#WATWB: The mother choosing to love her ‘enemy’

Listen to this wonderful BBC story about a woman whose son was killed by an extremist, but instead of harbouring bitterness and anger and vengeance in her heart, she chose to reach out to other young men like the murderer of her son and help them turn away from radicalisation.

Latifa Ibn Ziaten, a Moroccan mother to five has been awarded the highest honour in France, the Legion of Honour, and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Latifa’s son, a French soldier, was murdered in Toulouse in 2012. Since then, Latifa has reached out to her ‘enemy’, working closely with people at risk of radicalisation in prisons and schools, and has convinced at least three young men not to go and fight in Syria.

Latifa Ibn Ziaten. BBC photo.

This is the 37th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Eric Lahti, Susan Scott, Inderpreet Kaur Uppal, Shilpa Garg  and myself.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

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#WATWB: The Woman Who Rescued 97 Dogs from Hurricane Dorian

My last #WATWB post was about a Greek man who has devoted his life to saving dogs.

For this month’s We Are The World Blogfest (#WATWB), I bring you a similar story albeit from a different part of the world and under different circumstances.

The story of Chella Phillips from Bahamas who rescued 97 dogs from Hurricane Dorian.

In early September, Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas, reducing thousands of homes to rubble in its wake. Hurricane Dorian was the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas, and is regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.

Hurricane Dorian hovered over the Bahamas for nearly 48 hours, with torrential rains and wind gusts reaching over 220 mph wreaking havoc on the small island nation. An estimated 13,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, according to the Red Cross.

As residents across the Bahamas prepared for the hurricane, Phillips opened her home to 97 dogs.

A woman in the Bahamas says she has taken in nearly 100 dogs displaced by Hurricane Dorian. Chella Phillips, who runs Voiceless Dogs of Nassau, a small organization aimed at helping stray dogs in the capital city, said she took 97 dogs into her house as the hurricane slammed into the island on Sunday.

Seventy-nine of the dogs were sheltering in her master bedroom, Phillips wrote on Facebook. “It has been insane since last night,” she wrote, “poop and piss non stop but at least they are respecting my bed and nobody has dared to jump in.”

Phillips said she played music and blasted the air conditioner for the dogs. She also received some donated crates, which were needed for the scared and sick pups.

“The saddest part is that after the hurricane leave the Bahamas, some islands will take a long time to recover,” Phillips wrote in the now-viral post. “Each island has abundance of homeless dogs, my heart is so broken for the ones without a place to hide a CAT 5 monster and only God can protect them now.”

As rising waters from the storm surge enveloped whole neighborhoods, people — and animals — became displaced or worse. If not for Phillips, the fate of at least 97 dogs in Nassau would be unknown.

The rest of Phillips’ story can be found here, here, and here.

Chella Phillips

This is the 29th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are:  Sylvia McGrath, Lizbeth Hartz, Shilpa Garg, Mary Giese, and Belinda Witzenhausen welcome participants and encourage all to join in.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: The Man Who Sent 33 Strangers to School

In Iowa, US, a carpenter from a humble background saved his earnings over the course of his life and used them to send 33 people to college. People he had never met and would never meet.

Dale Schroeder was a simple, humble man from Iowa, who ended up changing the lives of 33 people forever. Schroeder worked as a carpenter at the same company for 67 years. He grew up poor and had no wife or children of his own.

His friend Steve Nielsen described Schroeder as a “blue collar, lunch pail kind of guy.”

When he died in 2005, no one could have guessed how rich Schroeder really was. “He had church jeans and work jeans,” Nielsen said.

Schroeder had saved up a fortune over the years. He had no living descendants, so before he died, he went to his lawyer with a plan for his money.

“He said, ‘I never got the opportunity to go to college. So, I’d like to help kids go to college,'” Nielsen said. Not only did Schroeder have enough money to send a few kids to college, he had enough saved to send dozens.

The rest of Dale Schroeder’s story can be found here.

Dale Schroeder, photo from Newsweek

This is the 26th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are:  Shilpa Garg, Simon Falk , Damyanti Biswas, Lizbeth Hartz and Eric Lahti.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: The Woman Who Fought Off Three Rapists

This is the heartfelt and heartwarming story of a woman forced to defend her daughter (and herself) from three rapists in the middle of the night.

Back in 2017, a South African woman named Nokubonga Qampi received a phone call in the middle of the night telling her that her daughter was being raped by three men. Her daugher, Siphokazi, had been visiting her friends who went out at 1.30am and left her alone and asleep. Sometime later, three men she knew well, who had been drinking nearby, attacked her.

Nokubonga’s first response was to call the police, but there was no answer. She knew, anyway, that it would take them time to reach her village, in the rolling green and brown hills of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

She was the only person that could help.

