But those tales can wait a few more days or weeks, possibly years (time being rather elastic here)... I have a more important story to tell you today, and a request. While I'm not an ambassador (yet! *wink*), and I can't hope to compete with the exquisite Angelina Jolie, who as goodwill ambassador to the UN's refugee agency helped make a film to honour and highlight the realities of the millions upon millions of refugees in our world today, displaced by violence and disaster (check it out at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2162983/Angelina-Jolie-films-UN-video-for-refugee-day.html),
I am doing something on a much smaller scale...
I am doing something on a much smaller scale...
Though I'm only beginning to wrap my head around the structures and policies that fail to address - and sometimes may worsen - the problems of these huge numbers of refugees, I have made a personal pledge to make a difference in the lives of one family of refugees as my contribution on World Refugee Day. I would like to help send my friend and fellow peacebuilder, Amos Deeahn Wright, his wife and children, and their bed and personal effects back home to Liberia, a country now in the hopeful phases of post-conflict reconstruction, where I am quite certain he will become one of his homeland's powerful voices for peace. It's also a birthday present to Amos, who celebrates his special day tomorrow, June 21st, on the summer solstice... I've pledged the first $200 towards the one thousand dollars they need in order to relocate -- in other words, I'm covering one family member. While UNHCR will pay for Amos himself to return home, they make no allowance for family or belongings, and each person will cost him $200 to transport by truck overland across West Africa, as will their combined effects. This is a burden beyond imagining for a family with nearly no income, who live in a camp and wake up every day facing the challenge of finding enough food, let alone try to save funds for an international journey. I dearly want to help him meet his goal of returning his family, together, back home by this July, and I'm asking you to join me in extending help to the Wrights, if you share my desire to make a meaningful, personal contribution on World Refugee Day. If everyone I am sending this to contributes as little as the cost of a movie or a meal this very week, then the Wright family could be home by early next month and beginning their new life in now-peaceful Liberia. If you'd like to join in, the easiest way to get the funds over here is to send them to my PayPal account. I am currently working with Amos to try to get him on PayPal as well, in the hope that if it works, I can then transfer the total amount to him easily, and will let you know when it's done if you prefer to transfer it directly to him (bear with us, though, things take FOREVER sometimes in Africa).
Whether you are in a position to help or not, whether you feel moved to do so or not, I would like you to get to know Amos, because he's someone I wish we could send all around the world to share his brilliance and bigheartedness with all of humanity. I met Amos in Ghana, where I attended a week long intensive training in Non Violent Communication (check out www.cnvc.org, and www.nonviolentcommunication.com). The NVC trainers who came to Africa as part of a summit for the African Alliance for Peace offered the course free to a wide array of locals, most of whom would never have the financial means to attend such a training. Amos heard about it through his volunteer work with Mediators without Borders, and we were more than blessed to have his presence in our group.
One of the assistant trainers in the NVC workshop, Donna Carter of California, was blogging about her experience, her way of sharing her adventure with friends and supporters back home. I quote a segment of her writings here about Amos, because they really capture his spirit and his story beautifully:
{ He talks with a syncopated yet measured, rich baritone. The very rhythm of Amos Deeahn Wright's careful speech mirrors the consideration he brings, not only to each word, but also to each person he encounters in his mission – to use mediation and nonviolent communication to build a foundation of peace in Liberia.
The ready smile that seizes Amos' entire face at any moment delights me and belies the challenges this man has experienced after escaping from war in his home country of Liberia when he was 25. He has lived as a refugee ever since, almost two decades.
Amos was with the Liberian security forces escort for President Samuel Doe on the day rebels captured Doe in 1990 during guerrilla warfare. Rebels eventually tortured and assassinated Doe, cutting off his ear in a video aired on television.
"I saw no safety in going back to Liberia," said Amos... He sneaked aboard a Ghanaian cargo ship and escaped to Ghana. There, he found himself in a refugee camp, young, without a country, and without financial means.
Money is limited; however, Amos has an abundance of guile, perseverance and enthusiasm. He saw himself at a crossroads. He opted to change his direction in life from soldier to peace-builder.
"When I got here I thought on the moment of transformation that the war was a result of the failure of the generation before me to accept a platform that we would enjoy as Liberian youth," he said. "On the contrary, we experienced war at the time we were supposed to be decision-makers of the country. So I can use my stay in Ghana to change the future of Liberia by going into peace-making activities."
In the refugee camp he became a classroom teacher, which each month pays 15 Ghana cedis, the equivalent of $15 U.S. dollars. The West Africa Dispute Resolution Center (WADREC) trained him as a mediator. He began volunteering as a mediator in the Ghanian courts. }
(Excerpted from May 22, 2008 entry at: http://www.donna-in-ghana.blogspot.com/ -- I encourage any of you interested in NVC or the Ghana event from Donna's viewpoint to read more!)
The ready smile that seizes Amos' entire face at any moment delights me and belies the challenges this man has experienced after escaping from war in his home country of Liberia when he was 25. He has lived as a refugee ever since, almost two decades.
Amos was with the Liberian security forces escort for President Samuel Doe on the day rebels captured Doe in 1990 during guerrilla warfare. Rebels eventually tortured and assassinated Doe, cutting off his ear in a video aired on television.
"I saw no safety in going back to Liberia," said Amos... He sneaked aboard a Ghanaian cargo ship and escaped to Ghana. There, he found himself in a refugee camp, young, without a country, and without financial means.
Money is limited; however, Amos has an abundance of guile, perseverance and enthusiasm. He saw himself at a crossroads. He opted to change his direction in life from soldier to peace-builder.
"When I got here I thought on the moment of transformation that the war was a result of the failure of the generation before me to accept a platform that we would enjoy as Liberian youth," he said. "On the contrary, we experienced war at the time we were supposed to be decision-makers of the country. So I can use my stay in Ghana to change the future of Liberia by going into peace-making activities."
In the refugee camp he became a classroom teacher, which each month pays 15 Ghana cedis, the equivalent of $15 U.S. dollars. The West Africa Dispute Resolution Center (WADREC) trained him as a mediator. He began volunteering as a mediator in the Ghanian courts. }
(Excerpted from May 22, 2008 entry at: http://www.donna-in-ghana.blogspot.com/ -- I encourage any of you interested in NVC or the Ghana event from Donna's viewpoint to read more!)
In honour of World Refugee Day, I send you greetings from Africa, and I share my hopes and dreams for a more peaceful, just world in the years ahead. And my heartfelt request to help me help Amos and the Wright family repatriate to Liberia to help build a strong and lasting peace there...
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