shocker1
04-19-2007, 09:55 PM
With all the negative media about America I have decided to post good news stories from my home town. I wish you guys would also do this.
Residents honored for diplomacy efforts
Thursday, April 19, 2007
[/URL]
Eleanor Cooper
[URL="http://www.timesfreepress.com/MEDIA/audio/metro/2007/april/eleanor_cooper_041907.mp3"]-Download MP3- (http://www.timesfreepress.com/MEDIA/audio/metro/2007/april/eleanor_cooper_041907.mp3)
By Karina Gonzalez
Staff Writer
Several Chattanooga-area residents are now "citizen diplomats" for 2006 in recognition of their work locally and abroad with people from other nations.
"We felt it was important to recognize (their efforts) and to acknowledge that citizen diplomacy already is happening and it's happening in abundance," said Eleanor Cooper, Sister Cities chapter president.
Sister Cities International and its area chapters are promoting the nearly 50-year-old concept of citizen diplomacy, in which ordinary citizens promote peace through partnerships with other countries.
The recipients of the local awards are Dr. Mitchell Mutter, a local cardiologist who created a health initiative in Haiti; Sonia Sasse for her work with La Paz de Dios, a local group that helps recent Hispanic immigrants here; and Jim Steele, for his work with children in Uganda. Chuck Carpenter, a volunteer for Bridge Refugee and Resettlement Services, and Dr. Irven Resnick, a professor in UTC's Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department, also received the award.
Dr. Resnick, holder of the chair of excellence in Judaic studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was recognized for beginning a summer abroad program at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Oxford, England. More than two dozen UTC students and two professors will live and study in England this year.
"Many of our students have never been outside of Tennessee," Dr. Resnick said. "And it's important for them to have an appreciation of what life is like somewhere else."
Mr. Carpenter, a retired accountant, has helped new refugee families adjust to a new life in Tennessee since 1998, when 110 refugees from Bosnia arrived here.
"If you are doing something where you can see the results, it makes you feel good," said Mr. Carpenter, who has driven refugees to work and taught some of them to drive. "They have had a tough time, some of them have lost family members in war, and they come here without any belongings to start their lives over."
Dr. Mutter began the Children's Nutrition Program of Haiti after his first mission trip there in 1988. His group now sponsors yearly medical mission trips of up to 100 people to Haiti to implement a public health model seeking healthy children and mothers and promoting those practices among the rest of the population.
"I started going to Haiti as a cardiologist and kept taking equipment, but what they really needed was the basics -- public health," Dr. Mutter said. "We kept seeing more and more children dying of malnutrition."
Jim Steele, dean of the business and information technology division at Chattanooga State Technical Community College, was recognized for creating, with his wife, Lisa, the Uganda Children's Project. Americans in the program fund school fees for nearly 300 children in Uganda, many of whom have lost their parents to AIDS.
"We are starting to see high school graduates," Mr. Steele said. "And now we have the first university student from a ghetto that you can't believe -- dirt roads, dirt floors and shacks. This girl goes to the university every day."
Mrs. Sasse could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
E-mail Karina Gonzalez at kgonzalez@timesfreepress.com (kgonzalez@timesfreepress.com)
http://www.timesfreepress.com/absolutenm/templates/local.aspx?articleid=14045&zoneid=77
Residents honored for diplomacy efforts
Thursday, April 19, 2007
[/URL]
Eleanor Cooper
[URL="http://www.timesfreepress.com/MEDIA/audio/metro/2007/april/eleanor_cooper_041907.mp3"]-Download MP3- (http://www.timesfreepress.com/MEDIA/audio/metro/2007/april/eleanor_cooper_041907.mp3)
By Karina Gonzalez
Staff Writer
Several Chattanooga-area residents are now "citizen diplomats" for 2006 in recognition of their work locally and abroad with people from other nations.
"We felt it was important to recognize (their efforts) and to acknowledge that citizen diplomacy already is happening and it's happening in abundance," said Eleanor Cooper, Sister Cities chapter president.
Sister Cities International and its area chapters are promoting the nearly 50-year-old concept of citizen diplomacy, in which ordinary citizens promote peace through partnerships with other countries.
The recipients of the local awards are Dr. Mitchell Mutter, a local cardiologist who created a health initiative in Haiti; Sonia Sasse for her work with La Paz de Dios, a local group that helps recent Hispanic immigrants here; and Jim Steele, for his work with children in Uganda. Chuck Carpenter, a volunteer for Bridge Refugee and Resettlement Services, and Dr. Irven Resnick, a professor in UTC's Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department, also received the award.
Dr. Resnick, holder of the chair of excellence in Judaic studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was recognized for beginning a summer abroad program at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Oxford, England. More than two dozen UTC students and two professors will live and study in England this year.
"Many of our students have never been outside of Tennessee," Dr. Resnick said. "And it's important for them to have an appreciation of what life is like somewhere else."
Mr. Carpenter, a retired accountant, has helped new refugee families adjust to a new life in Tennessee since 1998, when 110 refugees from Bosnia arrived here.
"If you are doing something where you can see the results, it makes you feel good," said Mr. Carpenter, who has driven refugees to work and taught some of them to drive. "They have had a tough time, some of them have lost family members in war, and they come here without any belongings to start their lives over."
Dr. Mutter began the Children's Nutrition Program of Haiti after his first mission trip there in 1988. His group now sponsors yearly medical mission trips of up to 100 people to Haiti to implement a public health model seeking healthy children and mothers and promoting those practices among the rest of the population.
"I started going to Haiti as a cardiologist and kept taking equipment, but what they really needed was the basics -- public health," Dr. Mutter said. "We kept seeing more and more children dying of malnutrition."
Jim Steele, dean of the business and information technology division at Chattanooga State Technical Community College, was recognized for creating, with his wife, Lisa, the Uganda Children's Project. Americans in the program fund school fees for nearly 300 children in Uganda, many of whom have lost their parents to AIDS.
"We are starting to see high school graduates," Mr. Steele said. "And now we have the first university student from a ghetto that you can't believe -- dirt roads, dirt floors and shacks. This girl goes to the university every day."
Mrs. Sasse could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
E-mail Karina Gonzalez at kgonzalez@timesfreepress.com (kgonzalez@timesfreepress.com)
http://www.timesfreepress.com/absolutenm/templates/local.aspx?articleid=14045&zoneid=77