipping from Europe...this represents a HUGE savings and can no doubt go along way in saving many lives in the POST Typhoon Philippines where they are still digging out from the series of killer storms that hit in September and October and even as late as November and many of these medicines are still in very short supply.

In the spirit of SHARING what you have with others WE are asking you to help us bring HOPE to those still suffering in the Philippines by making a donation to this cause.

You can make donations either by sending your checks made out to Steps for Recovery
but
clearly marked

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

to:

Steps For Recovery

A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation

P.O. Box 67522

Century City, CA 90067

Federal ID # 95.4472343

PLEASE remember to clearly mark your donations

" FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

You can also make an immediate ONLINE donation via PayPal by going to our website located at: http://www.kbi.org/

and hitting the DONATE ICON found there.

WE thank you in advance for your generosity...

//////////

FOR NOW WE SEEM TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN A REPRIEVE...

*** No fresh lava on Mayon crater - Phivolcs

By Cet Dematera (The Philippine Star) Updated January 08, 2010 12:00 AM

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines – Five days after its alert level was lowered from 4 to 3, Mayon volcano further subsided with an aerial survey showing no fresh lava on its crater.

“What we can see is a small volume of lava pile or incandescent material resting at the inner crater wall. No fresh lava is also visible,” Ed Laguerta, resident volcanologist here of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said as he reviewed video footage from the aerial survey.

Fellow volcanologist Alex Baloloy said though that 20 volcanic earthquakes were recorded in the past 24 hours – from only four on Tuesday – as well as 20 rockfall events.

The volume of sulfur dioxide emitted, however, drastically dropped to 672 tons from 1,914 tons the other day.

If these abnormal parameters continue to subside in a few more days, Baloloy said Mayon’s alert level could possibly be reduced to 2 in a week or two.

But he said a lower alert level “will only be seriously considered if all the abnormal signs simultaneously go down.”

He said they would also review the results of ground deformation surveys they are conducting until today.

Phivolcs is still prohibiting any human activity within the volcano’s six-kilometer permanent danger zone and the seven-kilometer extended danger zone on the southeast flank due to sudden explosions that may generate hazardous volcanic flows.

“People residing close to these danger areas are also advised to observe precautions associated with post-eruption activity, such as rockfalls, pyroclastic flows, and ash fallout which can also occur anytime due to instabilities of lava deposited on the steep slopes,” Phivolcs said in its latest bulletin.

It said that active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar-prone in the southern sector should also be avoided, especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall.

“Civil aviation authorities must advise pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano’s summit as ejected ash and volcanic fragments from sudden explosions may pose hazards to aircraft,” it added.

Meanwhile, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said he has approved the release of P3 million for the construction of core shelters for the 313 families still housed at the Anislag resettlement site in Daraga, and at the Fidel V. Ramos-Florencio Muñoz relocation site in Camalig. – With Helen Flores

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YES THOUSANDS DID SPEND CHRISTMAS

IN DISASTER SHELTERS

IN THE PHILIPPINES...

JUST WHEN WE THOUGHT WE WERE FINALLY CATCHING A BREAK...

ANOTHER DISASTER STRIKES THE PHILIPPINES....

Villagers living on the slopes of the Mayon volcano ride on a truck after evacuating their houses in Camalig, Albay, 500 km (310 miles) south of Manila December 15, 2009. Philippine authorities started evacuating about 50,000 people from around the country's most active volcano on Tuesday as it spewed burning mud and rocks. Mayon volcano, famed for its near-perfect cone shape in a coconut-growing region of the central Philippines, started to release lava early this week and vulcanologists are expecting a major eruption in the next few days.

PLEASE NOTE...

AS NEEDS BECOME KNOWN
THEY WILL BE POSTED ON THIS BLOG...

With lower Mayon alert, thousands return home

By Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star) Updated January 03, 2010 12:00 AM

Policemen and soldiers help evacuees board military trucks (above) as they prepare to leave an evacuation center in Legazpi City, Albay after government volcanologists lowered the alert level at the restive Mayon volcano yesterday. In left photo, two young evacuees carry their belongings as they head back home. Edd Gumban

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) yesterday lowered the alert level around Mayon volcano from level 4 to level 3 despite the volcano’s relatively high state of unrest.

Thousands of villagers who evacuated at the height of the volcano’s rumbling headed back home even as Phivolcs warned that the “overall state of unrest remains relatively high and that the people should still remain outside the six-kilometer permanent danger zone.”

Most of the 47,000 evacuees whose homes are within the eight-kilometer danger zone have been told it is safe to return home, said Cedric Daep, head of the disaster management office of Albay province.

Only about 5,000 people whose homes are on the southeastern slope of the volcano and in the path of lava flows remained in shelters.

Chief state volcanologist Renato Solidum said scientists were closely monitoring the volcano and may raise the alert in case of a resurgence of activity.

“At the moment, the activity of the volcano is declining, but the volcanic unrest is still high,” he said.

Relative peace and quiet

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda has ordered that all schools be prepared to reopen for classes tomorrow. Many schools had been used as shelters since the evacuations began Dec. 15.

The evacuees heading home also will be given enough food for three days and will continue to receive supplies already set aside for them by the World Food Program, Jukes Nunez of the provincial disaster office said.

Daep said the military and police will help transport the villagers back to their homes.

“We are very, very happy we are going home to our village,” said 59-year-old seamstress Myrna Avellano. “We had a sad Christmas and New Year’s Eve at the evacuation center.”

Mayon, known for its perfect cone, has erupted nearly 40 times over 400 years, sending people packing for months at a time. But never has it happened during the all-important Christmas celebration, when Filipinos gather with family and friends for traditional meals and merry-making.

“The latest activity of Mayon still indicates that its overall state of unrest remains relatively high. Phivolcs-Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is lowering the alert status of Mayon from alert level 4 to alert level 3 to reflect the overall gradual decrease of activity,” Phivolcs said in a bulletin.

The agency, however, said the lowering of the alert level should not be interpreted to mean that the unrest of the volcano has ceased.

“If there is resurgence in the volcano’s activity and the potential for explosive eruptions is perceived to be forthcoming, the alert level may be raised back to 4 but if there is noticeable downward trend in the monitored parameters, then the alert will be further lowered to alert level 2,” Phivolcs said.

It also clarified that the moderate seismicity, high volcanic gas outputs and continuing glow of the summit that is covered by the phase of unrest are processes normally associated with very gradual return to the repose period.

The volcanic system is expected to continue to produce earthquakes and to vent a large amount of gases because of the fresh magma that still resides along the whole length of the volcanic pipe and near the summit.

