May 10

We welcome Kathleen Durocher who is working full-time as an intern from June to December. Kathleen is studying International Affairs and Human Services at Northeastern University. In 2009 she worked with orphans and poor children in Kenya, Africa. Her service at an orphanage in Kibera and in the Rift Valley Internally Displaced Persons camp gave her first-hand experience for the importance of our work. Kathleen's focus will be on expanding Teach Peace's Special Ambassadors program to help disabled children live with dignity. Kathleen will also help manage students volunteering from high schools across the country.

Our efficient Mother's Day card service saves you from going to the store to buy a card and at the same time is a great way to remind people that Mother's Day was started as a day to teach peace. We can send a card via email even on May 9th.

For most people, Mother’s Day is simply a day to say thank you to mothers with a pampering gift. The commercial dimension of Mother’s Day has made it the most popular day of the year for the restaurant industry and a top day for jewelry, flower, and greeting card purchases. Had the original purpose of Mother’s Day as a peace education day been preserved, instead of becoming a day to buy something for mothers, many mothers would have had received a priceless gift. This is why we work to restore the true purpose of Mother's Day to teach peace and save sons and daughters from being killed in wars.

To make a $25 donation and have us send a card with a message you can personalize, click here or on the picture on the left.

We often receive thank you notes and emails. You deserve the thank you messages because without your support our acts of kindness would not be funded.

The below thank you is the most recent and was received on May 6, 2010. Each month members of the Teach Peace Special Ambassador team in Liberia deliver food aid to help disabled people live without the additional suffering from hunger.

We, the Rehab family, want to express our deepest gratitude to each of you who has made available the great food supply. May God who has given you the grace continue to bless each of you who continue to be a blessing to us.

Teach Peace's Mat Travis and Amy Spezl are shown in the picture on the right with a baby goat from the livestock project started by high school student Renee Chiang. Mat has taken the lead on auditing our livestock program and providing ideas to enable it to transition from a pilot to an ongoing program. Click here for more information or to learn how to donate animals to help parents struggling to feed their children

We are delivering acts of kindness in Liberia with a Liberia team of 15 people. Summer leadership development projects include:

Each of the above projects is funded by our members when they donate to support one of our acts of kindness. To help us deliver an act of kindness and to see where the funding comes for the above projects, click here.

We are getting ready to close out enrollment for this peace trip to Liberia and Ethiopia so click here if you are interested in participating. Participants will see first-hand how the cycle of poverty in Africa, a direct result of the Berlin Conference 125 years ago that carved up the continent for exploitation, can be ended enabling people to live in dignity.

We recently received two grants totaling $20,000 to help us expand our acts of kindness. If you know of a grant maker or work for a company that makes charitable contributions, please contact us. Many donors are interested in our work that combines helping young people develop peaceful leadership skills while delivering acts of kindness. The only constraint currently limiting our expansion is funding. The area of greatest need is general program support for staff to coordinate the range of services we offer. Unfortunately, grants usually only fund direct service delivery and not operations.

Everyday we search for important developments to help you understand a range of peace and justice issues. In this effort we put the spotlight on important articles that are often bypassed by the corporate media. To find out if you have missed important news, click here.

A Teach Peace team is visiting the Holocaust Museum this summer. You may recall our last visit was a powerful student learning experience. We work to advance peace for Palestinians and Israelis. Our experience is visiting the Holocaust Museum is extremely educational. Board member Mike Pach is traveling to Israel and the West Bank as part of a Teach Peace fact-finding mission. Board member Timna Medovoy is also working to participate in a fact-

finding experience and deliver signatures from her Remember the Children student project. Increasingly, even people like General Petraeus, are coming to the realization that Israel's actions such as the Gaza siege are putting US forces in harms way.

If you only have time to watch one presentation on why peace is needed to save Israel, listen to Professor John J. Mearsheimer's April 29, 2010 presentation at http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/sp/i/223/pid/223 .

First time Guantánamo guard and prisoner talk before an American audience

Teach Peace applauds the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights and Amy Goodman for their work to facilitate conversations between Omar Deghayes, an innocent man tortured in Guantánamo for over 5 years, and Guantánamo guard Terry Holdbrooks. This historic event on April 30th, attended by 423 people, took place at 123 Sciences Lecture Hall on the UC Davis campus.

Mr. Deghayes' torture was difficult to listen to and remain in a peaceful state of mind. The torture he reported was confirmed by US Army guard Terry Holdbrooks and included, in addition to sexual abuse, having Mr. Deghayes’ eyes poked by U.S. interrogators making him blind in his right eye. Both men reported that each prisoner has a personally developed torture plan. The Pentagon keeps the torture "fresh" and the "only a few bad apples" false defense by replacing the guards every 7 months.

The bigger takeaway for all of us is many Americans have been fooled to believe Guantánamo is closed. One could argue Obama's biggest disaster is not his decision to expand Bush era wars killing over 700 citizens in Pakistan alone, his initiative to expand offshore drilling that within a week resulted in the ongoing British Petroleum Gulf of Mexico disaster, his 1983 work with the CIA front company Business International Corporation, or his support for the greatest taxpayer theft in US history. From the perspective of the innocent people literally sold to the CIA and tortured at Guantánamo, including Mr. Deghayes, Obama's failure to honor his promise to both close Guantánamo and stop prisoner torture is a life-wrecking disaster.

The fact is prisoners are still being tortured at Guantánamo, some for as long as 9 years. As innocent people such as Mr. Deghayes are released we obtain more insights on why a new 9/11 investigation is needed. Fortunately, millions of Americans are now realizing they have been tricked and we especially thank the thousands of architects and engineers who have helped people understand the truth (see Richard Gage's recent television interview at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=249_1271625202 ).

The following story brought a smile to us and the message is an important one.

A woman was flying from Seattle to San Francisco. Unexpectedly, the plane was diverted to Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft the plane would re-board in 50 minutes.

Everybody got off the plane except one woman who was blind. The pilot approached her, and said, 'We are in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?' The blind lady said, 'No thanks, but maybe Buddy would like to stretch his legs.'

All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a seeing-eye dog! The pilot was even wearing sunglasses. People scattered. They not only tried to change planes, but they were trying to change airlines!

The message of this story is remember things are not always as they appear.

Teach Peace is a transparent organization. We do nothing in secret. Everyone is welcome to call in for meetings including board meetings. We publish our meeting notes online and to access our most recent meeting notes, click here.

PS. We have a new website so be sure to check it out and share it with your friends.

Newsletter: May 2010