In a review of hairstyles seen at Fashion Week in New York, I saw that braids were all the rage, familiar looking braids! In 2013, our Humanitarian Travel Abroad volunteers were elegantly coiffed by children at a social home in Bulgaria. You can see one of their beautiful results here and compare with models from the New York Times article that follows.
New York Fashion Week, so last year!
The hair specialists at work, Assen Zlatarov social home in Vratsa, Bulgaria.
And from the New York Times . . .
From the New York Times, " Whether
messy, tame or somewhere in between, braids (along with towering hats)
are showing up in many of the spring collections being displayed on the runways this week in New York."
Volunteers with Corawill, Inc. (see tab above) in the US had another wonderful week with the children of Vratsa Social Home in Bulgaria. The home has 61 children aged 7 to 17, many with physical or mental disabilities. The children are so much fun and eager to teach us a few things as well as participate in our planned activities.
This year, two Bulgarian volunteers, Melani and Ive, traveled from their homes south of Sofia to join us too. Our volunteers conducted socialization and educational games with the children, art projects and planned a few surprises like a pizza party and a fresh-fruit-and-whipped-cream snack. The entire dining hall was painted by two of very hard-working and focused volunteers, Mat and David. Erica painted times-table "monsters," while everyone did the easy part of painting in the numbers! We think the overall result was very beautiful!
Many thanks to Tabitha Foundation for organizing our trip logistics - see you next year!
In Nepal, Circus Kathmandu helps empower victims of human trafficking. Their web site calls their circus "human rights in action." Circus Kathmandu powerfully demonstrates ethical, creative and
entrepreneurial alternatives.
Our model creates real life, inspiring success
stories, helping young people to take control of their own lives and to
also become human rights advocates.
According to Sky Neal, a circus
performer in Britain and the co-founder and co-director of Circus
Kathmandu, "performers are also now powerful advocates against human
trafficking . . . They also do workshops for children and speak to
hundreds of
villagers about their own personal life and what they had gone through.
The idea is to create awareness among villagers on human trafficking
and why they should not sell their children."
For the full article from BBC on Circus Kathmandu, click here.
While working as a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines in the 70s and 80s, I made dozens of trips to India and Korea with Americans for International Aidto bring 'home' children adopted by Americans from abroad. Here are photos of Chung, the very first boy I took to his new parents on November 10, 1977. Chung's family sent these pictures to me in a thank you
letter several months after his arrival. I had shared with them that Chung was very outgoing and had talked non-stop during the flight (of course, I understood not a word). His parents wrote: "We thought perhaps you would like to see how 'motor mouth' has changed. Grown six inches and gained five pounds. Still active and still conning everyone he can."
In his parents arms as I catch a flight home.
They were in the process of adopting again, this time from the US.
While in Korea I often went for overnight visits to Father Keane's St. Vincent's Home for Amerasian Children in Byu Pyung. I slept on the floor alongside the children. (See Amerasians: "Dust of Life"). I watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding back in 1981on a tiny black-and-white television with several of the younger kids sitting on my lap. I thought, rightly so, "I'll certainly remember this moment in years to come."
The term 'Amerasian' refers to children born of Asian mothers and (mostly) US soldiers stationed Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian nations. They face discrimination by other nationals, often finding it difficult to find legitimate work. Why? They are considered American, not Korean or Vietnamese, and are sometimes denied citizenship rights. Outcast, abadoned, most never know their fathers and find life difficult.
A photo I took of Natasha in 1978 at Father Keane's
While viewing a TEDtalk recently I saw a link to a story told by photographer Rick Smolan of a little Amerasian girl in South Korea. Rick had met the girl, Natasha, while on assignment to photographh Amerasians in 1978 for TIME Magazine. Though only 28 and unmarried, he helped find her a home in Atlanta when her grandmother, Natasha's sole caretaker, died. I immediately recognized Natasha as a little girl as I had met at Father Keane's during one of my many visits. Natasha's story as told by Rick is, to use a cliche, 'heartwarming.'
Lunch time at Father Keane's
Over the years I probably escorted over 100 children from Asia and South America to their new homes in the US. I would spend anywhere between 20 hours and two days with the children depending on flights and connections. I rarely know what happened after I handed the children over to their new families in Buffalo, Minneapolis, or Portland and hopped the next flight back to my home base. I did receive an occasional letter from a grateful parent within months of our arrival, but I wondered how they adjusted, what was school like, and what did they become?
While I was not in any way part of Natasha's story, it is wonderful to see what a beautiful and self-assured woman she has become and to hope that all of the children I escorted found happiness, security, comfort, and worth, in their new lives in America.
According to Lumos, an organization helping children without caring families, around the world 8 million children live in institutions and of those, 90% are not orphans. For myriad reasons, including poor parenting, economic incentives, disabilities, children end up separated from their kin by choice or chance.
The institution pictured here is in Bulgaria and houses about 70 children ages 7 to 17. The playground is is comprised of blacktop and dirt, the windows have fencing, and the furniture is in bad condition. Those in charge do their best with what they have, but large facilities like this one cannot give the one-on-one attention that young children need to feel secure and loved.
The view of the 'garden' from a bedroom window.
This summer we are again traveling to Vratsa, Bulgaria to 'paint and play' at this social home - read 'orphanage.' We are brightening up their sleeping quarters with new paint and playing social and educational games with the children. We will also do art and writing projects. The children love physical touch, holding hands, plaiting our hair and holding hands. Many are talented acrobats and dancers.
Most of the children in this home are Roma, many have disabilities. In general, most Eastern and Southern European countries have made tremendous improvements in these institutions since 1989, but they are still 'institutions,' not homes, and the children living in them are not fully integrated into the community. They are instead stigmatized and sometimes they internalize a sense of rejection. One teenager on the cusp of leaving said, "I am Roma, Roma is bad."
Those of us from America often lack knowledge of and experience with the racially contentious milieu in which Roma live. However, 'Roma integration' is a priority for members of the European Union. In addition to the EU monies, integration programs receive assistance from private donors and NGOs in the US, Holland and the UK among others. Efforts have mixed success, just as does with integration of minorities in any country, be it the US or Iraq.
It's a story that accompanies any military action abroad, children born of local women and soldiers far from home whose paternity is formally unacknowledged. These offspring are subject to cultural, political and legal norms that often make positive personal, social and educational prospects out-of-reach. In particular, the first entered the Philippines in 1898, taking the islands from Spain. In the US in December, 1898, and in the Philippines in January, 1899, President McKinley announced his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation assuring the natives personal, professional, political and religious freedom and protection, thus beginning a long, but not always benevolent, relationship between the people of the Philippines and the United States.
Here from BBC news is a look at "Philippines' Forgotten Generation" about the return of the US military after a 20 year absence.
In her Paris show, Iris van Herpen shrink wrapped models. The most asked question on Instagram: how do they breathe (through tubes). If the point is to elicit an uncomfortable, claustrophobic, visceral feeling of revulsion - Iris, you have succeeded. While your runway show received lots of attention, I, for one, cannot describe any of your fashion designs. Moreover, the fashion magazine Elle pictured two shrink wrapped women but no runway models wearing your new designs. In the accompanying article Elle applauded your inventiveness, but called the show "a chilling, super creepy display." In other articles I skimmed your clothes were also an afterthought to the girls in the plastic bags: eyes closed, fetal position, as if asleep, unborn, in their 'wombs.'
It is suggested the idea may have come from Lawrence Malstaf who shrink wrapped male and female 'volunteers' in an installation piece with "the intention . . . to encourage people to consider the threat to their survival and how they protect themselves when under threat."