The decision to downgrade the alert level in the area was based on Mayon’s behavior during the last six days.

Since Dec. 28, Phivolcs has noticed a declining trend in the volcano’s activity, as there has been no ash ejections observed since Dec. 29 while the steam emission was most of the time weak and white in color, indicating considerable decrease in energy and absence of ash.

Majority of the type of earthquakes that were recorded during the past days were associated with rockfalls and rolling down of fragments from the lava deposits along the Bonga gully and the advancing lava front.

The measured sulfur dioxide levels have also showed a decreasing trend, from a maximum of 8,993 tons per day to 2,621 tons per day. The still high concentration of sulfur dioxide emission suggests that there is residual magma degassing at shallow depths.

Explosions still possible

But even if there is a reduction in the alert level, Phivolcs warned the public about the possibility of sudden explosions that might occur due to localized pockets of gas within the magmatic system.

The effects of these explosions are expected to be contained within the six-kilometer radius permanent danger zone (PDZ) around the volcano and within the seven-kilometer radius extra danger zone (EDZ) in the southeast quadrant.

Phivolcs-DOST suggested that the six-km radius PDZ around the volcano be put in place and the seven-km EDZ on the southeast flank of the volcano should be free from human activity because of sudden explosions that may generate hazardous volcanic flows.

“People residing close to these danger areas are also advised to observe precautions associated with post-eruption activity, such as rockfalls, pyroclastic flows, and ash fallout which can also occur anytime due to instabilities of lava deposited on the steep slopes,” it added.

Active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar-prone in the southern sector should also be avoided especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall.

Pilots were also advised not to fly close to the volcano’s summit since it is still ejecting ash, and volcanic fragments from sudden explosions may pose hazards to aircraft.

Veteran climber warns tourists

Meanwhile, a veteran Mayon climber warned people, including tourist guides, not to attempt to scale the 8,078-foot mountain while its overall condition remains abnormal.

Ricardo Dy, 70, who has climbed Mayon over 600 times, issued the warning following reports that local and foreign tourists, accompanied by neophyte guides, continued to sneak past checkpoints to watch Mayon’s oozing lava from close range despite the government’s no-human activity policy within the PDZ.

“Most people, especially tourists and mountain climbing enthusiasts, are lured to trek Mayon volcano because of its postcard beauty. But the truth is deadly experience awaits anybody who will climb it without a veteran guide, as if you are groping in the dark,” he said.

Dy told volcanologists that Mayon might erupt anytime in 1984 based on his actual observation of animal movement and the foul odor he smelled as he trekked the volcano. Mayon erupted weeks later.

Pagasa: Cloudy day in Albay

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) does not expect heavy rains over Albay today, sparing the residents of the province from possible volcanic mudflow.

“The Bicol Region would experience mostly cloudy skies with scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms. It would be a cloudy day so there is no cause to fear lahar,” Pagasa weather forecaster Bobby Javier said.

Javier added that rains would fall over the Visayas but it would not affect Albay and the Bicol Region.

In its 24-hour public weather forecast, Pagasa said moderate to strong northeasterly surface wind flow will affect Luzon and wind convergence will affect the Visayas.

The Visayas and Northern Mindanao would have cloudy skies with scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms becoming widespread rains over the eastern section of the Visayas, which might trigger flashfloods and landslides. Southern Luzon would experience mostly cloudy skies with scattered light rains.

The rest of the country would be partly cloudy to cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms.

Moderate to strong winds blowing from the northeast would prevail over Luzon and Visayas and coming from the east and northeast over the eastern sections of the Visayas and Mindanao. The coastal waters along these areas would be moderate to rough.

Elsewhere, winds would be light to moderate blowing from the northeast with slight to moderate seas. -With Cet Dematera, Jaime Laude, Evelyn Macairan, AP

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Philippines: NDCC Update - Sitrep No. 18

Mayon Volcano update

Source: The Government of the Philippines

DATE 28 December 2009, 10:00 PM

Source: DOST-PHIVO LCS. DSWD. DOH. DepEd. OCDRC-V. ALBAY PDCC. AFP. JTF MAYON. DPWH V

I. SITUATION OVERVIEW

Alert Level 4 remains hoisted over Mayan Volcano which means that a hazardous eruption is possible within days. PHIVOLCS-DOST reiterates that the Extended Danger Zone (EDZ) from the summit of eight kms at the southern sector of the volcano and seven kms at the northern sector should be free from human activity

PHIVOLCS recommends that areas just outside of the EDZ should prepare for evacuation in the event that hazardous explosive eruptions intensify; and active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar-prone in the southern sector should also be avoided especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall

For the past 24 hours, Mayan Volcano's intense level of unrest persisted

Seven (7) ash explosions were observed during times of good visibility. The explosions produced dirty white to light gray ash columns that reached a maximum height of about 2,000 meters

A total of 44 volcanic earthquakes and 137 rock fall events related to the detachment of lava fragments at the volcano were detected by the seismic network

Red hot lava continuously flowed down along the Bonga-Buyuan, Miisi and Lidong gullies

At Alert Level 4, mandatory evacuation of 9,946 families I 47,285 individuals staying within the 6 km radius Permanent Danger Zone (PDZ) and the 6.8-km EDZ in the southern quadrant - particularly Buyuan, Mainit and Bonga areas was imposed

As of 11:00 AM, 28 December 2009, the number of evacuees is 10,032 families I 47,563 persons inside 29 evacuat io n centers (Tab A)

The PDCC projects an emergence of health related problems based on prior experiences and the current weather which is likely to contribute to the increasing risks for colds and other related diseases. Thus, the fear that zero casualty goal may be compromised by health risks and the willingness of the population-at-risk to stay in the evacuation centers

PDCC Albay reported four (4) cases of conjunctivitis or sore eyes in Tabaco City

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Volcano Mayon as seen from space

Image Credit: NASA/Jesse Allen

Tens of thousands of people living within the danger zone of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines were forced to evacuate to emergency shelters in mid-December 2009 as small earthquakes, incandescent lava at the summit and minor ash falls suggested a major eruption was on the way. On the evening of Dec. 14, the local volcano observatory raised the alert level to Level 3, which means "magma is close to the crater and hazardous explosive eruption is imminent."

This natural-color image of Mayon was captured on Dec. 15, 2009, by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. A small plume of ash and steam is blowing west from the summit. Dark-colored lava or debris flows from previous eruptions streak the flanks of the mountain. A ravine on the southeast slope is occupied by a particularly prominent lava or debris flow.

The Phillipine Star said on Dec. 22 that "ashfall blanketed at least three towns in Albay, raising new health fears for thousands already bracing for an eruption that could come at any time ... Health officials warned the tiny particles could cause respiratory problems or skin diseases, and could affect the thousands of people crammed into evacuation centers.

