SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTERS OF MEXICO COMPLETE SEARCH AND RESCUE TRAINING
A team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers returned to Mexico City this week after completing a rigorous course of training in disaster search and rescue in various locales around Mexico. The training was supervised by Los Topos, the renowned Mexican search and rescue team featured in a National Geographic documentary on the Japan tsunami of 2011, and other top professionals. The purpose: to leverage experience and expertise gained to direct the activities of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Disaster Response in the worst possible disasters.
The Volunteer Ministers were inspired to participate in this month-long training program through their association with Los Topos. The alliance between the two groups began in Haiti, where they worked together to deal with the devastation after the January 2010 earthquake. Since then, Los Topos volunteers and executives have completed Volunteer Minister training at the National Church of Scientology of Mexico. And Los Topos carried out much of the training program the Volunteer Ministers have now completed.
But it was a personal experience in Colombia last year that brought home the urgency of carrying out a program like this.
“When we were in Colombia to help with the floods last year, I realized the importance of disaster prevention,” says Alejandro Del Llano, who directs the Scientology Volunteer Minister activities for Latin America. “We were evacuating buildings under the direction of CINAT—National Circle of Aide Technicians—the top disaster response team of Colombia and one of the best in Latin America. We found and evacuated an entire community of 6,000 residents, completing the operation just before a nearby mountain collapsed in a mudslide that buried the entire neighborhood. We saved thousands of lives. This experience brought home to us the urgency of gaining full competence in every possible disaster response skill.”
The Volunteer Ministers’ training began with a week-long hospital course in March 2012 in the classifying and handling of urgent medical situations. It included learning to recognize the levels of trauma and assessing priorities and the appropriate medical procedure to use for each. They trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), procedures for minor and major injuries, and the care of children, pregnant women and the elderly.
Next came training in civil protection for emergencies occurring inside buildings or other structures. This included organizing and executing evacuations, establishing safety zones and assessing the risks of a damaged building to those inside and the surrounding area.
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers then completed a course in underwater search and rescue where they learned to dive in rivers and at sea under extreme conditions including frigid temperatures, strong currents, and low or no visibility.
“We had to dive into waters where you literally could not see anything,” says del Llano. “We overcame our natural fears and are proud of the competence we gained, which makes it possible to help others in ways we were never able to do before.”
With these skills learned, they trained in initial assessments of disaster sites, including immediate care of victims and damage control—how to prevent loss of lives by spotting and evacuating dangerous zones or buildings likely to collapse.
Training in search and rescue under collapsed structures came next. This included analyzing the condition of structures, learning to penetrate and advance inside and underneath buildings, and tracking and extracting victims.
In a private hospital under the supervision of the emergency medical technician in charge of civil protection, they learned CPR, rapid diagnosis of external injuries, and how to transport and remove injured persons from confined spaces such as cars and rooms.
Part way through their training, the volunteers were invited to deploy as part of the civil defense unit to serve when more than 3 million converged for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in the city of Silao in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Del Llano knows there is more to learn, but the training completed gives the team the immediate expertise needed to contend with the situations most likely to be dangerous in disaster zones.
“We have immersed ourselves in a previously unknown world of professional disaster response,” he says. “Coupled with our knowledge of the technology contained in theScientology Handbook, we are now able to perform an important service in times of disaster.”
The Scientology Volunteer Minister program was initiated by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbardin 1976. There are now hundreds of thousands of people across 185 nations trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister.
Volunteer Ministers in Thailand are carrying on with relief to victims of the worst flooding to hit that country in 50 years.
While food waters are receding in many parts of the country, 16 central and four southern provinces are still affected, and flash floods and landslides again hit some of the southeastern provinces this week.
Distributing food and supplies to those in shelters and by boat to those stranded in their homes by the floods, the Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology Mission, working in collaboration with other volunteer groups and agencies, have helped some 11,000 people.
Scientology Disaster Response Team in Ishinomaki, Japan
In Ishinomaki, Japan, where 29,000 lost their homes last March from the earthquake and tsunami, the Scientology Disaster Response Team continues its work providing any service needed to make life a bit easier for those affected.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers visited a home for the elderly to provide companionship and Scientology assists—techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that address the spiritual and emotional factors in stress and trauma.
