Article by Mark Ellwood

I have now been to all the Mercy operations across North and Eastern Thailand and am getting a good feel for the scope and high quality of the services the organisation provides to the underprivileged. This included spending a few days with the children at the HIV hospice. It was a very heart rending, touching but inspiring visit. The teams over here do fantastic work and I am struck by the unselfish caring and generosity of all involved, mainly Australians, some Dutch and of course the Thai staff, a number of whom have grown up through Mercy orphanages. Recently we drove to Si Sa Ket in eastern Thailand where Mercy has a language school. We went there to strip doors and fittings from an old building and also picked up fifteen beds/mattresses for the incoming children to the new orphanage in Phrae. They were donated by a local Thai business man.   I have been helping to teach English at night to about 50 students in the local area as well as helping with Kids Club, a program for underprivileged kids in the area. In addition, the team here is delivering development and education programs in village schools through “Lets Go” an English language and personal development program. It is very grounding to work with these children from the local farming communities and is a constant reminder to me of how blessed I am to have the opportunity to help them grow.

The poverty of many families is quite severe and whilst there are many aspects of Thai culture that are beautiful there are daily reminders of just how fortunate we are in Australia. The spread of HIV is a huge problem despite government assistance in the form of funding to help subsidise ARVs (Anti Retro Viral drugs) for about 70% of those who come forward for treatment.

Read the Full Article

Generational Change

Article by David Steward-David

It may be pretty annoying for an Englishman to give his Pommy opinion on what Australia needs to change but with any luck it will make you think. Firstly it needs to add value. Selling iron ore to other people who use it to make things that have a value per tonne ten or twenty times higher is a bad idea. Process the ore into specialised steel, bend the steel into sophisticated hardware and you make more money and need fewer ships. This is a change which needs capital, and expertise, and not that much labour. It also needs the kind of belief that has enabled China to move from manufacturing in back yard furnaces to the export of precision engineering in very quick time. If Australia doesn't change to being a maker of sophisticated goods, it will need to dig more and more ore to pay for those it imports. In the same way it needs to add value to tourism. As visitors we had to use a lot of wit to buy tickets for the opera in Sydney. Someone should have been pestering us to buy those tickets - and a meal on the waterfront - for twice the price.

And another thing. It may now just be dawning on people that if you do not change your ways of dealing with the environment then the environment will change you. I like travelling by train, and found the "Queenslander" a charming way to get from Cairns to Brisbane, a bit like being locked in a mobile bar with a view that changed, now and then. But between Sydney and Melbourne, still more Sydney and Canberra, the train should be the dominant mode of transport. To do this it needs to leave the suave new station in Melbourne and get to Sydney in 3 hours, and do this every hour.

Read the Full Article

Click here for a full list of the articles.