Also on Dec. 22, CNN reported that "tens of thousands of people have already fled their homes. More than 9,000 families -- a total of 44,394 people -- are being housed in evacuation camps after authorities raised the alert status of the country's most active volcano" as "fountains of red-hot lava shot up from the intensifying Mayon volcano."

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It's not such a Wonderful Life here in the Philippines this Christmas
'White Christmas' for Albay folk'
By Helen Flores (The Philippine Star) Updated December 25, 2009 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - It’s going to be a “White Christmas” in Albay after Mayon volcano yesterday continued to spew ash, covering the province with a layer of fine light gray ash.

Director Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the ash clouds reached at least two kilometers skyward.

Thirty explosions were recorded yesterday morning, the largest producing two kilometers of ash columns in the sky, he added.

Solidum said alert level 4 remained hoisted over Mayon, which means that a hazardous eruption of the volcano is likely within hours or days.

Phivolcs continued to monitor lava flows from the volcano during the past 24 hours, he added.

Solidum said sulfur dioxide emission rate also remained high at an average of 6,737 tons per day from Tuesday to early Wednesday.

A total of 124 booming and rumbling sounds were intermittently heard, he added.

However, volcanic earthquakes slightly decreased yesterday to 815 from the 1,051 recorded the previous day, Solidum said.

Last Wednesday, Solidum warned that Mayon could unleash deadly pyroclastic flows within the week.

The explosions have become hazardous because of the ash fall and the alert status will be raised as soon as pyroclastic flow is observed, he added.

A pyroclastic flow is a turbulent mass of ejected fragmented volcanic materials like ash and rocks, mixed with hot gases, that flows down slope at a very high speed of more than 60 kilometers per hour.

Solidum said raising the alert to level 5 – the highest alert level – requires pyroclastic materials to be spewed by explosive eruption.

Level 5 means a hazardous eruption is in progress, he added.

Alert level 5 could be declared anytime as volcanologists waited for one major sign – a chocolate-colored mass of ash column shooting straight up into the air as high as 10-15 km from the crater.

Solidum warned the public against entering the Extended Danger Zone (EDZ) of eight kilometers from the summit on the southern sector of the volcano and seven kilometers on the northern sector.

“Areas just outside of this EDZ should prepare for evacuation in the event hazardous explosive eruptions intensify,” he said.

Active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar-prone in the southern sector should also be avoided, especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall, Phivolcs warned.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda has allowed candidates in next year’s elections to distribute relief goods in evacuation centers to spread cheer to evacuees.

Nearly 50,000 Filipinos evacuated from homes in the shadow of Mayon volcano received some holiday cheer from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), when packages of high energy biscuits arrived in evacuation centers yesterday.

WFP has sent a total of 20 tons of high energy biscuits to assist the evacuees during this difficult moment. The biscuits will nourish evacuated families living in temporary shelters in schools and government buildings. – With Cet Dematera and Celso Camo

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Holdouts start fleeing Mayon
By Celso Amo (The Philippine Star) Updated December 22, 2009 12:00 AM

Photo shows young evacuees praying during a special class

at a temporary shelter in a village near the town of Guinobatan. AP

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines – More than 3,000 villagers remaining in a prohibited danger zone around the rumbling Mayon volcano yesterday began to leave after officials threatened to force them out.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) warned that powerful booming sounds emanating from the volcano indicated that a major eruption was imminent.

Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said seismic activity had “increased in number and size” in the past 24 hours and a total of 1,942 volcanic quakes were detected since Sunday, after the alert level was raised from 3 to 4, following a greater frequency of earthquakes and sulfur dioxide emissions.

Yesterday, sulfur dioxide emissions continued to be “very high” and the glow of crimson lava could be seen oozing from the volcano overnight.

In Guinobatan village, lying on a dirt road in the foothills of Mayon, district officials and police went house to house, urging residents to board a truck and take shelter outside the danger zone.

Nearly all the villagers boarded the hired truck, carrying their personal belongings in sacks and heading to evacuation centers set up by authorities outside an eight-kilometer zone.

But some of the men folk refused to budge and were left to fend for themselves.

"There are still one or two men who don't want to go but their families have come down to the evacuation centers," village councilor Mulad Bucad said.

"There are always a few who don't want to go. They say they are used to eruptions and they never get hurt anyway," he said.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said authorities are having trouble keeping people away from their homes and farms.

"There are people who have been evacuated three times and we sigh: 'You again?'" Salceda said. "We've been playing cat and mouse with them."

Salceda yesterday said authorities "will physically remove" those refusing to leave the danger zone after volcanologists raised the alert level to four on a five-point scale.

Level four means that an "explosive eruption is possible within hours or days," according to Phivolcs.

There were still 729 families or more than 3,000 people staying put on the edges of the eight-kilometer danger zone that has been declared around Mayon, local disaster preparations chief Cedric Daep said.

Just over 9,200 families or nearly 44,400 people had already taken shelter in evacuation centers since Mayon started belching ash, steam and lava last week.

If the alert level is raised to five, meaning that an eruption is in progress, another 16,000 villagers living beyond the danger zone would also have to be evacuated as a precautionary measure, Salceda said.

Army troops and police added more patrols to enforce a five-mile (eight-kilometer) exclusion zone around the mountain, Salceda said.

Salceda said about 5,000 more villagers were being transported out of Mayon's danger zone, where scientists said red hot lava flows had reached three miles (five kilometers) from the crater. A major eruption could trigger pyroclastic flows - superheated gas and volcanic debris that race down the slopes at very high speeds, vaporizing everything in its path. More extensive explosions of ash could drift toward nearby towns and cities.

Salceda said, however, military and police would refrain from using excessive force after the government's Commission on Human Rights (CHR) warned against forcing people out at gunpoint or with batons.

In past Philippine evacuations, holdout residents have been carried onto military trucks by unarmed troops and police personnel.

In an effort to persuade people to leave, Salceda ordered the provincial veterinary office to bring all cows and water buffaloes to a government agricultural station so they would be safe.

In Mayon's other eruptions in recent years, pyroclastic flows had reached up to four miles (six kilometers) from the crater, Salceda said.

"The probability of survival in an eruption is zero if you're in the danger area. The solution is obviously distance," he said.

Mayon last erupted in 2006, when about 30,000 people were moved.

Meanwhile, Phivolcs director Solidum said in a television interview "he cannot say exactly when the hazardous eruption is likely to occur."

But he stressed: "The important thing is the distance from the volcano. That is why it is important that people not be inside the danger zone."