The coordinator of Latin America Volunteer Ministers activities, himself a veteran of the Scientology Haiti relief effort, is in Colombia from his headquarters office in Mexico City to train and man a Scientology Disaster Response Team to provide relief in the wake of flooding in and around the northern coastal city of Cartagena, which has disrupted the lives of more than 94,000 Colombians, according to the Colombian Red Cross. Additionally, in Manizales, 100 miles west of Bogotá, 150 families were evacuated this week because of landslides.
Volunteer Ministers seminars were held this week at the Centro Cultural de Dianética in Bogotá to train volunteers to assists in these and other disasters.
Scientology Volunteer Minister Returns to Haiti to Train Local First Responders
Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman just returned to Spring Valley, New York, after training 100 community-based first responders in Haiti in the fundamentals of first aid, search and rescue techniques, simple solutions to contaminated drinking water, and basic Scientology assists, technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard that speed recovery by addressing the emotional and spiritual factors in illness and injury.
Lindeman, an LPN and 20-year veteran EMT who was a pivotal part of the initial Scientology Haiti Disaster Response, has continued his personal involvement in the recovery of the country by working closely with Haitian-American groups in the United States and by return visits to Haiti to coordinate activities and provide training.>>
Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour Bringing Positive Change to Mali
It is said that when Sultan Mansa Musa made his pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca in the 14th century, he brought with him so much gold and treasure that for centuries the legend prevailed that the roofs of Timbuktu were covered with gold and its rivers ran over beds of precious metal—a far cry from the Mali of 2011, with 73 percent of its 14.5 million people living on less than a dollar a day.
The courses and seminars of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour in Mali provide tools to help overcome economic and educational barriers and their oppressive consequences.
A Mali student recently completed all 19 Volunteer Ministers courses at the Tour’s bright yellow tent, and wrote:
“These courses are the life and the love that a person in public life or a civil servant cannot do without. …[They] have given me the tools not only to mobilize people, but to organize them to perform the actions that lead to success. I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to learn basics which can be used to make dreams come true."
“If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can become a VOLUNTEER MINISTER and help civilize it, bring it conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling into it trust, decency, honesty and tolerance.”
— L. Ron Hubbard RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE IN SOCIETY
Role of the Volunteer Minister
The "Meet a Scientologist" section of www.ScientologyNews.org has this interesting article on a VM from Seattle:
David Scattergood is a Seattle, Washington, businessman and community leader. A Volunteer Minister of the Church of Scientology of Seattle, he helps organize disaster response whenever the need arises. He also takes an active role in coordinating volunteer actions for his state as a board member of WVOAD, Washington Volunteers Active in Disaster, where he is serving his second term as president.
Training as a Scientology Volunteer Minister in 2004, Scattergood’s concern for those devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita prompted him to join the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response Team in Louisiana. He was among the 900 Volunteer Ministers who provided assistance to police and other rescue workers and brought in and distributed supplies to those in need.>>
Today we helped 2,673 people and delivered 219 assists in Onagawa, Ishinomaki and Kesennuma. While we are expanding and sending teams to assess the damage and the state of the shelters in areas we have not yet visited, we continue delivering assist and helping the evacuees in any way we can.
The head of the Meiyukan shelter in Ishinomaki, who has gained a great deal from the assist the Volunteer Ministers have given him, asked us to teach him how to deliver assists himself, so he can start his own Volunteer Minister group. He and several of his friends learned the procedure and began giving assists to one another.
In Kesennuma, we arrived at a shelter today to a warm “good morning” from several evacuees who seem to be growing much more cheerful as the days go by. Our arrival was announced over the loud speaker in the school-turned-shelter so no one would miss out on receiving assists while we were there.
Several evacuees told one of our Volunteer Ministers that the food at the shelters was tasteless—weak miso soup, white rice and boiled vegetables. The Volunteer Minister promptly called Tokyo Volunteer Minister headquarters to arrange for some tastier dishes. The headquarters contacted a man who owns a supply company in the city, who donated a set of meals to the shelter that very day. We were able to distribute the meals to grateful evacuees along with other needed supplies such as diapers, shampoo and vitamins.
