VMs tote generators, food packs, tarp shelters and bags of rice to villagers and orphans still reeling from devastating April 25 most recent May 12 earthquake. Over the past week, a team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal, has delivered aid to villages in the surrounding area – as well as to an orphanage where some 40 children entertained the volunteers with both traditional Nepalese songs as well as one sung in English.
The children at the orphanage – some of whom had been displaced by the earthquake – greeted their guests, including two friends of the volunteers, airline hostesses who had flown in from Dubai to help, with customary Nepalese scarves and received meal packs and toys in return. The music followed.
"It was a very heartfelt moment," recalled one volunteer.
Following the orphanage visit, the Volunteer Ministers drove a supply truck to four villages outside Nepal's capital of Kathmandu to deliver generators, food packs and large bags of rice in addition to tarps that would serve as temporary tent shelter for those whose homes had been destroyed by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on April 25.
The volunteers worked with community leaders in each village to select 40 families in most need of help. They are the ones who received the aid. The final stop on the day's relief mission was a visit to a tent camp in Kathmandu, where several hundred meal packs were passed out.
Whether serving in their communities or on the other side of the world, the motto of the Scientology Volunteer Minister is "Something can be done about it." The program, created in the mid 1970s by L. Ron Hubbard and sponsored by the Church of Scientology International as a religious social service, constitutes one of the world's largest and most visible international independent relief forces.
The Volunteer Minister "helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others."
A global network of Volunteer Ministers mobilizes in times of manmade and natural disasters, answering the call wherever needed. Collaborating with some 1,000 organizations and agencies, they have utilized their skill and experience in providing physical support and spiritual aid at hundreds of disaster sites.
