Featuring news about Scientologists from around the world.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Meet a Scientologist - Barbara Schneider's Happy Ending
Scientologist Barbara Schneider is a model, TV personality, paramedic, Scientology counselor and mother of four who didn’t anticipate how well things would turn out 18 years ago when things went wrong. Born and working as a paramedic in Lugano, Switzerland, in the early 1990s a failed relationship left her desperate to get away.
“I went to a travel agent and told him I needed a change,” she says. “I wanted to be someplace far away and on the sea.”
The next thing she knew, she was flying to Majorca with her 3-year-old son. Once there, she was paying a friend a visit at a hotel when a man directed her ‘right this way for the audition.’ She tried to tell him that was not why she was there, but he insisted, and she ended up being cast as co-host of a TV show.
Despite the change in scenery and an exciting new job, a year and a half later, Schneider was still suffering.
“My twin sister Elena could tell I was unhappy,” says Schneider. “She had been a Scientologist since we were 16 and she was convinced Scientology would help me.”
Agreeing to give it a try, she received some Scientology spiritual counseling and was amazed—the upset vanished.
Schneider relocated to Clearwater, Florida—the spiritual headquarters of the Scientology religion. It was there that she met and married husband Roberto.
A Scientology auditor (religious counselor), she credits the skills she has gained from her training for her success as a mother and in so many other aspects of her life.
“I don’t know how I would raise a family in the world today without what I’ve learned in Scientology,” she says.
She is tremendously proud of how self-reliant and responsible her children are.
“My kids have a very good life but they work hard for it,” she says. “It’s not automatically—‘Oh, you’re 16 so here’s a car.’ They earn what they get by studying hard and doing well in school. Even with my little one who’s only four, she loves contributing to the family. She helps me around the house. We make it a game and she’s proud of what she does.”
Schneider’s commitment to helping others extends beyond the family. A Scientology Volunteer Minister, she traveled to Port-au-Prince in January 2012 with her three sisters and several close friends to help in the wake of the Haiti earthquake.
“We are all mothers and the children there really touched our hearts,” she says. “We took on helping more than 100 children who were living on the streets, orphaned or separated from their parents. We built tents, turned an old school bus into a cafeteria, cooked and served their meals, arranged medical care, and tutored them. Where possible, we helped them find their families. My sisters stayed on for months and made sure the children would be cared for when they left.”
Involved with helping others since she was a child, Schneider finds being a Scientology auditor (counselor) enormously gratifying.
“What I like most is to touch someone’s life with a bit of magic—that’s what I really love to do,” she says, “to inspire them, bring out the best in them, so they can see solutions on their own and go ahead and resolve their problems and be happy.”
To meet more than 200 Scientologists and hear their stories, watch the “Meet a Scientologist” videos at www.Scientology.org.
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The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.
A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own official YouTube Video Channel, with videos now viewed more than 7 million times.
SOLOMON ISLANDS SCHOOLS TEACHING TEACHERS HOW TO TEACH
Scientology Volunteer Ministers bring seminars to Solomon Islands schools
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers have begun delivery of workshops to educators throughout the island of Guadalcanal at the request of the Chief Education Officer of the Guadalcanal Education Authority, following the success of training provided to executives and staff of that agency in Honiara, Capital of the Solomon Islands.
In a March 6 letter to the school principals of Guadalcanal province, the chief education officer urged educators to take full advantage of a series of workshops to help them improve their ability and service to their pupils.
Feedback from teachers attending workshops show the value of this initiative.
Teachers in the Nguvia Primary School appreciated learning a new approach to helping their pupils increase comprehension of what they are studying. Ghaobata Community High School instructors found the training helped isolate weak points and strengthen teaching skills.
“You have highlighted the weak spots and failures of teachers which have contributed to the failure of some students,” says an English teacher from the Nguvia Secondary College.
“As a teacher I've learned how to understand why the kids do not know most of the things I taught in the classroom. It also helps me to prepare my lessons in a better way,” says a teacher from the Visale Primary School.
The Volunteer Ministers began delivery in Honiara and then covered schools in the northern half of Guadalcanal Island. They will be moving on to the southern part of the island in April.