3 episodes of lava fountaining

Three episodes of lava fountaining which reached about 200 meters above crater were recorded yesterday morning.

Solidum said that lava fountaining was observed at 8:07, 8:08 and 8:18 Monday morning.

Solidum also said that red hot lava continues to flow along the Bonga-Buyuan Miisi and Lidong gullies and the lava front has now reached about five kilometers down slope from the summit along the Bonga-Buyuan gullies.

"The lava fountaining might affect some lava to go toother sites like Sto. Domingo and possibly Anoling," said Solidum.

Solidum warned that the amount of lava at the summit and on slopes could generate a pyroclastic flow equally dangerous to people even if the volcano does not explode.

He also warned of the threat of lahar when volcanic debris comes into contact with water and cascades down the slope of the volcano towards rivers and streams during heavy rains.

Defense department offers help

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales has ordered the deployment of more doctors and nurses at the Armed Forces hospital near Albay to help address the health concerns of the evacuees.

Gonzales also donated P1 million for the children at evacuation centers to celebrate the Christmas season.

"I want to give this P1 million to Governor Salceda so children at the evacuation center will enjoy Christmas," said Gonzales, who also heads the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), during the full Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) meeting.

Gonzales also said that the NDCC will extend all the support needed by the provincial government of Albay which he considers a model among local government units for effective disaster management in the country.

Salceda, for his part, said the focus now of the disaster response operation is to address the health concerns as well as ensure that the evacuees will not go back to celebrate Christmas and New Year at their homes inside the high-risk danger zones.

"Zero casualty policy also includes mortality inside the evacuation centers," said Salceda, adding that common problems inside the evacuation centers such as the lack of toilets, water and food are already being addressed.

He said some 57 comfort rooms have already been repaired and 24 portalets set up at the different evacuation centers.

The Local Water Utilities Administration has already deployed four water tank lorries with 1,000-liter capacity, Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) fire trucks each as well as a water purifier with 30,000-liter capacity donated by the Spanish government at the designated evacuation sites.

Salceda also said that all hospitals in the province have been placed on code blue, meaning they can accept 50 to 100 evacuees if needed, while all evacuees have been given PhilHealth cards.

To prevent the displacement of classes at the evacuation centers, Salceda said he needs some 600 tents to be established at various evacuation centers. The UNICEF has already donated some 100 tents.

Salceda also said some 4,800 farmers have been affected by the imminent Mayon eruption, as well 2,000 cattle and carabaos.

Dept. of Health regional director Nestor Santiago told the governor that there was a need to decongest some evacuation sites and they would need P3 million for the construction of toilets inside the evacuation centers.

Some of the evacuees suffer from common ailments like cough and cold, fever, toothache and hypertension.

Salceda also said he would use everything at his disposal to make the evacuees merry and comfortable this Christmas.

"If I need to request our soldiers to wear mascots or to do a Santa Claus to spread cheer to our devastated evacuees, I will," Salceda said. With Helen Flores, Cet Dematera, AP

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Phivolcs may raise Mayon alert to level 4

By Cet Dematera (The Philippine Star) Updated December 19, 2009 12:00 AM

Mayon continues to spout fountains of ash into the sky.
Photo by EDD GUMBAN

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines — Farmers have begun returning to the foothills of Mayon despite an increasing flow of lava and a higher possibility of a hazardous eruption after the volcano showed signs of increasing restiveness in the past 24 hours, according to Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

Phivolcs monitoring chief July Sabit said they are now considering raising the alert status from three to four as a major eruption might occur in the next few days.

The picturesque volcano continued to spout spectacular fountains of ash into the sky amid a series of minor eruptions, heightening concerns that a major explosion was at hand.

Earthquakes inside Mayon also increased due to the enormous pressure of the ever-increasing amount of lava on its slopes.

Phivolcs chief Renato Solidum said Mayon’s activity intensified yesterday with seven successive ash explosions recorded in a matter of two hours.

Solidum said Friday’s explosions were recorded as the biggest from the volcano since it began acting up this week.

“These explosions produced dark gray to brown ash columns that reached a maximum height of up to 1,000 meters above the summit before drifting southwest,” he said.

The Phivolcs chief also appealed to the public, especially to tourists, not to enter the danger zones.

“The important thing is that people should not be in those danger zones when a hazardous explosion happens,” said Solidum.

The so-called danger zone is a radius of six to eight kilometers from Mayon, and nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated from those areas since the volcano began spewing lava on Monday.

But the zone is a fertile vegetable farming area and many people from the evacuated villages have been creeping back to look after their crops and animals.

“There is nothing we can do except to keep taking them out when we find them in the danger zone,” said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province where Mayon is located.

Sabit said that after the 6:59 a.m. explosion, at least nine more weaker ash emissions took place over the cone-shaped volcano until 12 noon yesterday.

He, however, admitted that Mayon’s abnormal condition was indeed intensifying, though still within the parameters of alert level three.

“While we confirm that Mayon’s abnormality is gradually escalating, but until this time, what we are observing are still within the alert level three precursors,” Sabit told The STAR.

In the monitoring that ended at 8 a.m. yesterday, at least 248 volcanic quakes and harmonic tremors, both indicators of moving magma inside the volcano, were recorded, 50 of which were explosive type or containing gaseous materials.

Forced evacuation

anwhile, Salceda said that since curfew has been declared in the six-km radius permanent danger zone and up to the eight-km high risk zones around the volcano starting early yesterday morning, some 3,422 people from Barangays Magapo, Buhian, Bonot, Oson and Buan all in Tabaco City have been forcibly evacuated.

The governor has dispatched four M-35 Army trucks in Sto. Domingo town to evacuate residents living in high-risk areas to achieve the goal of zero casualty.

As of 11 a.m. Friday some 8,080 families comprising 38,528 people have already been evacuated as Mayon showed a high probability of hazardous volcanic eruption.

To ensure that peace officers implementing the forcible evacuation will not be saddled by human rights complaints, lawyer Pelagio Señar, regional director of the Human Rights Commission in Bicol, started monitoring the evacuation starting early morning yesterday.

Señar said he has gone as far as Tabaco City, Bonga and Boyuan as part of the Joint-AFP-PNP Task Force Mayon to monitor the evacuation and also gave proper advice to peace officers implementing the forced evacuation.

Greg Bañares, spokesperson for the National Democratic Front (NDF) in Bicol, concurred with the forcible evacuation order as he assured the authorities that the New People’s Army operating in the area will not conduct any combat operation.

Palace is prepared

Meanwhile, Malacañang assured yesterday that it is prepared for the worst-case scenario in Albay if ever Mayon volcano erupts.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Gary Olivar said all of the concerned government agencies are already on hand to assist the residents and the local government of Albay to deal with the situation.

