Nearly one month after Nepal was rocked by the first of two earthquakes, humanitarian and faith-based groups face major challenges; a boy’s prep school led by Benedictine monks emphasizes responsibility, community, and the Rule of St. Benedict; and the nonprofit organization Final Salute meets the needs of homeless women veterans and their children.
Author Archives: Fred Yi
Nepal Earthquake Relief
It’s nearly a month since Nepal was rocked by the first of two earthquakes, and humanitarian and faith-based groups like World Vision continue to be faced with major challenges, including severely damaged infrastructure, cold temperatures, and the possibility of disease, flooding, and even more earthquakes. Another important concern is deciding how to allocate limited resources to help thousands of victims. “You’re surrounded by people with their hands out, and they’re desperate, and to turn somebody down who may not be in a life-threatening situation to get somebody who is can create tension. You have to handle that diplomatically,” says Kent Hill of World Vision US.
How to Help Nepal
Find out more about how you can help these faith-based disaster relief organizations working in areas affected by the earthquakes in Nepal:
Homeless Female Veterans
“We are still not getting it as a country, and we’re making a poor effort as a society to take care of all our veterans…We can liberate other countries and clear up their natural disasters. Women veterans are now America’s natural disaster,” says Final Salute founder Jaspen Boothe.
Wayne Meisel; Kairos Prison Ministry; Shavuot
A Presbyterian minister encourages seminary students to pursue service and social justice work; volunteers for a nondenominational Christian ministry work to transform the lives of inmates in hundreds of prisons; and an ancient Jewish festival celebrates receiving the Torah with all-night study.
Wayne Meisel
Rev. Wayne Meisel works with students at the Princeton Theological Seminary and other divinity schools around the country, hoping they can create a national movement of young Christians who want to make the world a better place, especially for the poor.
Kairos Prison Ministry
For more than 30 years, trained volunteers from Kairos Prison Ministry have been transforming the lives of inmates at more than 400 prisons with one-on-one mentoring, uplifting sermons, and love.
Rabbi Shira Stutman Extended Interview
Watch more of our interview about the meaning of Shavuot with the director of community engagement at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.
Anti-Muslim Sentiments; Yale Institute of Sacred Music; Mark Burnett on the Cradle of Christianity Fund
Three North Carolina universities have experienced growing hostility and violence toward Muslims; students and instructors at Yale Institute of Sacred Music speak artistically and spiritually about the power of experiencing religious music; and reality TV producer Mark Burnett describes a project to help refugees fleeing persecution and violence in Syria.
Anti-Muslim Sentiments in North Carolina
Three North Carolina universities—Duke, Wake Forest, and UNC-Chapel Hill—have experienced sharp divisions and increased tensions over Islamic teachings and the role of Islam in the US. For Muslims in those communities, there are signs of growing anti-Muslim hostility which in some cases has moved beyond angry rhetoric to actual physical violence, such as in the recent murder of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill.
