Nat Yogachandra

January 1, 2010: During the Christmas 2009 break, Debbie and I visited an orphanage along the Thai-Burmese border in the northern part of Thailand. Our Foundation has recently built water towers to collect and store water for the children throughout the year for this orphanage. Our trip to this area was to visit several orphans who are currently sponsored by the Foundation. These children are from Karen tribes who are refugees from Burma. It all began about 15 years ago, when Mrs. Tasanee Keereepraneed received a frantic message from a local villager in Tha Song Yang, which is about 3 hours north of Mae Sot province on the Thai-Burmese border, that a little girl had lost her mother during birth. In Karen culture this is interpreted as a bad omen, and the child is often killed. Having lost her own father at a young age and her children also having lost their father when Tasanee ’s husband was murdered, Tasanee decided that she, if anyone should be the person responsible for caring ...

Climate Change - a shared responsibility Climate change is unequivocal and is identified as the most seious threat facing humanity today, including developing and developed countries. If there is one issue that strikes at the heart of the entire humanity, it is the climate variability. According to scientists, a rise of at least two metres in the world’s sea levels is now almost unstoppable. Remember Maldive islands.... Since 80% of its 1,200 islands are no more than 1m above sea level, within 100 years the Maldives could become uninhabitable. The entire populations of nearly 360,000 need to be evacuated and relocated. The impact of climate change on human and natural systems poses a severe challenge to reducing poverty and spreading of diseases. This is evident now from looking at recent images in newspapers worldwide - heavy flood in Manila and choking of Sydney by dust storm, and observation of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and...