Email from Alison Thompson sent to her parents in Sutherland Shire (Sydney)on 24 January 2010Subject: Hell in Haiti

Hi mum and dad [...]]]> Today (January 26) Alison was awarded an AOM for “Humanitarian aid: Peraliya region of Sri Lanka following Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami. Below is an email she sent to her parents in Cronulla two days ago.

Email from Alison Thompson sent to her parents in Sutherland Shire (Sydney)on 24 January 2010Subject: Hell in Haiti

Hi mum and dad – I won’t be around when they announce my award on January 26th. I am with Sean Penn, diana jenkins, Oscar and 15 doctors embedded in the 82 airbourne ( USA) Dante would describe it as hell here. There is no food and wAter and hundreds dying daily. The aid is all bottlenecked and not reaching here . The other day i assisted with amputation ( holding them down) while they used a saw to cut a young boys leg off with no pain killers. Today I went with a strike force and army patrol in hummers into the streets and walked 5 miles through the camps set up on every street corner ..sewage and bodies stench is everywhere. As i attend to a patient 30 people crowd around me and it’s hard to breath. I nearly fainted today as the sewage smell went straight down my throat. I went white and dizzy but couldn’t sit down as sewage is running through the streets. There is much infection and it feels like the job is too big. No antibiotics anywhere.

Good news, today our new york doctors evacuated 18 patients with spinal injuries out to miami and we’re all so excited. Our mash unit is in the 82 air base overlooking a refugee camp of over 50000 people. The refugees start singing Christian songs at 4 am and line up for food until the army hands it out at 8 am ( thats if there is any food)

On the first night I was in the nearby jungle camping under the stars with my team and woke up to the beautiful music drawing me to them. I thought it was a church and we went to find it and came across the 82 airbourne camp and the refugee camp.( that’s how we ended up here) as it wasn’t safe to stay where we were even though we had our own security force. We are totally self suffient with food gas and medicines and have a private donor (Diana Jenkins who was a refugee in camps in Bosnia as a child – her family died of starvation in the camps. ) Sean Penn is here purely as a volunteer and is cutting through bureaucracy

to get aid moving and food water and medicines to the people. There is no agenda but to save lives. Helicopters fly over head and it feels like vietnam. That night 50,000 people sung me to sleep and they sing every night for the world to save them. There is always hope but she’s not here right now.

Alison xxx

My writing is a mess as it’s on iPhone and keeps changing my words and the generator is on for a few hours but I know it’s important to tell the world. Please send to any press who may call or family and friends.

Government Leaders from around the world are currently meeting in Copenhagen to face an unprecedented task: to come to a global consensus on nearly every major aspect of coping with climate change, including gender. It has long been recognised that women are disproportionately affected [...]]]> COPENHAGEN: FOCUS ON GENDER

Government Leaders from around the world are currently meeting in Copenhagen to face an unprecedented task: to come to a global consensus on nearly every major aspect of coping with climate change, including gender.

It has long been recognised that women are disproportionately affected by climate change and for the first time, gender has become an integrated issue in climate change negotiating documents. Over forty specific gender-sensitive documents were included in the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action’s text and for the first time a Women and Gender Constituency has been established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

We are at a pivotal point in history where gender equality is being championed by many and we cannot let the momentum falter. Gender language introduced into the text early this year must remain on the table to ensure that gender equality is a central consideration when dealing with climate change.  From the UNIFEM Australia Newsletter

American families reflect the diversity of this great nation. No two are exactly alike, but there is a common thread they each share.

Our families are bound together through times of joy and [...]]]> Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Americans across the country will sit down together, count our blessings, and give thanks for our families and our loved ones.

American families reflect the diversity of this great nation. No two are exactly alike, but there is a common thread they each share.

Our families are bound together through times of joy and times of grief. They shape us, support us, instill the values that guide us as individuals, and make possible all that we achieve.

So tomorrow, I’ll be giving thanks for my family — for all the wisdom, support, and love they have brought into my life.

But tomorrow is also a day to remember those who cannot sit down to break bread with those they love.

The soldier overseas holding down a lonely post and missing his kids. The sailor who left her home to serve a higher calling. The folks who must spend tomorrow apart from their families to work a second job, so they can keep food on the table or send a child to school.

We are grateful beyond words for the service and hard work of so many Americans who make our country great through their sacrifice. And this year, we know that far too many face a daily struggle that puts the comfort and security we all deserve painfully out of reach.

So when we gather tomorrow, let us also use the occasion to renew our commitment to building a more peaceful and prosperous future that every American family can enjoy.

It seems like a lifetime ago that a crowd met on a frigid February morning in Springfield, Illinois to set out on an improbable course to change our nation.

In the years since, Michelle and I have been blessed with the support and friendship of the millions of Americans who have come together to form this ongoing movement for change.

You have been there through victories and setbacks. You have given of yourselves beyond measure. You have enabled all that we have accomplished — and you have had the courage to dream yet bigger dreams for what we can still achieve.

So in this season of thanks giving, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to you, and my anticipation of the brighter future we are creating together.

With warmest wishes for a happy holiday season from my family to yours,

President Barack Obama