Asbestos in Asia: Breaking Through the Silence in Lao PDR

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA project officer, Matt Hilton, talks about the threat of asbestos in developing countries and APHEDA’s expansion of its asbestos disease prevention project into Lao PDR.

Australians know that asbestos kills. We are historically one of the highest per capita miners, manufacturers and consumers of asbestos in the world. Almost all public buildings and around one third of all private houses were built with asbestos. And the toll was heavy – by 2020, Australia will have had 13,000 cases of mesothelioma and over 40,000 cases of asbestos related cancer.

Broken bags of asbestos cement lie in open storage at a factory in Laos.

Globally, it is estimated that 107,000 workers each year succumb to asbestos or asbestos related cancers. And the centre of this new epidemic is Asia. The World Health Organisation estimates that 60% of the 125 million people exposed to asbestos in their homes or workplace are in Asia. And that figure is set to increase – already half of asbestos consumption occurs in Asia with 90% of the global increase in consumption between 2000 and 2004 occurring in Asia.

“Waiting, watching & warm caffeinated beverages” – Welcome to Gaza

Australian physio-therapist, Katrina Byrne, undertook a volunteer placement in the Gaza strip through Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA in April 2011. Katrina was placed at the El Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital. Soon after starting her placement, Katrina sent us this blog reflecting on her time in Gaza.

Waiting, watching and warm caffeinated beverages – that’s Palestine in a nutshell. Whether waiting at check-points, for buses to fill up and begin their journey, or for a procession of singing Chinese Christians to pass, patience is a much needed skill here in Palestine. Luckily, whenever you stand still for more than a minute, the hospitality of Palestinians demands a cup of tea or coffee.

Poetry from Afghanistan

When in the dark evenings
The wind is blowing
And you are restless about your children,
You go to find out
Whether they are sleeping peacefully,
At that moment of night I want you to think about my children,
That they are under bombs
And they don’t have any shelter
And there are no mothers to look after them.

This poem was sent out to the world from one of the weekly poetry readings in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar i Sharif, Kunduz, Jalalabad or any other city in Afghanistan. You can listen to 20 minutes of (translated) Afghan poetry via www.sawa-australia.org/videos.html.

APHEDA, in partnership with the Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan (SAWA-Australia) and the Afghanistan women’s organisation, Organization for Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities (OPAWC), supports a Vocational Training Centre for women in Kabul, where women and girls learn to read and write and are offered an opportunity to gain an income.

Visiting Gaza

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA project managers, Lisa Arnold and Ken Davis, and agriculture adviser, Dr Sharan KC, are currently in the Gaza Strip, where the MA’AN Development Center is implementing a food security project with funding from AusAID.

We joined a trickle of people, UN officers, diplomats and NGO workers, who the Israeli officials allow across the vast Eretz checkpoint on the northern border of the Gaza Strip. Egypt has yet again closed the Rafah border in the south, so 1.6 million Palestinians are locked into an area a fraction the size of the ACT. Sometimes we slip into talking about Gaza as if it were a separate country, but economically and environmentally, the Strip can never be an independent country. It is often described as the world’s largest open air prison, and in reality it is a small cluster of cities under long-term siege, a vast camp of refugees unable to return to their homes now inside Israel. The dispossessed people, a million of whom are children, depend on energy, water, currency and goods from Israel, though tunnels under the Rafah border allow import of food and goods that Israel forbids. The majority of people depend on UN food distribution, and send their children to UN schools.

AEU members from Canberra share their expertise in Cambodia

Gail Vest, Hairdressing teacher from Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), ran a technical Hairdressing Trainer Training for five APHEDA partners during her recent stay in Cambodia. The Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey, Thmar Kul, Mong Russey and O’Reang Ov rural women’s vocational education centres each sent a trainee hairdressing trainer to upgrade their skills.

Photos from award ceremony in Vietnam

On the 21st of November we received a Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) award acknowledging of our significant contribution to poverty reduction and development in Vietnam. Here are some photos from the award ceremony.

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A day in Gaza

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA Middle East Project Officer, Lisa Arnold, blogs from the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territories.

I’ve discovered that soap and salt water do not necessarily mix.  For one thing, it’s rather difficult to work up a lather, but I’m not sure if that’s due to the salt or the likely other contaminants in the salty water coming from my hotel shower in Gaza City.  I am reminded of Amira Hass’s aptly-titled book, “Drinking the Sea at Gaza”.

Gaza’s groundwater has been deemed unfit for human consumption by the World Health Organisation.

The demands of a 1.5 million population, combined with the severe damage and destruction of wastewater treatment plants by the Israeli “Operation Cast Lead” military invasion of early 2009, means that the groundwater aquifer is being slowly infiltrated by sea water and human effluent.