Returning to the Solomon Islands where they provided disaster relief five years ago in the wake of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake and tsunami that struck the island of Giza, the South Pacific Scientology Volunteer Ministers team is one of 10 Volunteer Minister Goodwill Tours dedicated to helping people in remote areas with practical help for everyday life.
The Scientology Volunteer Minister program was initiated by Scientology FounderL. Ron Hubbard in 1976. There are now hundreds of thousands of people across 185 nations trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers Acknowledged for their Help After Mumbai Terror Attack
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers were featured in a recent edition of India’s UpperCrust Magazine for their work in the wake of last year’s Mumbai terror attacks. The article acknowledges the importance of their contribution, not only in helping victims of the attack but in training emergency response personnel and health care specialists to cope effectively with any future terrorism or disasters.
The article tells how the Scientology team worked with the staff at Sir JJ Hospital to help the victims of the terrorism. Once the majority of those admitted had been discharged from the hospital, the Scientologists, consisting of members of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers India Goodwill Tour and local volunteers whom they have trained, worked with colleges and Mumbai University to train students and faculty in Scientology techniques that increase effectiveness in the face of disaster. Among those they trained were the trainers of the Maharashtra Civil Defense team.
The article featured an interview with Marion Whitta, the leader of the Scientology Volunteers. Asked why Scientology is so popular in India, Marion stated, “It’s simply a case of workability. People in India are interested in personality improvement and are seeking solutions for the work-a-day world, whether how to do better at work or how to be a great mother or how to be able to graduate as a student…who knows and can effectively apply what he or she has learned.” She went on to say that “people want solutions to their problems or they just want to improve their condition in life and when they find technology that is simple, something they can apply for themselves, then they want exactly that.”
Pointing out that this is not the first time Scientology has been acknowledged for its work in India, the article states: “As to the founder of this movement, Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, here is a man already known to many Indians as he was awarded, in March 2006 in Delhi, with the prestigious Shristi award (the first time this national award has been bestowed on a man not of Indian heritage),” and that he was again honored last August by the Indian Lions Club in Delhi with the posthumous presentation of their Humanitarian Award.
The article points out that the India Scientology tour has been traveling throughout the country since its arrival in 2005. “Training seminars have been delivered to literally thousands of professionals as well as students” and to “hundreds of police officers in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Mysore,” including BSF (the Border Security Force) and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) officers.
But the article also notes that the Scientology Volunteer Ministers provide help and training to anyone, as the article states, including “the ‘man in the street’ who just wants to be able to get along better in some aspect of his life.”
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers web site offers 19 extension courses which can be done over the net as a free service to anyone who wants to improve some aspect of his or her life.
For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers, visit their web site at www.volunteerministers.org.
Earthquake survivor Ralph Gedeon is hugged by Maria Roseme, at the St. Anne Virginie Grimes Rehabilitation Center, as he prepares to leave for outpatient treatment in New York. At far left, is Dr. David Gibson, the surgeon who treated Gedeon, and Gedeon’s father Raphael Gedeon, second from left. (Peter Hvizdak/Register)
NEW HAVEN — Five months ago, Ralph Gedeon was lying trapped beneath a pile of rubble when the engineering college he attended in Port-au-Prince toppled in the 7.0 earthquake that hit the island nation.
His leg was crushed and several organs were failing when his father, after digging for a day and a half, rescued Gedeon from the tumbled remnants.
Miraculously, on Sunday, the earthquake survivor stood on two legs — one of them a prosthetic — and packed his bags as he prepared to leave the Sister Ann Virginie Grimes Rehabilitation Center on Chapel Street.>>
David Miscavige once described the attitude of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers as giving indiscriminate help. The work of this volunteer was real heroism.
The video below was taken at a special presentation for Scientology Volunteer Ministers returned from Haiti in Feburary 2010. Many of them have gone back for a second or third round of service in Haiti. There is a lot of news on the Haiti VMs on the VM blog.
This whole program was developed in 1976 by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. In the wake of 9/11, David Miscavige greatly expanded the scope of the program, which now includes Goodwill Tours throughout the world.
