My stepson Jeremy Paster was a co-founder of Burma Humanitarian Mission. He was among a team of activists that trek across the Thai border to bring medical supplies to the camps holding the Karen people, an oppressed minority within Myanmar. His trip there in 2006 was the last action he participated in before being diagnosed with the cancer that killed him the day after Thanksgiving last year.
I have kept our connection to the world of activists that was Jeremy's second family. I just got an email from Dang Ngo, an activist and photographer who has documented the beauty and tragedy of Burmese life and who accompanied Jeremy's team. He was forwarding important information for those who want help through local NGO's already on the ground.
GHAP, the Global Health Access Program, supports, trains and supplies indigent medical workers to care for their people. Dang forwarded me their email:
While the UN and international NGOs await visas in Bangkok, our partners have 40 people on the ground in Rangoon and the Irawaddy Delta area conducting rapid needs assessments and distributing aid.
These eight 5-person emergency teams are distributing water purification tablets, procuring rice and other food, building shelters and repairing houses, assisting with cremations, and providing basic medicines, including oral rehydration supplementation. The teams are communicating via satellite phone to team leaders based in Mae Sot, Thailand for funding and logistics.
The irony of the situation is heart-breaking. These emergency relief workers—whose own families and communities have been victims of atrocities at the hands of Burma’s military junta—are now in the position of providing life-saving aid to their brethren in others parts of Burma. The people of Burma have suffered so much, and they need our support.
I am writing this, my first diary on dailykos, to ask you to donate to GHAP. Money raised through GHAP gets out to the countryside through their partner organizations, which include:
Mae Tao Clinic
Back Pack Health Worker Team
Burma Medical Association
National Health and Education Committee
Karen Women's Organization
Karen Youth Organization
Burmese Women's Union
Human Rights Education Institute Burma
According to GHAP, "Our partners estimate they can responsibly distribute 10 million baht ($325,000) in aid over the next three weeks. Thanks to support from many of you, they have already raised $80,000. But we can and need to do more."
Here is the link if you choose to help.
In honor of, in memory of, in the spirit of my beloved stepson Jeremy Paster.