He said medical teams are already being ferried by the Philippine Coast Guard to Albay to provide assistance if needed.

Olivar noted that the Department of Social Welfare and Development has already frontloaded relief goods to Albay in preparation for the possible increase in the number of residents displaced by the activity of the volcano.

Several residents have already been relocated and according to Olivar, the DSWD has already provided assistance to them.

“The governor has placed Albay under the state of calamity so that he can mobilize the five percent calamity fund that he is authorized to do in a situation like that,” Olivar said.

“People have been evacuated to evacuation zones so I think we’re pretty ready for whatever might happen,” he added.

An expert from the Department of Health (DOH) also urged those living near the volcano to observe precautionary measures as the ash fall it is emitting can trigger upper respiratory tract infection.

“The most common is asthma. Those who are asthmatic must be careful because the ash fall coming from Mayon can trigger asthma attack,” said Dr. Lyndon Leesuy, DOH program manager for Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases. – Helen Flores, Celso Amo, Marvin Sy, Sheila Crisostomo

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Philippine Volcano Forces 20,000 to Evacuate

Jim Gomez
AP

MANILA, Philippines (Dec. 15) -- The Philippines' most active volcano oozed lava and shot up plumes of ash Tuesday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes and face the possibility of a bleak Christmas in a shelter.

State volcanologists raised the alert level on the cone-shaped, 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) Mayon volcano overnight to two steps below a major eruption after ash explosions.

Dark orange lava fragments glowed in the dark as they trickled down the mountain slope overnight. Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said the activity could get worse in coming days.

"It's already erupting," Solidum told The Associated Press.

More than 20,000 people were evacuated to safety by nightfall Tuesday, said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province, where Mayon is located about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

The first of 20 vehicles, including army trucks, were sent to villages to take residents to schools and other temporary housing, provincial emergency management official Jukes Nunez said.

"It's 10 days before Christmas. Most likely people will be in evacuation centers, and if Mayon's activity won't ease down we will not allow them to return to their homes," Nunez said. "It's difficult and sad, especially for children."

Residents in Albay are used to moving away from Mayon. Nearly 50,000 people live in a five-mile (eight-kilometer) radius around the mountain, and some villages were evacuated last month when the volcano spewed ash.

Mayon last erupted in 2006, and about 30,000 people were moved. Another eruption in 1993 killed 79 people.

Salceda said Tuesday that he has placed the central province under a "state of imminent disaster," which will make it easier for him to draw and use emergency funds.

Although the alarm has been sounded, life continued normally in many laid-back farming villages near the restive volcano. Throngs of farmers flocked to the town hall in Guinobatan, which lies near the danger zone, for a Christmas party, then headed home bearing gifts.

Village leader Romeo Opiana said the 249 residents in his farming community of Maninila, near the volcano, readied packs of clothes but no one had left. An army truck was parked nearby, ready to haul people if the threat grows.

"We're ready, but we're not really alarmed," said Opiana, 66. He could not remember how many times he had seen Mayon's eruptions since childhood.

Provincial governor Salceda said he had decided to cancel a trip to Copenhagen, where he was to attend the U.N. climate conference to discuss his province's experience with typhoons and other natural disasters.

He said he would appeal for foreign aid to deal with the expected influx of displaced villagers to emergency shelters.

"Whatever the volcano does, our target is zero casualty," Salceda told The Associated Press.

Magma had been rising at the volcano over the past two weeks and began to flow out of its crater Monday night, Solidum said. He said the volcano had so far only gently coughed out red-hot lava, which had flowed half a mile (half a kilometer) down from the crater.

Some classes were suspended indefinitely near the danger zone. Officials will find a way to squeeze in classes in school buildings to be used as shelters, Salceda said.

Mayon's most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people and buried a town in mud.

The Philippines lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common. About 22 out of 37 volcanos in the archipelago are active.

//////////

FYI

All of the items referred

to below arrived

safely in the Philippines

on November 28th and appropriate Distribution is

currently being organized...

OUR MOST URGENT

NEED RIGHT NOW

IS FOR....

THE FUNDING REQUIRED TO SHIP NOT ONLY

HIS VERY HARD TO LOCATE AND SELDOM

DONATED C-ARM AND OTHER URGENTLY

NEEDED MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES

BUT ALSO THE FUNDING TO SHIP AN

ADDITIONAL 6 CONTAINERS OF

VERY CRITICALLY NEEDED

HUMANITARIAN RELIEF GOODS

TO THE PHILIPPINES IN RESPONSE TO

THE FLOODING CAUSED BY

TROPICAL STORM

" ONDOY "

A DISASTER OF

EPIC PROPORTIONS

THE PHILIPPINES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcbTckGR-1o

Double click on this link to watch an example of what was happening here during the flooding

WHICH YOU HAVE SEEN ON THE NEWS AROUND THE WORLD THIS PAST WEEK....

Ondoy like Katrina

Double click on this link for updated information on the floods in the Philippines

Not only are we are in need of the immediate funding required to ship this URGENTLY needed, very hard to locate and fully functional Philipps BV 25 C-Arm Fluoroscopy Machine to the Philippines in Mid October.

This C-Arm, two brand new portable anesthesia machines, and one electro-surgical generator plus several other items of medical equipment and hundreds of boxes of supplies have been set aside for us in the US pending our ability to raise the funds needed to bring them here.

If we don't raise the funds required for this shipment we stand not only the chance of losing this single shipment but the Donor as well.

The estimated cost to bring these very valuable and much needed items which are worth in excess of $ 350,000.00 to the Philippines is $ 18,500.00 +-.

FYI

We have already solicited and are prepared to immediately ship and physically distribute in a safe and direct manner upon arrival ONE forty foot container of very similar items as well as many of the most urgently needed humanitarian relief items needed now to assist the victims of Tropical Storm ONDOY for every $ 18,500.00 that we raise.

We currently have standing by ready for immediate shipment a minimum of six containers of food, clothing and shelter items for which we need funding.

It takes Approximately 30-45 days to receive any items shipped from the US so we are only accepting those items which, from our many years of experience, will address the needs of the tens of thousands of victims of Tropical storm “ONDOY” that far out.

This is the absolute worst flooding in the Philippines since 1973 and is being called by many, the Katrina of the Philippines.

33 barangays ( Barrios or small subdivisions ) in Metro Manila suffered the worst flooding in recent years. These barangays are located in Marikina, Malabon, Muntinlupa, Quezon City, Makati City, Pasay City, Pasig, San Juan and Valenzuela City, where its 32 barangays were submerged.