Some of our Volunteer Ministers have now been invited to stay at the Kaizo-ii Buddhist temple in Kesennuma, after the chief priest learned of the work we are doing to help the people of the area.
We just welcomed six new Volunteer Ministers to the Japan team! Four are headed to the disaster zone and two will work from the Tokyo headquarters.
We are also pleased to report that a new Volunteer Minister Logistics Base has now officially been established in Tokyo and provides working space for 30 Volunteer Ministers to handle logistics for the disaster areas. Volunteer Ministers arriving in Tokyo can settle and brief at the Base before deploying to the North of Japan.
Last week two Volunteer Ministers vans left Tokyo to deliver sleeping bags and mats to shelters in Onagawa and remain in Northern Japan for services. Both are now in high demand daily to deliver food and water to remote shelters around the city of Sendai.
Onagawa
Life seems to be starting up again here the last few days. When we came about 10 days ago, many people spent most of the day in bed. The feeling was one of grief.
On Friday we cleaned out the shelter building and regorganized spaces for each family! Everyone participated and we created the most amazing village out of cardboard in the shelter hall.
Today we got the elementary schools going again and also here life is finally beginning again.
Watari
Yesterday, 2 April 2011, our Volunteer Ministers in the Myiagi Prefecture split into two groups. One went to a shelter that had been set up in the Osaka Elementary and Junior High and the other went to Yoshida Elementary and Watari Elementary schools. In the past 48 hours we helped 2,026 people in these shelters, gave 617 assists* and trained 64 people in Volunteer Minister technology.
One man who was very upset received an assist. In recounting what happened to him when the tsunami hit, he suddenly began to chuckle. He realized, he said, “I can’t really do anything but laugh about it!”
One elderly woman received an assist in Shishiori Junior High School and told the Volunteer Minister with a huge smile on her face that she felt like she could “float down the stairs.”
A Volunteer Minister came across a boy in the shelter who looked bored, so she taught him how to deliver assists. The next thing she knew, he had helped four people with assists.
Also our translator Peter learned how to deliver assists and he was completely blown away that he could use this to help people. He’d never done anything like it before.
Kesennuma
Three young Volunteer Ministers went to Hashikami School in Kesennuma City and met with a teacher who welcomed them and invited them to deliver a lecture on Assists to 25 students. The students were interested throughout and at the lecture’s end, they grouped in seven Volunteer Minister teams and first delivered assists to each other and then to 175 refugees.
The students were amazed at what they were able to do with assist technology, especially when one woman who hadn’t been walking began doing so after an assist. The look on the student’s face was priceless. The brand new Volunteer Minister had only just learned about assists herself.
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*Assist: L. Ron Hubbard developed numerous applications of his discoveries on the mental and spiritual aspects of a person's physical difficulties, one of them being the technology of Assists. An Assist is an action undertaken to help a person confront his physical difficulties, overcome trauma, ease discomfort and speed recovery. For more information go to: www.volunteerministers.org/solutions/assists.html.
In answer to escalating crime and violence through the latter 1960s and early 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard founded the Volunteer Minister program. It was designed to provide practical tools for engendering understanding and compassion. Moreover, those tools were expressly conceived for use by Scientologists and non-Scientologists alike. Thus was born a broad-based movement of individuals from all walks of life dedicated to providing on-site assistance to communities around the world.
Through the last 30 years, Scientology Volunteer Ministers have provided aid and emergency services at more than 128 worst-case disaster sites. Today, they are among the world’s most recognized independent relief organizations, and have trained tens of thousands of new volunteers on their methods of bringing help in the worst of times and conditions.
As L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "A Scientology Volunteer Minister is a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by helping restore purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others. A Scientology Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence."
Volunteer Ministers live by the motto that “Something can be done about it.”
Scientology Volunteer Ministers pledge to help build a brighter future for Haiti on country's Flag Day
Flag Day in Haiti May 18 took on new significance this year as Haitians and friends from around the world reaffirmed their commitment to rebuild the country from the January 2010 earthquake.
In this spirit, 100 Haitian Scientology Volunteer Ministers, joined by dozens of Volunteer Ministers from abroad, made the hour-long march from the Port-au-Prince suburb of Carrefour to the city of Leogane Tuesday, May 18, waving the Haitian flag with its motto "unity and freedom" and carrying bright yellow banners proclaiming "Something can be done about it"-the motto of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers.
