This stunning Kyoto beauty was captured by Robert Castagna.  I’ve mentioned Robert before.  He is a brilliant photographer. You can enjoy his work at his blog or his web site

But Robert is something else very special too.  He’s Rev. Robert Castagna of the Scientology Volunteer Ministry of Boston. 

 Here’s an article on him from the Journalism Students Online Service:

As the South End is experiencing a revival as the one of Boston’s hip and trendy neighborhoods attracting the artistic and yuppie set, Scientologist Rev. Robert Castangasaid he thought he was being innovative when he moved the operation of the Boston Scientology Ministry to an area that is stereotypically fit to express curiosity for his new-age religion.

But the Rev. Castagna said the Boston Scientology Ministry was not placed in the South End to pique the interest of those who only know something about Scientology from reading about the exploits of Tom Cruise, but instead is there "to offer some help to the less privileged residents of the area."

"Our mission here is to reduce crime and violence in the area by handling some of its underlying factors," Castanga said. The Boston Scientology Volunteer Ministry offers on-site community assistance by offering phonics and after school study skills programs. To the best of his knowledge Castanga believes that the volunteer ministry "is a new concept" although the Church of Scientology has other literacy centers and sponsors other types of programs like the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project.

The ministry, which is located where Washington Street meets Massachusetts Avenue, is funded by the Church of Scientology of Boston and despite initial doubts by other area Scientologists, Castanga said that the response has been "phenomenal."

Each day Castanga and his small volunteer staff get visits from a cross section of the community. Sometimes it is the retired lady looking for an excuse to leave the house, other times it is the teenage girl looking for some direction and occasionally it is the twenty-something trying to find out why Tom Cruise was so elated that he found it necessary to jump all over Oprah’s couch. "Sometimes people come in and they stay for a month, sometimes they stay for one year," Castanga said "even if they are here for a short period of time, I can rest assured knowing I have helped them out."

The Rev. Ksenia Castanga, is married to Robert Castanga, and is also a Scientologist who spends much of her free time away from her musical career volunteering at the ministry. The Castangas have no children, so what Ksenia Castanga said she enjoyes most about the South End ministry is working closely with children. "Just today I took a sixth grader (and one adult) to the Museum of Fine Arts and it was amazing to see she perceived the experience…she had fun as she had never been to a museum before," she said.

So where does the future lie for this project that is new in the world of Scientology? "I would like us to have enough funds that we could hire a full time staff because we need a more intensive effort to deal with the crime and violence in the community," Robert Castanga said.

Robert’s ministry is also featured in the latest Freedom Magazine

For more information about the Scientology Volunteer Ministers I recommend you visit a Church of Scientology and ask to see a recent briefing  called This is Scientology by Mr. David Miscavige (Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center) on the subject.

Following on from my last posting, here’s a friend’s perspective on volunteering in disaster areas.  I hadn’t thought of it this way:

I’m Proud of the Scientologists who went to Java

I have been following what the Scientology Disaster Relief Team has been doing in Java, and I am so proud of what they have accomplished.

Imagine, flying out to a country far away from home (most of the volunteers were from Australia but they came from as far away as Sweden and the United States) that has just been devastated, with a million and a half people homeless. Even just finding a place to stay would be an incredible challenge. You don’t think about it, but relief workers are living life in the raw. If the food and water is contaminated by the destruction of infrastructure that would provide for sanitation, guess who’s eating the same food?

Then add to that what it takes to just go into a hospital and see the thousands and thousands of injured people, lying on matresses and even just on cardboard on the concrete floors of the hospital parking structures, and how about the desparate people who don’t know how to help their injured family members?

That’s what you don’t necessarily hear about but that’s what a volunteer has to face.

And these guys have done such an amazing job.

A few weeks ago David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center, made a point of singling out the Scientolgy Volunteer ministers who went to Java and those who went to Queensland, Australia after Cyclone Larry, and commending them.

I watched Mr. Miscavige’s speech at the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles two weeks ago and I thought, now these people really deserve that acknowledgment.

 

 

I saw this article today and thought it was just terrific how amateur radio operators helped with the humanitarian effort following the recent Indonesian tsunami:

Indonesian radio amateurs assist in tsunami response (Jul 21, 2006) — Amateur Radio volunteers in Indonesia are helping authorities in West Java and Central Java provinces in recovery efforts following an earthquake and subsequent tsunami along Java’s southern coast July 17. Wyn Purwinto, AB2QV, a native of Java who’s been visiting his homeland this month, said he was in his car with the earthquake struck. "Only those in top levels of Jakarta’s towers felt things shake a bit," he said. He reports that Halim Dani, YC2TJV, has led a volunteer group in Kebumen, Central Java Province, to work with local authorities and the government to evacuate and aid victims along the beaches of South Kebumen. Residents of nearly 200 miles of south-facing coastal areas were affected by the tsunami. Hundreds of people are reported dead, many still are missing and upward of 10,000 were left homeless as a result of the earthquake and tsunami. Purwinto says he and his family are safe in the capital city of Jakarta. He reports the Jakarta Metro office of (ORARI) — the International Amateur Radio Union member-society — prepared to send Amateur Radio teams to several beaches along the south coast of West Java Province and Central Java Province. The East Java Province ORARI office was deploying volunteers to the beaches in that region. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on July 21 was scheduled to visit Pangandaran, the South Java coastal town that was hardest hit by the tsunami.
Link to this story

 

 I was shocked to read the article in the laters Freedom Magazine on about tens of thousands of children who were falsely labled "mentally retarded" and were forced into virtual slavery in psychiatric institutions in Canada in the 1940s.

 The story tells about Clarina Duguay who, at the age of 11, was sent to an orphanage along with  her sister, when her mother contracted tuberculosi.  Her father, a lumberjack, couldn’t care for her so she was sent away "to get a good education." 

From there ensued a horror story of children being forced to do hard labor, take heavy doses of thorazine, and being electric shocked, lobotomized and even killed.

Apparently Freedom has been researching this story since 1999, and it shows.  It is very well written and it is very hard to believe.

 

 

 

 

Regarding the new tsunami that hit Java on Monday  The Mumbai Mirror says:

"Within minutes of the earthquake on Monday, regional tsunami centres knew it had the potential to send a deadly wave speeding toward Indonesia’s Java island, but no way of passing the information onto those in its path until it was too late.

"If they had the means, people would have had almost an hour to take preventive measures before the tsunami struck."

"Indonesia was the worst hit by the 2004 tsunami, and Monday’s disaster shows how unprepared the sprawling island nation remains in dealing with the threat of tsunami triggered by the awesome seismic forces that lie beneath it."

 There has to be greater priority given to human life.  The means to provide faster communication exists.  There’s no reason it can’t be developed for these circumstances.

The  Worldwide Help Blog is trackings the events as they unfold. 

I know some of the Scientology Disaster  Relief Team members who have been in Jogyakarta since the earthquake in May.  I don’t know whether they are going to help the tsunami victims.  I hope so.