1600 Reasons to Respond

April 29, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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Compassion Day 2010If you’ve had something to eat today … if you had somewhere to sleep last night … if you know where your next meal is coming from … please take just a few minutes to consider being part of Compassion Day 2010.

Throughout today a number of radio stations across Australia are encouraging listeners to sacrifice $44 a month to change the world one child at a time. As someone who has seen the work of Compassion first hand, I can assure you that this is vital work which is quite literally saving lives.

Compassion does amazing work and when you sponsor a child through Compassion you are impacting many people in the life of that child. You can help turn a whole community around by the simple act of sponsoring a child.

If you have children of your own this is a great start in teaching them the responsibility we have to reach out to those in less fortunate circumstances. It’s such a joy to hear our son James pray for Collens, our sponsored child in Haiti, every night.

On Thursday, April 29 radio listeners across the nation will have 1600 reasons to respond when stations join forces with Compassion to see 1600 children sponsored in just 16 hours. This year’s focus is on the children of East Africa, specifically Kenya, where 20 per cent of the population lives below the international poverty line, 1.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 2.5 million children are orphans and where a third of women between 15 and 49 have suffered from genital mutilation.

This is the eleventh year for Compassion Day and we’re hoping that Australia wide 1600 children will be saved from poverty. Will you be part of Compassion Day by sponsoring a child?



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How can we forget Haiti?

February 22, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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It’s a story we know all too well. Just before 5:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday the 12th of January this year a major earthquake hit just outside Port-au-Prince, the capital of the impoverished nation of Haiti. Within the first fortnight after that event, at least 52 major aftershocks had been recorded.

An estimated three million people have affected by the quake. The Haitian Government reports that between 217,000 and 230,000 people have been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless.

While we heard story after story about the tragedy in the weeks immediately following the earthquake, the plight of the Haitian people is already beginning to fade from our TV screens and newspapers.

Compassion International has been working in Haiti for over forty years so they were one of the first aid agencies to begin helping the people of the affected area. They’re committed to the people of Haiti and they’ll continue to help them in the years and even decades that it will take to return life to what we might consider normal.

To find out what’s been happening and continues to happen in Haiti I spoke to DJ Konz of Compassion Australia during my morning programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM this morning.

You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

There is still so very much to do so please donate generously to Compassion to help those in Haiti. Click here to give through Compassion International. If you’re in Australia, click here to donate through Compassion Australia.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/MOR220210_1028.mp3]

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Object Permanence

February 2, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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We’re supposed to develop Object Permanence within the first year of our lives but I sometimes wonder if we’ve all still got a long way to go.

Child development expert and psychologist Jean Piaget coined the phrase Object Permanence to describe the stage in a child’s life when they start to realise that an object still exists even when they can’t see, hear, or touch it. Most agree that children reach that point at about eight or nine months of age.

I wonder if we need to develop some Object Permanence regarding Haiti.

The massive tragedy that hit Haiti has already started to slip from our headlines. Stories about the relief efforts are now moving further and further inside our newspapers rather than being splashed across the front page.

I know that such a tragedy can’t continue to occupy the same place in our hearts, minds or media, but we can’t afford to forget. Just because we can’t see, hear, or touch the hurt each day, we must maintain our Object Permanence.

In weeks, months and even years from now, the people of Haiti will still be dealing with losing around 200 000 mothers, fathers and children. The millions of people affected will still be trying to put their lives together.

I’ve seen first hand the kind of conditions the Haitian people faced every day before the earthquake hit. It’s a long road back to even those conditions but we can’t let things go back to how they were. We need to ensure that things are better than they have been. That’ll take years and probably even decades but these people require our ongoing assistance.

Compassion has been working in Haiti for over 40 years and they’ll be there long after the initial clean up and relief effort is over. I’ve seen the work they do and know how much of a difference it makes. That’s why I’ll still be making whatever contributions I can to help Haiti and its people over the coming years.

Please donate generously to Compassion to help those in Haiti. Click here to give through Compassion International. If you’re in Australia, click here to donate through Compassion Australia.



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Compassion’s Tim Glenn live from Haiti

January 22, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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With the relentless barrage of information about the recent earthquakes in Haiti we can feel overwhelmed and it’s hard to know just what we can do to make a dent in what seems to be an impossible situation.

Thankfully organisations such as Compassion are turning our dollars into practical help on the ground in Haiti.

Tim Glenn is the Director of Child Advocacy for Compassion in the US. He is currently in Haiti helping with the urgent relief effort. This morning during my radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM I spoke to Tim about the current situation.

You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button of the audio player at the bottom of this post.

Please donate generously to Compassion to help those in Haiti. Click here to give through Compassion International. If you’re in Australia, click here to donate through Compassion Australia.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/MOR220110_0949.mp3]

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A remarkable survival story

January 21, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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This remarkable interview with Dan Wooley of Compassion about his experience in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake has special significance for me. The hotel in which Dan was trapped, Hotel Montana, is the hotel where I stayed when I was in Haiti in April 2008.

We had to leave Haiti very quickly when food riots began to escalate. Dan was trapped under the rubble of the hotel longer than the total time I spent in Haiti.

It’s hard for me to even recognise what’s left of the hotel.

Please donate generously to Compassion to help those in Haiti. Click here to give through Compassion International. If you’re in Australia, click here to donate through Compassion Australia.



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