A Christmas message

2008 has been a great year for those who share Rose Charities and also a landmark one. In February the 10 year anniversary of the birth of the organization( in Cambodia and Canada in 1998) was marked by the first ever Rose Charities International meeting held in Penang, Malaysia.

The many achievement in 2008 will be expanded upon in a forthcoming newsletter (see www.RoseCharities.blogspot.com ) but noteworthy among them include :-

- Linda Roberts\' structuring of the central hub of Rose Charities, the drafting of Charter, unified mission statement, executive board and international secretary positions and many other essential structural components which will allow cohesion of the network without stifling the style of each individual national organization or linkage group / individual.

- The rapid growth, progress and projects of Rose Charities Vietnam and Malaysia groups, the consolidation and expansion of Rose Charities NZ, Australia and USA, and the exciting new (and continuing) Nepal projects of Kunti Aryal (Womens issues), Binod Aryal (alcohol/drug rehabilitation), and (through) Dr Basant Sharma (female eye health screening training.. sponsored by Rose NZ). The high level of dedicated service of Rose Charities\' Eye clinic (Dr Hang Vra) and Rehab Surgery (Dr Nous Sarom). The medical teaching visits from teams from Chinese University of Hong Kong (Dr Charles Gomersall\'s group) , Operation Rainbow (Canada) and from many individual professionals in areas such as physiotherpy .

-The continuing spectrum of multi-sectorial projects by Rose Charities Sri Lanka, chaired by founder Anthony RichardThe working/training visits by Dr Nous Sarom to Vancouver, and Dr Basant Sharma to New Zealand. The academic achievements, such as Mr Bun\'s qualification as a refractionist, and Dr Vra\'s formal admission to the Cambodian eye surgeon diploma course.

-The emergence of Rose Madagascar from the previous UCCAN, with its continuing grassroots school / community projects. The enthusiasm, energy and devotion of the Rose Madagascar group is phenomenal.

- The new community / village projects emerging in Kenya and Uganda through linkages with Volset (Uganda) and \'OneVillageAtATime\' (Kenya) . Rose Charities Canada\'s honour to be accepted to be the minder of the wonderful new \'Hillman Medical Education Fund\' which already has started funding students in Kenya.

- The local ( home-based) projects and assistances in N.America of Ni Mii Puu Nation youth instruction (film making and editing) in Idaho,(by RoseCharities USA), and the \'Under One Umbrella\' homeless street fair (Vancouver)

- The disaster assistance relief efforts for the terrible Sichuan Earthquake and Myanmar Typhoon.

-The fund raising events, carried out in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Vietnam, in the form of fashion shows, dinners, musical events and sales (eg calendars) . Josephine de Freitas (Rose Canada / USA), Jan Johnston (Rose Vietnam), Noot Seear, Annie Henley (Rose USA), Trish Gribben (Rose NZ), Dr David Sabiston (Rose NZ) , Rosemary Jones, and many others (Madagascar, Uganda, Kenya groups have all been the fantastic organizers of these events. Through them, the working funds have been raised for all the many aspects of assistance - from sight restoration to child education, and a mobile clinic has been purchased for FIRST-ROSE Cambodia. (through a generous Rotary donation from the Secheld-Sunshine Coast, B.C. Canada, branch)

- The lovely wedding of our most experienced international disaster relief coordinator, Kirsten Reems and Christopher Schuld , the arrival of Rose Charities youngest member Madeleine (Rose Charities Vietnam), but the sad passing on of Sir Edmund Hillary, whose wife June Lady Hillary, is patron of Rose Charities New Zealand.

10 years has seen a huge amount happening. Wonderfully it has happened in ways which really follow the Rose principals of ground level, person to person, \'human scale\' initiatives. Everyone - organizer, donor, and recipient all benefit. Rose Charities is coming of age, but not, I am pleased to say, by adding layers of bureaucracy and rigid administration. Rose Charities remains what it always has been, and must always be; simply \'people helping people\'.Seasons Greetings, Peace, Happiness, and Thank You .. to everyone

William Grut. Rose Charities International Secretary 2008

Rose Charities Vietnam Regional Meeting 2009 Invitation

Invitation to Rose Charities Regional Meeting Feb 2009.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE ENLARGED VERSIONS

Rose Charities Madagascar Calendars

If you are short of a Christmas present.. why not buy two in one. !! A Rose Charities Madagascar ($Canadian 15 each), not only gives a calendar but also an (almost) $15 donation to Madagascar Child Education. (the printing costs are donated). Contact Emma (Vancouver/Victoria. BC). Or the see www.RoseMadagascar.com

Momos for Rose New Zealand

Momos for Rose

The cook, the Nepali doctor, a fun fund raiser and friends……
By Trish Gribben

Photo..Alexa Johnston supervises while Dr Basant Sharma helps Trish Gribben make a momo.

There’s nothing I like better than doing two things at once. Give me a chance to make it three and whammo! I’m happy as a bee round a blossom tree. Recently I discovered the perfect recipe for doing just that: three things at once….or was it more?