Officials of the flood-prone city of Malabon reported some 400 people were forced to move to their rooftops in the afternoon during the height of the storm.

Pasay City officials, meanwhile, reported some 12,000 families had been relocated.

Outside of Metro Manila, the towns of Sasmuan, Apalit, San Luis, Sta. Ana, Guagua, Mexico, Candaba, Arayat, Macabebe, and Masantol and the City of San Fernando in Pampanga were flooded as water was released to ease pressure on the Angat Dam.

A total of 31 barangays in Bulacan were also flooded, provincial disaster officials reported yesterday.

Provinces in Central Luzon also sustained damage from the incessant rains brought about by Ondoy.

The Philippine National Red Cross,with whom we have worked very closely with the past 6 years has set up 122 Evacuation centers so far with 15,125 families, which translates into 71, 640 individuals and that is only the current number which have been assisted by the PNRC in some parts of Metro Manila and Makati where we are currently located.

REMEMBER....We can ship and personally deliver one container for every $ 18, 500.00 that we raise.

PLEASE help us help those in need right now by sending us your donation today.

Immediate Donations can be made online via PayPal on our website which is located at:

http://www.kbi.org/

* Or via checks ONLY made payable and sent to:

Steps For Recovery
A California 501(c) 3 Tax Exempt Corporation
P.O. Box 67522
Century City, CA 90067
Federal ID # 95-4472343

PLEASE .....clearly mark your donation..... " FOR KNIGHTSBRIDGE "

* Due to the long delays that we have experienced in getting our mail forwarded to us in the Philippines in a timely manner and other issues that are beyond our control, all donations via check are being processed through Steps for Recovery at this time.

///////

UPDATE
MISSION COMPLETE

ALL 19 PATIENTS THAT SHOWED UP AND COULD BE CLEARED FOR SURGERY WERE SEEN AND TREATED.

ONE YOUNG GIRL WILL BE BROUGHT TO MANILA IN THE NEAR FUTURE
AS HER CASE WILL REQUIRE AT LEAST THREE SEPERATE OPERATIONS TO CORRECT.

AND

FYI

ANOTHER MISSION HAS ALREADY BEEN SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE IN TAWI TAWI IN OCTOBER 2010.

Our first registered patient

for the October 2010 Mission

*** PLEASE NOTE THAT ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AND INFORMATION ON THIS VERY SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL MISSION WILL BE POSTED WITHIN A THE NEXT FEW DAYS

AS WE ARE ALL PRETTY BUSY RIGHT NOW AS A RESULT OF TROPICAL STORM ONDOY AND

THE DESTRUCTION AND HAVOC THAT IT BROUGHT TO THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES.

INCLUDING SEVERAL OF THE MISSION TEAM MEMBERS WHO ALSO SUFFERED GREAT PERSONAL LOSS

AND DAMAGE TO PROPERTY WHILE THEY WERE AWAY FROM THEIR HOMES SERVING THOSE IN NEED,

BUT THANK GOD, NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED.

ANOTHER VERY SUCCESSFUL
JOINT MEDICAL MISSION HAS BEEN COMPLETED

During our Medical Mission to Bongao, Tawi Tawi

which was conducted from
September 23rd thru 26th, 2009

Operation Smile-Philippines

http://www.operationsmile.org.ph/index.php

19 cases of Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate and other facial deformity operations were performed
FREE of Charge.

This was a joint Medical Mission between:

Operation Smile-Philippines

Holy Family Hospital, Bongao

The Integrated Provincial Health Office, Tawi Tawi

The Hon. Sadikul Sahali, Al Haj, Governor

The Hon. Ruby Sahali-Tan, Vice-Governor

Provincial Government of Tawi Tawi

Rotary Club of Bongao, R.I. District 3850

Naval Task Force 62 and Philippine Marine Battalion Landing Team 2

American Embassy-JUSMAG-P and JSOTF-P

The Alegado Family Foundation, San Diego, California

The RP UN White Helmets Commission ( DFA )

TEAM Network / CDAG

Singleton - USA

and

Knightsbridge International

Mission sites and other info is posted on this map...
Double click on it to enlarge it...

///////

During the entire month of October
in association with The Hard Rock Cafe-Makati
we will be presenting a series of
public awareness concerts and performances
as part of the
8th Annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days

" Harmony for Humanity..."
http://www.danielpearlmusicdays.org/

Double click on this image to enlarge it...

2009 PROJECTS UPDATE

Since January 2009 to date, we have been able to solicit and safely deliver in partnership with various international and local NGOs and GOs, 14 forty foot cargo containers of appropriate medical supplies and equipment, worth millions of dollars which were subsequently distributed FREE of Charge throughout the Philippines.

Some of those partner organizations have been, The Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach Program (HSMO) USA, The American Embassy Manila (JUSMAG-P), The RP UN White Helmets Commission (DFA), The Diplomatic Society of St Gabriel (UN), The Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassion and Relief Foundation-Taiwan and the Philippines, The Century City News, Century City, California, The Alegado Family Foundation, TEAM Network / CDAG, DisasterLogistics.org, The Congress of The Republic of the Philippines, The Philippine National Police (PNP), The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), Physicians for Peace, Philippine General Hospital (PGH) through the Philippine General Hospital Medical Foundation (PGHMFI), Mabuhay Deseret Foundation, The City of Olongapo, The US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P), The III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa, The Armed Forces of the Philippines, The Philippine Marines, The Philippine Navy, The Philippine Air Force, The Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary.

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL

The following Rotary Clubs here in the Philippines, the US and around the world have all played a very significant role in our many successes over the years:

PHILIPPINES
RC Pasay Silangan,(Makati, Hon. Mbr 2002-2009) http://rotary3810.org/rcpasaysilangan/
RC Clark Centennial, (Angeles City/Clark, Hon. Mbr) http://www.rotaryclubclarkcentennial.org/
http://www.bahaybata.org/ona.htm (2003-2005)
http://www.bahaybata.org/sports/baseball/baseball-100.htm (2005-2007)
RC Conception, (Tarlac)
RC of Cubao, (Quezon City)
RC of Forbes Park, (Makati) http://www.rotaryforbespark.org/

RC of Zamboanga City, (Zamboanga 2009)

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=89473819023

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGKq1M-fAJg
RC of Isabela, (Basilan) http://www.rcbasilan.blogspot.com/
RC of Bongao, (Tawi Tawi 2005-2009)
RC of Pasay Southeast (Pasay City 2007-2009) http://rotary3810.org/rcpasaysoutheast/
Rotary International District 3810 www.rotary3810.org
Rotary International District 3850
USA