“I was scared, but then I was forced to go because it was my daughter,” she said.

“I was thinking that when I get there, she might be dead… Because she knew the perpetrators, and because they knew her and knew she knows them, they might think they had to kill her so she couldn’t report them.”

“I took it for me, for walking the distance between here and where the incident was taking place, because it is not safe,” she says. “It was dark and I had to use the torch on my phone to light the way.”

She heard her daughter’s screams as she approached the house. On entering the bedroom, the light from her phone enabled her to make out the awful sight of her daughter being raped.

“I was scared… I just stood by the door and asked what they were doing. When they saw it was me, they came charging towards me, that’s when I thought that I needed to defend myself, it was an automatic reaction,” Nokubonga says.

The rest of Nokubonga’s story can be found here. BBC podcast can be found here.

Siphokazi and Nokubonga in January, 16 months after the attack. BBC photo.

This is the 24th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Dan Antion, Mary Giese, Simon Falk , Damyanti Biswas.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: 71-Year-Old Grandmother Walked Several Miles To Donate To Cyclone Survivors

In March this year, one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere, caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and thousands more missing. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. Homes were destroyed and livelihoods wiped out. Hunger, starvation, homelessness and diseases soon took hold over the region. According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA), about 1.85million people were affected by Cyclone Idai.

In the face of this destruction and death, several heroes emerged. The world responded positively to the disaster with donations pouring in from governments, individuals, and organizations such as WFP, UNICEF, MSF, OCHA, UNISDR, Samaritan’s Purse, and others. South Africans responded generously to their Zimbabwean neighbours’ plight, sending donations from the citizens, companies and members of the Diplomatic Corps to help the victims of the Cyclone.

One 71-year old grandmother named Plaxedes Dilon, a native of Zimbabwe, walked over ten miles to donate clothes to the unfortunate victims of the Cyclone. She had bought the clothes to resell but when she heard about the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Idai, she decided to donate them instead.

Her selfless action drew the attention of the Zimbabwe’s richest man who then promised to build her a house.

Plaxedes Dilon trudged on foot from near her home in downtown Harare to the Highlands Presbyterian Church to donate bundles of clothes to victims.

She heard about the devastation of Cyclone Idai, which has killed more than 700 people, on the radio after spending a long day selling clothing and decided to offer her wares to charity.

Church volunteers posted a photo of Ms Dilon with a sack balanced on her head, adding she could not afford to pay for a bus from her neighbourhood of Mbare. 

Her selfless act went viral and was noticed by Zimbabwe’s richest man, Strive Masiyiwa, who offered to build Ms Dilon a home wherever she wants in the country.

The rest of Dillon’s story can be found here, here, and here.

Plaxedes Dilon walked over ten miles to the Highlands Presbyterian Church in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare to deliver donations to cyclone survivors. Source: Daily Mail UK

This is the 23th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Inderpreet Uppal, Lizbeth Hartz, Eric Lahti and myself.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: Shyam Lal–Who Dug a Pond for His Villagers for 27 Years

For years, Saja Pahad village in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district (in India) faced water shortage. Villagers found it difficult to quench the thirst of their cattle, but they did not know what to do. And the government, too, did nothing.

Then one day 15-year-old Shyam Lal decided to take his spade and dig a pond. Fellow villagers laughed at him. But the tribal teenager was determined.

Lal identified a spot in the forest in and kept digging — for 27 years, according to villagers.

The result is nothing less than that of Bihar’s mountain man, Dashrath Manjhi — a one-acre 15-feet deep pond, which is filled with the elixir of life.

“No one helped me in my work, neither the administration nor the villagers,” the 42-year-old beams proudly, adding that he did it for the welfare of the people and the cattle of his village.

Villagers hail him as a role model and saviour. Ramsaran Bargar (70), a local who witnessed Shyam toil through the years, says, “The pond is now used by everyone and we are all thankful to him.”

Sources said Saja Pahad, which lies near a hillock under Chirimiri, still does not have electricity or proper road connectivity. The only source of water for the villagers is a couple of wells.

Lal’s work comes as a relief at a time Chhattisgarh is suffering from drought-like situation this year. The rainfall has been 10% short of the average over 10 years. District collectors have been directed to ensure proper utilisation of irrigation facilities.

Shyam Lal. Photo credit: hindustantimes.com

This is the 21th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Inderpreet Uppal,  Shilpa Garg,  Sylvia McGrath , Belinda WitzenHausen, and myself.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

 

If you would like to help out in saving a school, you could also sign up for theValentine’s Day :Show the Love , Save a School Blogathon . It is easy to join–just write about someone/ something you love. You can combine it with your WATWB post.