In the village of Mariani on the outskirts of Leogane, Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Canada, Russia, the Ukraine, Mexico, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the United States joined their Haitian colleagues in the Haitian national anthem while Max Beauvoir, Haiti's main voodoo leader, raised the Haitian flag at the Volunteer Ministers tent where volunteers provide free training and one-on-one help.
Haitian Flag Day marks the day in 1803 when native leaders ripped the white field out of the French "tri-color" flag, forming a symbol of unity in their decade-long fight against French oppression that kept 500,000 enslaved on the island. Eight months later, this became the official flag for the new nation of Haiti.
Despite the passion and determination of the Haitian people, which made Haiti the only nation ever formed of a successful slave revolt, even before the January earthquake Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Some 300,000 Haitian children were orphaned or living without parents. Of 182 nations on Earth Haiti ranked 125th in literacy and 158th in Gross Domestic Product per capita.
These factors and a host of other social issues indicate it was not just an act of nature that devastated Haiti in January. These issues are what the Scientology Volunteer Ministers address in their training.
For example, there is no official building code in Haiti, and the city of Port-au-Prince was doomed to collapse. Anne Kiremidjian, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, described it in these terms: "Even a moderate sized event would have toppled these buildings down. This earthquake was a very large event and they had absolutely no chance of standing up."
While Scientology Volunteer Ministers continue to do relief work and construction projects in Haiti hospitals, clinics, orphanages and refugee camps, they are working on a longer-range program to tackle the underlying social issues that brought Haiti to the brink of destruction and ensure the country emerges from this disaster a strong society whose people have the opportunity they deserve.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers have opened 300 Volunteer Ministers groups in Haiti and are training government agencies, community and religious leaders, educators, students and scouts. With so many traumatized, they begin with a seminar called "Assists for Injuries and Illnesses," containing technology developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard to handle the emotional and spiritual effects of loss and injury. They follow up with training in study technology to increase literacy and the ability to apply one's education. Then come workshops in the basics of organization, planning, and communication skills, to ensure the people of Haiti have the tools they need.
In developing the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program in 1976, L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "It is important to understand bad conditions don't just happen. The cultural decay we see around us isn't haphazard. It was caused. Unless one understands this he won't be able to defend himself or reach out into the society with effectiveness." To learn more about the courses and seminars visit the Scientology Volunteer Ministers website at {www.volunteerministers.org/train}
Scientology Russia Goodwill Tour Completes 19,000-Mile, Four-Year Trans-Siberian Journey
Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Russia complete journey across 10 time zones helping thousands along the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway
A team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Russia have completed a 19,000-mile journey across 10 time zones—a journey that began in Moscow four years ago. Since August 2006 these volunteers have traveled the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway giving lectures, seminars and courses to some 8,000 individuals on communication skills, study technology, conflict resolution, salvaging marriages, raising happy children and 14 other subjects contained in the Scientology Handbook. In each location they trained Volunteer Ministers and established groups to continue to help their communities.
On August 1, 2006, a 20-member Scientology Volunteer Ministers team boarded the Trans-Siberian Railroad at the first station on the line—the Yaroslavsky station in Moscow—and began a trek across 5,800 miles and 10 time zones to the Pacific Ocean seaport of Vladivostok. In the summer months they set up their signature yellow tent—a 3,400-square-foot pavilion with lecture rooms, classrooms, and a display describing the Volunteer Ministers program. In winter months, when temperatures never rose above zero for months on end, they provided their services in rented halls.
Trans-Siberian Goodwill Tour leader Sergey Nikitin said, “We are here to provide effective help—that is our purpose. Our motto is ‘Something can be done about it,’ and that means not only in times of major disasters and emergencies but in everyday life.”
The Volunteer Ministers delivered lectures and seminars and provided classes and one-on-one help in Perm, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Zheleznogorsk, Ulan-Ude, Chita, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok, in hospitals, orphanages, government offices, fire station, invalid centers, veteran associations, businesses, clubs or women’s groups.