The Volunteer Minister (VM) program was launched more than thirty years ago, in response to an appeal by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Noting a tremendous downturn in the level of ethics and morality in society, and a consequent increase in drugs and crime, Mr. Hubbard wrote, "If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can become a VOLUNTEER MINISTER and help civilize it, bring it conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling into it trust, decency, honesty and tolerance."
Accordingly, in addition to traveling to wherever disaster strikes, Volunteer Ministers work with public servants in their own communities, helping to improve conditions right at home. Their information and training centers are bright yellow tents open to the public at weekend events and fairs, where anyone may enroll on a course or seminar that is delivered right in the tent.
Extensive information displays present the full array of tools for resolving any situation—from rescuing failing students or getting addicts off drugs, to alleviating emotional trauma of physical injuries, salvaging troubled relationships or solving human conflicts.
Volunteer Ministers also deliver seminars to police, firemen and disaster relief organizations with local community programs as well as through Goodwill Tours traveling from city to city with their tents.
So whether manning a tent at home or in a village 10,000 miles away, Scientology Volunteer Ministers all live by the same motto: "Something Can Be Done About It."
Because of their courage, compassion and training, they have become indispensable in times of greatest human need-traveling halfway around the world to help people who have lost everything in an earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, flood or the like.
This includes a corps hundreds strong at Ground Zero within hours of the 9/11 tragedy. It also includes more than 500 volunteers from 11 nations in Southeast Asia in the wake of the tsunami and over 900 Volunteer Ministers attending to victims in Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Likewise, during the Haiti earthquake disaster, the Church of Scientology and its parishioners flew in planeloads of much-needed medical and food supplies. In addition, they have brought in hundreds of medical professionals and Volunteer Ministers to help Haitians cope with their losses and rebuild their lives.
Volunteer Ministers have also trained and partnered with over 500 different groups, organizations and agencies around the world, including the Red Cross, FEMA, National Guard, Army Cadets, Salvation Army, Boy Scouts, Rotary Clubs, civil defense and disaster management agencies, YMCAs, police and fire departments of dozens of cities and towns and hundreds more national and regional groups and organizations.
Scientology-sponsored Ship Brings More Than 100 Tons of Supplies to Haiti for the Relief Effort
HAITI—A Scientology-sponsored “Lifeboat to Haiti” arrived in Port-au-Prince April 8, carrying more than 100 tons of urgently needed supplies including medicine, medical equipment, an ambulance, food, cooking stoves and tents.
In the first weeks following the earthquake, the Church of Scientology sponsored five chartered flights, bringing more than 440 doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians and 280 Scientology Volunteer Ministers to the island, helping more than 200,000 people through their combined efforts in the first two and a half months.
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers are in Haiti for the long haul, not only providing disaster relief but also working with local government and civic groups and community leaders who are determined to improve the quality of life for all Haitians.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers work in the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps providing food, water, and other supplies and training people in Scientology Assists—techniques developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that help the individual overcome the emotional and spiritual aspects of trauma and stress.
The Volunteers Ministers are also establishing a base in Petionville to provide free training to individuals and groups including teachers, students, disaster relief groups and government agencies.This training addresses the underlying social issues and skills needed to bring about lasting improvement. Seminars and courses include subjects such as communication skills, the basics of organizing and study technology.So far, they have provided seminars and classes to over 8,000 local residents.
For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Haiti Response Team, visit their web site at blog.volunteerministers.org.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers Training the People of Haiti
With the immediate medical emergency over, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers have expanded their delivery of other services. They are concentrating on training the people of Haiti in simple tools to improve conditions in life.
Over the past few weeks Scientology Volunteer Ministers in Haiti have trained more than 8,000 Haitians.
In founding the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program, L. Ron Hubbard published an article called “Religious Influence in Society,” in which he wrote:
“Of course, if one is going to find fault with something, it implies that he wishes to do something about it and would if he could. If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can become a Volunteer Minister and help civilize it, bring it conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling into it trust, decency, honesty and tolerance.”