 

You could also chip in to the fundraiser here, only if you’re so inclined.

#WATWB: A Father Carves a Road through a Mountain for His Children

A while back, a man from Odisha, India, singlehandedly carved an 8km (5-mile) road through hilly terrain so that his children attend school.

His three sons used to spend six hours walking from their boarding school in Phulbani to the village of Gumsahi where Nayak lives. Fed up with seeing his kids stumble down the dangerous route, the 45-year-old vegetable seller grabbed a chisel, a pickax, and a garden hoe and began digging a safer path.

 

In a remote village in India’s state of Odisha, the schoolchildren needed to walk through 10 kilometers (6 mi) of thick brush, climbing up and down hills and boulders in each direction for three hours. It’s understandable why many of these kids gave up on their education.

But a father named Jalandhar Nayak was determined that his sons would receive an education. His boys moved closer to the school, and Nayak began to work. Armed with only a pickaxe and a crowbar, Nayak began clearing a road to the village in 2016. He pushed boulders and dug the earth so that it would be a flat surface. He worked from sunup until sundown, eight hours a day every day for two years straight.

A local news outlet heard about Nayak’s story. The government agreed that the village needed a road, so they paid him for his time and took over the construction where he left off. Once he got the media’s attention, he requested that the village get access to running water and electricity, too. After generations of this village having been so far removed from civilization, one man’s actions helped the entire community.

The rest of Jalandhar Naya’s story can be found here, here, and here.

Jalandhar Nayak. OdishaTV

This is the 20th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are:  Inderpreet Uppal, Sylvia Stein, Shilpa Garg, Simon Falk, Damyanti Biswas.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: Father to Terminally Ill Children

An American man named Mohamed Bzeek from Los Angeles has been taking care of terminally ill children for the past 20 years. He has cared for 40 children so far.

Bzeek is the only foster parent in the county known to take in terminally ill children.

Bzeek, originally from Libya, was introduced to foster care by the woman he fell in love with, Dawn, who would die in 2013 to his devastation.

She [Dawn] had become a foster parent in the early 1980s, before she met Bzeek. Her grandparents had been foster parents, and she was inspired by them, Bzeek said. Before she met Bzeek, she opened her home as an emergency shelter for foster children who needed immediate placement or who were placed in protective custody.

Dawn Bzeek fell in love with every child she took in. She took them to professional holiday photo sessions, and she organized Christmas gift donation drives for foster children.

Mohamed Bzeek started caring for foster children with his wife Dawn in 1989. Often, the children were ill and sometimes they died, leaving the Bzeeks in intolerable pain. By the mid-1990s, the Bzeeks decided to specifically care for terminally ill children.

The children were going to die. Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway — the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles County’s sprawling foster care system.

He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms. Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. She’s blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.

“I know she can’t hear, can’t see, but I always talk to her,” he said. “I’m always holding her, playing with her, touching her. … She has feelings. She has a soul. She’s a human being.

“The key is, you have to love them like your own,” Bzeek said recently. “I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God.”

The rest of Bzeek’s story can be found here in Los Angeles Times.

Mohamed Bzeek with a foster child

In a time when the 24-hour news cycle bombards us with stories of tragedy, heartbreak and deceit, it can be difficult to keep our heads up and remain optimistic about the world we live in. But amid the tragedy and sadness, we receive daily glimpses of hope and happiness—moments when our spirits are lifted and we’re reminded of the generosity and kindness of others. 

This is the 19th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are:  Eric Lahti , Inderpreet Uppal, Shilpa Garg, Damyanti Biswas, and myself.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

 

#WATWB: The Elephant Whisperer

There is a woman from Thailand named Lek Chailert who has dedicated her life to rescuing tortured elephants. She grew up in a small hillside village north of Chiang Mai where large scale logging was practised. Elephants were used by loggers to transport incredibly heavy loads.

When she was a student, Lek used to see the elephants cut and wounded and sick, and she sought to find out what was happening to them. She could hear elephants screaming in the forest but, being a student, was not allowed to go into the logging camp. One day she was taken into the forest by one of the elephant keepers, and that was when she witnessed the shocking horror of what was happening to them. The horror that would change her life.

There was an elephant hauling a log up the hill with a man riding on its back. Every time the elephant tried to haul the log, the man would step on a hook on its head and wound it, drawing blood. The man was also cutting its back with a knife. It was screaming.

Lek was speechless. It was her first time to see the giant animal tortured so badly by human beings. Shaken, she went back to the village for elephant medicine and came back to treat the wounded animal.

The elephants were used not only for logging but also for entertainment in circuses and tourist parks.