To ensure the courses and assistance would continue to be available with neighbor helping neighbor, in each city the Volunteer Ministers trained local residents as Volunteer Ministers and helped them establish groups to sustain the assistance after the tour moved on.
Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard created the Volunteer Minister program in answer to escalating crime and violence in the later 1960s and early 1970s, to provide practical tools for engendering understanding and compassion. The program has expanded to 203,000 Volunteer Ministers worldwide who have served at 185 disaster sites, including Ground Zero after 9/11, the Southeast Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Haiti. For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers, visit their website at www.volunteerministers.org.
VOLUNTEER MINISTERS PROVIDING EFFECTIVE HELP ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE
In answer to escalating crime and violence through the latter 1960s and early 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard founded the Volunteer Minister program. It was designed to provide practical tools for engendering understanding and compassion. Moreover, those tools were expressly conceived for use by Scientologists and non-Scientologists alike. Thus was born a broad-based movement of individuals from all walks of life dedicated to providing on-site assistance to communities around the world.
Through the last 30 years, Scientology Volunteer Ministers have provided aid and emergency services at more than 128 worst-case disaster sites. Today, they are among the world’s most recognized independent relief organizations, and have trained tens of thousands of new volunteers on their methods of bringing help in the worst of times and conditions.
As L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "A Scientology Volunteer Minister is a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by helping restore purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others. A Scientology Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence."
Volunteer Ministers live by the motto that “Something can be done about it.”
Scientology-sponsored Ship Brings More Than 100 Tons of Supplies to Haiti for the Relief Effort
A Scientology-sponsored “Lifeboat to Haiti” arrived in Port-au-Prince April 8, carrying more than 100 tons of urgently needed supplies including medicine, medical equipment, an ambulance, food, cooking stoves and tents.
Scientology-sponsored Lifeboat for Haiti at the dock in Port-au-Prince
In the first weeks following the earthquake, the Church of Scientology sponsored five chartered flights, bringing more than 440 doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians and 280 Scientology Volunteer Ministers to the island, helping more than 200,000 people through their combined efforts in the first two and a half months.
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers are in Haiti for the long haul, not only providing disaster relief but also working with local government and civic groups and community leaders who are determined to improve the quality of life for all Haitians.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers work in the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps providing food, water, and other supplies and training people in Scientology Assists—techniques developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that help the individual overcome the emotional and spiritual aspects of trauma and stress.
The Volunteers Ministers are also establishing a base in Petionville to provide free training to individuals and groups including teachers, students, disaster relief groups and government agencies. This training addresses the underlying social issues and skills needed to bring about lasting improvement. Seminars and courses include subjects such as communication skills, the basics of organizing and study technology. So far, they have provided seminars and classes to over 8,000 local residents.
For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Haiti Response Team, visit their web site at blog.volunteerministers.org.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers are loading former US Coast Guard Ship for take-off to Haiti
The 896-ton ship will travel 84 hours to Haiti.
The former US Coast Guard ship "Hornbeam" at its arrival in Miami on 20 March 2010.
22/23 March 2010: Update on the Hornbeam:Monday afternoon in Miami final preparations for the 1,500- mile trip of the former US Coast Guard Ship were done. Several Scientology Volunteer Ministers helped to load over 170 tons of supplies, including wood-burning stoves donated by the charity of wife of the Haitian Ambassador to the U.S. Tomorrow an ambulance and a school bus will be loaded on board and the ship will be tugged out to open sea and leave for Haiti.
On arriving in Haiti later this week all supplies will be distributed to hospitals, schools, orphanages and charities. The ship, the Hornbeam, will be tugged up the Miami River and out to open sea on Wednesday, March 24. The ship also brings Scientology Volunteer Ministers to join the Scientology Disaster Relief team, which has been in Port-au-Prince providing relief since January.
In the past weeks the Mexican Scientology Volunteer Minister team in Haiti has given seminars to more than 5,000 persons and trained more than 1,000 in Assist technology. They also organized and distributed food and water to more than 10,000 persons. One of their special projects was to help re-open a big Christian school.
