Visitors this Month

Monday, March 14, 2016

Important NEW Posts soon..Thank you for your patience & understanding..



 
 
" The work will continue..."
( TRUST ME THERE WILL BE MORE MISSIONS VERY SOON...I AM NOT DEAD YET...)
 

** PLEASE STAND BY **


The Middle East, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kurdistan. 
 
We will be focused on providing Medical Supplies & Equipment to a cadre of  Vetted INGO's & NGO's who are already working in these countries dealing with the influx of Refugees.

  We have been invited to join a great group and
they could use our help and we have
promised that we would give it to them..

"THAT'S WHO WE ARE..THAT'S WHAT WE DO..
AND IT WAS ALWAYS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.." 

**Maps and other info will be posted very soon**
 
********************************************
 
SEE POST MISSION PHOTOS BELOW

PREVIOUS

Medical Missions
December 13-16, 2011
City of Zamboanga
Basilan Island
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




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

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:


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
 
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)


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…”.

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
 
/////

PLEASE STAND BY....

as this BLOG is about to be UPDATED
with information regarding the establishment of a series of

NATIONAL CLEFT REGISTRIES


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:


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...


SunEnergy Power International

Knightsbridge International

View a slide show of pictures here.



/////////

R.I.P. Walt Ratterman

//////////
 
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.
 
/////////
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

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.”

//////////

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

//////////



    
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