Baby elephants were put in a structure called “crush box”, which is a small, rigid trap with no room for turning around. They were then beaten and tortured mercilessly until they learned to obey their human masters. Afterwards, they were taken to the circuses for entertainment, obeying commands, playing with hoops, or being ridden by tourists in tourist parks for a fee, etc.

Lek wondered why humans expected so much from the animals. She made it her mission to rescue them. She went to the media and exposed the loggers. She founded Save Elephant Foundation.

An American actress, Ashley Bell, heard about her work and joined her. They have since worked together on a documentary called Love and Bananas about the rescued elephants and the ordeals they went through.

The animals she has saved are very grateful and when they see her they run to her and cuddle her.

Lek’s rich story can be found here.

Lek Chailert, BBC

This is the 17th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Eric Lahti, Inderpreet Uppal, Sylvia Stein and myself..

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List

#WATWB: Dodging Bullets to Deliver a Baby

Sometime in 2015, the Taliban attempted to recapture an Afghan city called Kunduz. War began between the Taliban and the government military. All roads were closed and hospitals became battlefields. People were trapped in hospitals for weeks. Hospitals were running out of medicine, blood, and even food. One hospital was blown up by a mortar.

A gynaecologist named Dr. Marzia Salam Yaftali was working at the last-standing public hospital in the city. She couldn’t go to work during the attack and it worried her sick. The situation was getting worse. The injured kept arriving at the hospital despite the diminishing supplies.

I was desperate to go to work but I couldn’t because all the roads were closed and the hospital was a battlefield. It was in the crossfire between the Taliban and the government troops. My colleagues were trapped in the hospital for two weeks. No one could leave.

One night when the fighting had worsened uncontrollably, Dr. Marzia was called to help her neighbour deliver twins.

There was heavy fighting one night. The battle was going on from street to street and house to house. It was so bad that no one dared to leave their homes. If you were shot at no one would know if it was from the Taliban or government troops. My family was hiding in the basement.

Around 8 o’clock in the evening, there was banging on our door. We were terrified. But it was a neighbour. They had a lady staying with them called Fatma. She was young and pregnant with twins. But it hadn’t been an easy pregnancy. My neighbour said, ‘Please come. Fatma is going into labour. We need your help.’

Dr. Marzia was living with her sister, also a doctor. But her sister refused point-blank to go outside. The risk was too great. She had her own children to look after and going outside meant certain death.

Dr. Marzia had to decide what to do. She had met Fatma and seen the scan of her babies.

I knew that if I didn’t go, Fatma would die.

When I stepped outside the front door, there was a rain of bullets. It was absolutely terrifying.

I was running. I will never forget that night. There were NATO airplanes above. It was pitch-black but I could see the laser lights coming from the jets looking for the Taliban fighters. I ran like I had never run before. The neighbour’s house was ten minutes away but it felt like a whole hour.

Dr. Marzia managed to deliver the first baby. Unfortunately, the second baby was trapped at the shoulder and needed caesarean section to be delivered. She needed a hospital.

I called my government contacts and asked them to send a military tank to take us to the hospital. Then I rang the hospital and my colleagues there said absolutely not. You cannot come here. The hospital is a war zone. Earlier a patient and his father left the hospital and were shot. Their bodies are still outside in the driveway and no one dares to pick them up. The same could happen to you. Don’t come.

The rest of Dr. Marzia’s story can be found here.

Dr. Marzia Salam Yaftali. Photo by BBC.

 

This is the 16th celebration of the WE ARE THE WORLD BLOGFEST #WATWB which is carried out every last Friday of the month, and which aims to spread love and positiveness in this vulnerable world. A celebration of heroes who can still restore our faith in humanity, especially in this period when our world seems to be full of endless series of horrible happenings.

Our generous co-hosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Belinda Witzenhausen, Sylvia McGrath, Simon Falk, and Andrea Michaels.

To sign up for We Are The World Blogfest, please see the guidelines below.

~~~GUIDELINES~~~

1. Keep your post to below 500 words, as much as possible.
2. All we ask is you link to a human news story on your blog on the last Friday of each month, one that shows love, humanity, and brotherhood. Something like this news  about a man who only fosters terminally ill children.
3. Join us on the last Friday of each month in sharing news that warms the cockles of our heart. No story is too big or small, as long as it goes beyond religion and politics, into the core of humanity.
4. Place the WE ARE THE WORLD Badge on your sidebar, and help us spread the word on social media. Tweets, Facebook shares, G+ shares using the #WATWB hashtag through the month most welcome. More Blogfest signups mean more friends, love and light for all of us.
5. We’ll read and comment on each others’ posts, get to know each other better, and hopefully, make or renew some friendships with everyone who signs on as participants in the coming months.
6. To signup, add your link in WE ARE THE WORLD Linky List