RC of Century City, Century City, California (Hon. Mbr. 2002-2009) http://centurycityrotary.com/index.php

http://centurycityrotary.com/portfolio_details.php?ID=19

RC of Ojai, Ojai, California (2006-2009) http://www.ojairotary.org
RC of Woodland Hills, Woodland Hills, California (Hon. Mbr. 2005-2009)
RC of Wilmette Harbor, Willmette, Illinois (2007)
RC of Wilmette, Wilmette, Illinois (2007)
RC of Highland, Highland, Illinois (2007)
Rotary International District 6450, Temple Solar Project (SOLAR OVENS)
http://www.rotary6450.org/tools/fckeditor/UploadFolder/TSOknightsbridgei_intl.pdf
AFGHANISTAN, (2002)
SRI LANKA, (2004-2005)
COSTA RICA
RC of Puntarenas, (2006)
NIGER
RC Club of Agadez, (2007 and 2010 pending)
TIBET
ChaZhu Valley Clinic, (2007)
http://www.tibetanaid.org/tibetan_aid_foundation/new_letter/medical_suplies.htm
ARGENTINA
RC of Santa Fe, (Las Parejas, Santa Fe 2007)

February, March, April, May, June, July, August

In March and April we were invited by the US Embassy JUSMAG to assist with the planning and execution of a series of COMRELS (Community Relations) in partnership with the III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa under their OPERATION GOOD WILL, a program where the military personnel and civilian dependants of the III MEF collect, sort and pack large boxes of high quality, new and used articles of clothing and toys which are then shipped to various locations where they are personally distributed by members of the III MEF and their local counterparts in the host country. These are very high impact community outreach opportunities for the various elements to work side by side in some of the most depressed areas of the Philippines. Thousands of these COMREL Boxes were shipped to the Philippines and distributed throughout the country from Pampanga Province up to and including our visits to Jolo in June and July of this year. Several hundred are still being stored at the Santo Nino Parish, in Pandacan for use during a national disaster or flood in the poorest areas of Pandacan or Boseco which happens each and every year about this time. In addition to the handovers of these COMREL boxes the teams of volunteers also repaired and painted several school classrooms in Pampanga Province, and a clinic at a convent in Pandacan.

Participants in these COMRELS were:

The men and women of the III Marine Expeditionary Force and their families and friends in Okinawa.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, Army, Navy, Airforce and Marines.

The Philippine National Police.

The leadership and numberous volunteers of the Santo Nino Parish, Pandacan, Manila.

The Volunteer members of the RP UN White Helmets Commission ( DFA )

The Volunteers from TEAM Network and CDAG.

The Men and Women volunteers of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The US Embassy JUSMAG and JSOTF-P.

Singleton-USA

and

Knightsbridge International

We have once again been invited to participate in these COMREL Missions in Mid 2010

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Operation Smile-Philippines

http://www.operationsmile.org.ph/index.php

May

In May we were given an opportunity to participate in our first Medical Mission with Operation Smile-Philippines where 100 children were scheduled to receive FREE Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate surgeries in Cauayan, Isabela between May 14th and May 16th, 2009. Our partners for this incredible mission were, The RP UN White Helmets Commission (DFA ), The Diplomatic Society of Saint Gabriel, and Singleton-USA

JUNE AND JULY

MUSICAL MISSION COMPLETED

Check out John's blog on this website

http://www.flutesacrosstheworld.org/

and then

See what happened when John Zeretzke took Flutes Across the World to Zamboanga City, Philippines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGKq1M-fAJg

Flutes Across the World

Flutes Across the World, Knightsbridge Intel., The RP UN White Helmets Commission (DFA), Singleton Worldwide-USA and Team Network / CDAG, the Rotary Clubs of Zamboanga City and Isabela, Basilan have joined forces and will bring this innovative youth oriented music program to Jolo, Sulu Province, Zamboanga City, Isabela, Basilan and Manila in Mid July 2009

http://www.vimeo.com/5188811

Internationally renowned musician, John Zeretzke, will travel with Knightsbridge Intl. , The RP UN White Helmets Commission (DFA) Singleton-USA and TEAM Network / CDAG to join a surgical team from Operation Smile-Philippines, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center and The Healing Hands Foundation on a humanitarian mission in Mid July in association with and coordinated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and US Military JSOTF-P to provide FREE life changing cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries and the gift of music to more than 37 children in the Southern Philippines. John will be bring 120 flutes made by 5th grade students in Ojai, CA, especially for this project. And an additional 20 flutes which were made especially for this program last week by counselors at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, in Los Angeles, California where John has worked with Campers for more than 10 years as a volunteer.

Original music by John Zeretzke.

Footage from BEYOND THE CALL used with permission.

http://www.beyondthecallthemovie.com/

Adrian Belic's " Beyond the Call..." PBS Independent Lens

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/beyondthecall/film.html

Below are links to SOME of the projects that we have engaged in here in the Philippines within the past three months alone.

Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines
Knightsbridge Intl and other NGO and GO Partners

JSOTF-P delivers medical supplies to Camp Navarro General Hospital

http://jsotf-p.blogspot.com/2009/08/jsotf-p-delivers-medical-supplies-to.html

International cooperation brings new smiles to Jolo

http://jsotf-p.blogspot.com/2009/07/international-cooperation-brings-new.html

AFP, JSOTF-P, Local and International NGO Partners Turn Over Education,
Livelihood Projects and Distribute Relief Packages to Sulu Communities

http://jsotf-p.blogspot.com/2009/07/afp-jsotf-p-turn-over-education.html

Flutes Across the World Visits Jolo in July 2009

http://www.flutesacrosstheworld.org/

INFORMATION ON MISSION SITES
AND LINKS TO PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

Tawi Tawi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawi-Tawi

http://www.tageo.com/index-e-rp-v-72-d-m3332125.htm?Bongao

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701531234/tawitawi_group.html

Jolo Island, Sulu Province

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulu

http://www.tageo.com/index-e-rp-v-60-d-m3349520.htm?Jolo

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701516830/sulu_archipelago.html

Basilan Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilan

http://www.tageo.com/index-e-rp-v-22-d-m3349025.htm?Isabela

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701510819/Basilan_Island.html

PLEASE VISIT THIS BLOG OFTEN AS

MANY ADDITIONAL PHOTOS LINKS AND POSTS ARE FORTHCOMING

City of Olongapo (2003-2009)

http://subicbaynews.blogspot.com/search?q=knightsbridge

UPDATE

2009-03-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

COMPLETED IN 2009

Myanmar

We were once again able to provide for the housing for the local MaMa's Hope Haven Orphanage / Group Home which was established several years ago by our very good friend Ms. Rachel Trovi, with whom we have worked for years in the Philippines. The 24 Children and 4 adults living there now have a very clean and safe enviornment through at least August 2010.