For the last several weeks a team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Mexico have been helping the FMA school (Filles de Marie-Auxiliatrice) reestablish order and get back into action. The earthquake affected nearly every person in Port-au-Prince. So many died, and most of those who survived were injured or left homeless. Many schools collapsed killing the children and teachers who were there. Those like the FMA school that were not destroyed by the quake have been closed since January 12, with the teachers and administrators taking care of the immediate needs of their families.
The school is run by a Catholic order, the Silesian Sisters. Over the past several weeks the Volunteer Ministers have been training the sisters on basic Volunteer Ministers assist technology, which includes seminars and courses on communication, how to improve relationships, how to establish order and organize an area and Scientology assist technology.
Scientology assists are techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that address the spiritual and emotional factors in illness and injuries, and thus speed healing. Once trained, the sisters started to train others. Within several days they trained some 600 volunteers from a nearby refugee camp.
They have reassembled the faculty, cleaned up the school and readied the school to reopen.
A local radio station announced the school was about to open again and on March 4, 2010, more than 3,000 kids of all ages gathered at the school campus to resume their studies.
But when the school doors opened that morning, the kids were too afraid to go inside the building. For many of them, the last time they had been inside a structure it collapsed. And everyone knows someone who died because they were inside a house, school, hospital or shopping center when the earthquake struck.
To help these children overcome their fears so they could get on with their education, the newly trained volunteers gave them Locational assists, which enable the person to put past memories of fear or loss behind them by orienting the individual to his or her current environment. By the time they were done, everyone on the campus was relaxed and extroverted and ready to go back inside to their classrooms.
That is why the FMA School has reopened—the first to do so in Port-au-Prince. The nun who runs the school was interviewed on a local radio show. She emphasized that the school, the first and only school in the city that has reopened since the earthquake on January 12, was only able to resume classes because of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers.
Scientology Volunteer Minister, Home from Haiti, Says More Help is Needed
Scientology Volunteer Minister David Dempster, a Scotsman who has lived in Clearwater, Florida for the past four years, was on the first Scientology-sponsored charter flight to Haiti on January 16, departing from JFK Airport in New York. The aircraft transported more than 100 doctors, nurses and EMTs (emergency medical technicians) to Haiti, and a team of Volunteer Ministers to support them in their work. Five more flights sponsored by Scientologists have provided transport for over 600 medical and support personnel on donated planes from New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Dempster, who provided urgently needed administrative backup to doctors at two Port-au-Prince hospitals, is back in Florida now, and reflects on his experiences there.
Dempster was first deployed to General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. “On our drive to the hospital, the physical destruction we saw was staggering,” he said. “A local resident told me most buildings are made of concrete blocks to safeguard against hurricane damage, but this served them badly in the quake. The damage was exacerbated by the common practice of mixing extra sand in the concrete to save money. Because of this, the walls just crumbled in the earthquake.”
At General Hospital, Dempster’s team provided administrative backup to the doctors and nurses on duty. “Our Volunteer Ministers organized incoming medical supplies, helped calm distressed patients, distributed water to patients, carried stretchers, helped deliver babies and assisted with amputations, of which there were many,” he said.
“We had a team of four or five Volunteer Ministers assisting the doctor who ran the Intensive Care Unit during the day and two Volunteer Ministers who took on overnight duty. This made an enormous difference in the quality of patient care.”
Dempster also worked at the University of Miami tent hospital. Medical staff had arrived in Haiti, but with no administrative personnel to support them. This tied up the doctors, nurses and EMTs in administrative and logistics functions, drastically cutting into their patient care. To free up the doctors and nurses, the Volunteer Ministers took over myriad administrative support functions.
Organization of medical supplies was the first critical need. Donated supplies had been dropped off, unsorted and unlabeled, forming mountains of boxes, and the scene was consuming precious hours of doctors’ and nurses’ time trying to find a particular medication, a clamp or a syringe. The Volunteer Ministers attacked the disarray of the supply tent, sorting and stacking, organizing and labeling, and setting up a distribution line to get needed items to medical personnel rapidly. This handling of the supply tent by the Scientology Volunteer Ministers enabled the doctors and nurses to spend their time treating patients, with many lives saved as a direct result.