It goes like this: We had a most remarkable man come to stay with us, Dr Basant Raj Sharma from Nepal, sponsored by Rose Charities NZ. He is an eye surgeon at the Lumbini Eye Institute, a 200-bed hospital built in the birthplace of Buddha, in the flat plains area of south west Nepal near the Indian border. It serves a population of 20 million Indians from over the border and about 2 million Nepali people in its own region. The Indian patients are important because what they pay for their eye surgery subsidises the poor patients of Nepal. The Institute gets no government funding at all.

Basant has also worked at a Cambodian eye clinic in Phnom Penh for Rose Charities, and I am chairperson of Rose Charities NZ, a small charity which works at a people-to-people grass roots community level, particularly in Cambodia and Nepal (as well as random acts of kindness among refugee communities in New Zealand).

I wanted my friends to meet Basant but I didn’t have the energy at the time of his visit to whip up a big dinner party. So, my great idea was this: I love eating Nepali dumplings, called “momos”. By email Basant informed me: No, he was not handy in his family kitchen. He could not make momos. He left all that to his wife.

Aha! I knew that Alexa Johnston, currently of “Ladies A Plate” fame, the cookbook that revives the glories of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ home baking, was also a Nepali officiando and a splendid cook of Nepali food. Alexa, you will remember, curated the big traveling exhibition for Auckland Museum on Sir Edmund Hillary and wrote his illustrated biography.

If I invited Alexa to give Basant a cooking lesson in our kitchen, making momos, I could ask 20 friends to come and watch or take part – and of course eat the results, as well as contribute $40 for Basant’s work. That $40 is enough to pay for a cataract operation in the eye camps Basant conducts in remote regions of Nepal.

That was it: Alexa readily agreed, I set the table simply with a length of hand-blocked Indian cloth. I set up a huge bowl of red, yellow and orange roses from Stems, the rose growers who now courier their bright flowers at unbelievably cheap prices all over Auckland [1], I set out two sets of dipping sauces in my favourite new gift: hand-made black lacquer bowls from Japan.
And I RELAXED!

Alexa is a wonder whizz of organisation: She emailed me the meat filling recipe for me to make and she made the vegetarian recipe with raw cauliflower and cabbage (see both recipes below). No sooner had she whipped on her Nepali apron and set her steamers simmering on the stove than the first guests arrived and we were all into it.

Basant is as nice a guy as he is skilled as an eye surgeon: Soon he was learning to pleat one side of the dumpling wrapper (yes, we cheated and used bought ones from a Chinese shop; oh so easy) wrapped around the little scoop of filling. Only 10 minutes in the steamer and there were the platters of moon-shaped momos ready to be eaten.

All my friends loved meeting Basant, making the momos and eating them with relish, or rather the delicious (and easy) dipping sauces. A few bottles of wine, grapes and cheese and, best of all, great generosity and there we had a really fun, simple, fund-raiser.

Thanks to the koha bowl, Basant set off back to Nepal from our delicious three-in-one evening with $US600 – enough to pay for at least 40 cataract operations in eye camps which will be conducted in remote mountain villages in Nepal, maybe particularly for women who cannot normally leave their families and walk to the Lumbini Eye Institute to get the treatment they so desperately need, not just to live seeing better, but to survive.

The next Rose Charities project in Nepal will be helping to train women volunteer health education workers to screen for eye problems in their villages. It will take more than a few momos but I know with Basant’s visit to New Zealand we have made a great start.

+For further information or to contribute to Rose Charities work in Nepal, please contact Trish Gribben, email trishgribben@xtra.co.nz

Nepali or Tibetan Momos
Recipe from Alexa Johnson

1kg minced topside *
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 tsp ginger/garlic paste (Equal quantities of ginger and garlic reduced to a paste with a little water – I use a mini-food processor for this)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp turmeric
6 tbsp oil – heated slightly
1-2 tsp salt

1. Puree the chopped onion in a blender with 1 cup cold water.
2. Pour onto the meat in a large bowl and add all the seasonings and the warmed oil.
3. Knead vigorously until smooth.

I usually fry a small portion of the filling to test that the seasoning is right. But it doesn’t need to be too spicy since the dipping sauce adds salt and heat.Possible additional seasonings are ermung (szechuan pepper) or chilli.
*For our night with Basant, who is Hindu, I used minced lamb.

[1] Stems: email: stems@xtra.co.nz phone: 09 412 7606

Rose Charities Malaysia and Penang Health Expo 08

Rose Charities Malaysia (www.MyRoseCharity.org) is one of the sponors of the Penang State Health Expo this year. It is expected that the Expo will draw some 40,000 visitors. Penang Health Expo and include stalls covering all aspects of health and medicine including free screening for many conditions. Rose Charities Malaysia recentl completed its firs health sceening camp for the Orang Asli (indigenous) peoples of Malayis in Perak State More information in the Facebook group RoseCharities (all one word)