Michael D Carlin's, A Prescription for PEACE.... is now available on Amazon.com

2009-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

A Prescription for Peace: A Practical Guide (Paperback)

by Michael Douglas Carlin (Author), Elmer V. PHD Sayre (Contributor), Brian Douglas Carlin (Cover Design)

Editorial Reviews
Product DescriptionThe world of the haves and the have nots is antiquated. The coming world is of the haves and the have mores…this is a nuts and bolts approach to today’s problems with concrete solutions to bring about an era of peace. Included in this work is Marlon Brando’s solution to feed the world. The philosophy behind the book comes from following the works of Sir Edward Artis who has traveled the world and brought relief to some of the most dangerous places in the world. Millions of dollars get raised in the United States to solve problems and a lot of that money never hits the mark. We can continue doing the same things and the problems will not get solved. But doing the same thing will not lead to solutions. Solutions will come when ordinary citizens rise and do the work themselves. This book outlines solutions!

http://www.amazon.com/Prescription-Peace-Practical-Guide/dp/1427631239/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212984077&sr=8-6

Knightsbridge International Relief Mission # 1 to Myanmar

2008-07-10T01:51:00.000-07:00

We have just wrapped up our FIRST Mission in to Myanmar during which we have accomplished the following:

Located the local MaMa's Hope Haven Orphanage / Group Home in North Dagon Township a suburb of Yangon, which was established by our very good friend Ms. Rachel Trovi, with whom we have worked for years in the Philippines, and provided them with a large truckload of urgently needed items such as food, bedding etc. as well as some financial support for their continued operation. We currently have our local volunteer staff, Ms Hto and Ms Ada looking for a NEW property where these 25 Children and 4 Adults can move.

The website listed below will give you some information on Mama Rachel's very substantial operations in the Philippines.

Ma' Ma Children's Center of Norway
http://www.mama-children.org/english/organization.htm

We established a partnership with Zawgyi Care, a very well run local NGO that has been providing a series of very effective Medical Services and Feeding Programs since three days after Cyclone Nagis devastated the delta region of Myanmar. Each week they have managed to feed between 3,000 and 5,000 people and they are now looking into the possible purchase of small Rotor Tillers at a cost of approximately $ 900.00 each for use by the farmers. If they decide that this is an appropriate program, we will join them in that as well. http://www.zawgyicare.org/

We met and agreed to partner with another very small, newly formed group of Australian Expats currently working and living in Yangon who have started a program where they are buying Water Buffalos that will be provided to farmers in the devastated area. We will provide funding as requested when this program has been finalized. Local Water Buffalo, Bullocks and Cattle that can be used for farming are available and can be purchased for anywhere from $ 400.00 - $ 500.00 each with the equipment necessary for working in the rice paddies. They have also started building houses in some of areas where they have been granted access. We will assist them in those efforts as well, IF asked.

We have also agreed to work with a very large local construction company who is about to build a NEW 100 bed civilian hospital in Bogale, one of the hardest hit areas in the path of the Cyclone. They will build the facility and we will assist as much as possible in providing certain items of medical equipment needed to outfit that facility. They have also started to build houses which cost approximately $ 1,000.00 each. We will try to support the construction of as many of these as possible.

We did meet "informally and unofficially" with some Government Representatives and started a dialogue wherein we have been assured that we will be granted permission to return to Myanmar to continue our humanitarian efforts.

In closing, I ask that you not forget the people of Myanmar simply because it is no longer front page news. If you can remember the images that you may have seen of the Tsunami in 2004 you have a very good idea of what it was like for these very simple, gentle people in the Delta when that Cyclone hit. People lost everything...their families, their property, their hope...you can give them some of those things back by continuing to support efforts like ours or those of the other countless Local and International NGOs who continue to do their best to help those in need.

Thank you,

Ed Artis-Bangkok, Thailand
Thursday July 10. 2008

NEW PHOTOS WILL SOON BE POSTED

UPDATE... Yangon, Myanmar June 25, 2008

2008-06-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hello...I thought I'd post a brief update on what we are up to here in Myanmar....and what we have been able to accomplish during the past 13 days...

We now have dependable Internet service in our room...NOT always available here...three local SIM cards for our hand phones ...and while they do not allow us to make outgoing International Calls...they do allow us to communicate with other team members and our local NGO partners......Our Biz Cards are now in English / Myanmar / Burmese...We have car with reasonable air conditioning and a very good driver who understands English and actually knows where he is going....We also have some VERY good local contacts thanks to our good friends Chris C and Steve R...and three vetted, well organized local NGO partners and some cash which has been converted in to the local currency ready for our swoop thru the area.

Today we bought a truck load of food, medicines, clothing and other urgently needed items that we will deliver tomorrow to very dedicated young local couple who run a small orphanage with 19 children just outside Yangon...we met them through some good friends in the Philippines.

This coming Saturday we will be buying the first 6 Water Buffalo for a local version of The Buffalo Bank that we assisted setting up in the Philippines in 2002.

Next Saturday, July 5 th we have been invited to join another local NGO we have partnered with as they go into the devastated area to provide food to approx 2,500 people.

All in all I feel that we have done pretty well considering the real time situation that exists here.

Once again we have accomplished more with less.

Thank you for your interest in what we are trying to do here in Myanmar and elsewhere around the world...IF you are interested in supporting these efforts financially you can make a donation online thru Pay Pal on our website located at www.kbi.org or by sending a check made out to:

Knightsbridge International,
PO Box 4394
West Hills, CA 91308-4394

Ed Artis-Yangon, Myanmar
Wednesday June 25, 2008

PS....The Photos that I have posted were taken in the small office that we have set up in our hotel in Yangon.

KI Humanitarian Mission to Myanmar

2008-06-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

We currently have a small advance team working in Myanmar going through the process by which the required approvals are granted for any organization to be allowed to work in this country.

It is not a complicated process if you know someone who has been working here before and we have been lucky enough to meet a couple people here who have agreed to open some doors for us whereby we have been able to get our application before the decision makers within the first five days after our arrival. We should have a decision within the next five to seven days.

Unfortunatey there are a great many NGOs here, both large and small going through this process now and many of them are of the opinion that these approvals should simply be given with zero review or application process. This is like no other place in the world where we have worked...it is their way or no way...and trying to force the issue only sends you into a slot where you will be stuck waiting in your Hotel for...in some cases a month or more.

Great people here and I am optimistic that we will know very soon what future, IF ANY we may have here.

Sir Edward Artis
Yangon, Myanmar