Another area of enormous need was the organizing and running of triage—registering incoming patients, giving them wristband IDs, and noting their visible injuries so doctors and nurses could more rapidly assess priorities. Dempster was put in charge of the Volunteer Ministers in this area, replacing a nurse who had been doing this. “She was very relieved to be able to get on with actual nursing duties,” he said, “while we Volunteer Ministers took care of administrative and logistics matters.”
Back in Florida, Dempster says the work still to be done is massive and he encourages others to volunteer.
WSVN TV 15 Feb 2010 - Scientology Volunteer Ministers bringing help to Haiti
Nearly 50 doctors, nurses and EMT's flying out from Miami International Airport to the quake devastated region of Port-au-Prince. The trip is being sponsored by the Church of Scientology. About 40 disaster response trained volunteer ministers will also be aboard. "We wanted to bring some medical expertise there and we would support them in what they were doing, because were talking long hours," said Church Of Scientology volunteer Pat Harney.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers in Haiti - The Week in Review
This past week the first Volunteer Minister teams from Mexico, Russia and the United Kingdom arrived and replaced some of the American volunteer units who had been there for the last three weeks.
In total more than 12,200 people were reached with help this week, including 4,674 served with food and water, and care given to about 2,300 injured people. Several examples follow.
Remote Areas
A team of 7 people (2 Doctors and 5 Scientology Volunteer Ministers) went out several times this week visiting outlying refugee camps in a very torn down neighborhood where people are living in broken houses.
Second unit is making food and supply runs. After receiving a distress call from a local pastor who had told the Volunteers that there were people starving in his community set up a makeshift primary care station and delivered food and water to his camp. The station was been set up outside due to buildings being so unstable. Primary care was given to 70 patients and 96 hot meals, 2 boxes of rice, 100 granola bars, 20 cans of tuna, (enough to feed 200 people) and 4 cases of water were provided. The locals also supplied a list of other areas that desperately needed food and these are being visited in the coming week.
Another Volunteer unit delivered medical assistance to several tent cities outside Port-au-Prince to 495 people. They handed out baby wipes, baby food, powdered milk, vitamins, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and facemasks and delivered a seminar on hygiene.
On Wednesday the Volunteers unit delivering medical supplies went with a Trauma Doctor and Trauma Registered Nurse out "into the trenches." On this project several dozen injured people were located and given proper medical assistance.
The Volunteers helped fly 4 plane loads of medical supplies (approximately 200lbs) to Jacmel in south Haiti and provided them to local doctors that that had been cut off medical supply and support lines. They also helped organize distribution logistics for future deliveries. 30 boxes of MREs (360 Meals Ready to Eat) plus one pallet of rice (enough for 540 people) were deliverd to a nearby community and several kitchens rebuilt to service about 1,000 people.
Hospital installations:
SWISS HOSPITAL TENT: A sanitation team that came in with one of the Volunteer Ministers charter flights has taken on trash clean-up around the hospital. They also organized the draining of a waste-filled pond right next to the hospital tents.
GENERAL HOSPITAL, PORT-AU-PRINCE: A team of Volunteers continued to help distributing food and water to the patients daily and organized the receipt and distribution of needed supplies.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL TENT: The Volunteer Ministers worked the food distribution lines and continued to put order in the medical storage. They also got local Haitians on board to arrange food deliveries to nearby camps and brought 13 large boxes of food into different communities.
CAMPS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE: For several weeks now Scientology Volunteer Ministers have been arranging food and other supplies for hundreds of children in Port-au-Prince. The Volunteer Ministers continue to feed and care for the children, while professional Haitian orphanage administrators are working to find parents or other relatives. In the past week over a ton of food, water and medical supplies were gotten out to three children camps and several new tents were installed. A van full of school supplies including proper clothing for the kids arrived from Dominican Republic as organized by the Volunteer Minister unit there.
For several weeks Scientology Volunteer Ministers have been arranging food and other supplies for dozens of children in Port-au-Prince. The Volunteer Ministers continue to feed and care for the children, while professional Haitian orphanage administrators are working to find parents or other relatives.
Receipt of donated shelter boxes (tents).
Volunteer Ministers in Haiti provide any assistance needed and to date have helped more than 41,000 people.
Volunteer Minister vans and rented vehicles bring food and supplies to tent cities and refugee camps in southern Haiti.
A typical "tent city" in Haiti's country side where refugees gather.