Scientology Volunteer Ministers are providing training in communication skills to Haitian police, Scientology Assists--sometimes known as “spiritual first-aid”--to people in the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and study technology in schools. While they continue their disaster relief, including bringing food and supplies to camps and orphanages, and with anything else that is needed, by training others in these skills they are giving them tools that will last and help the Haitian people rebuild their country and their lives.
Find out how to start your free training as Volunteer Minister:
Scientology Commended by Haitian Ambassador to the United States
In a letter presented to the President of the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC, on March 2, Haitian Ambassador Raymond A. Joseph expressed “deep appreciation” for the work of the Volunteer Ministers of the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response.
In a letter presented to the President of the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC, on March 2, Haitian Ambassador Raymond A. Joseph expressed “deep appreciation” for the work of the Volunteer Ministers of the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response.
“You all have remained with us daily here at the Embassy, working with our staff and with the members and volunteers of the Greater Washington DC Haiti Relief Committee, giving us support in our time of great grief and confusion, using the Assists developed by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology religion,” the Ambassador wrote in his letter. “All that you have done and your plans for helping in the longer term will most certainly help us and our people to regain and improve our standing in the world.”
For two months, since the 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, the Church has continued to provide assistance to the Haitian community while more than 200 Scientologists from the United States, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Japan and other countries have served as Volunteer Ministers in Port-au-Prince. Many Volunteer Ministers who served from one to three weeks in Haiti are returning for longer periods--several months or more--to help in longer-range programs vital to the full recovery of the country.
The first responders provided support in hospitals and clinics to medical teams and delivered food and water to IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps and orphanages. Now, with medical personnel having dealt with the most serious injuries, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers are concentrating on construction, setting up sanitation facilities and water purification systems, training disaster response specialists, and providing the local population with Scientology Assists, procedures developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that help the individual overcome stress and trauma.
Having sponsored four charter flights that brought medical personnel, Volunteer Ministers and medical supplies to Port-au-Prince, the Church is now sending a ship with more than 160 tons of supplies to Haiti. The Hornbeam, a 896-ton former US Coast Guard ship and icebreaker, with fuel and other costs provided by the Church of Scientology and its members, will carry four pallets of wood stoves and 60 tons of wood pellets donated by the Children and Families Global Development Fund, Inc., a charity founded by Ms. Lola Poisson Joseph, wife of Haitian Ambassador Joseph. It will also be carrying an ambulance for the Port-au-Prince General Hospital and 110 more tons medical and other supplies to go to non-profit aid groups in Haiti. The Hornbeam is scheduled to sail to Haiti in the next days.
Georgia State Senator Honors Los Angeles-based Scientology Disaster Response Team for Haiti Service
Georgia State Senator Donzella James presented a resolution to the international director of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps in Los Angeles Saturday, acknowledging the group’s Haiti Disaster Response.
In Los Angeles Saturday, Georgia State Senator Donzella James presented Georgia State Resolution SR998 to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps for “selfless service to the nation of Haiti,” at a meeting of Haiti volunteers at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood.
Senator James acknowledged the Volunteer Ministers recently returned from disaster relief service in Haiti. “On January 12th the earth opened up and swallowed Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti. I have been to Haiti and I saw the poverty. I thought nothing could be worse. But you helped when it was even worse than I could ever imagine. You did what you could, unselfishly.”
Some 250 Volunteer Ministers have rotated through Haiti, with 100 currently on the ground, providing logistics support for medical teams in Port-au-Prince General Hospital and the University of Miami Hospital tent.
Scientology Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman, also a licensed practical nurse and emergency medical technician, was the backbone of the Haiti relief action. A veteran of 10 disasters, including Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricanes Charley, Katrina and Rita, his work organizing the care of the patients at Port-au-Prince General Hospital saved countless lives. Speaking to the assembled Volunteer Ministers, he reminded the Haiti veterans that the job has only started.
Registered Nurse Kimberly Williams, co-owner of Hill Street Community Wellness Center in Los Angeles, wanted to go to Haiti, so when she heard the Church of Scientology was transporting medical personnel, she signed on and left January 21 on a Church-sponsored charter. In Haiti she worked in a clinic near the Presidential Palace, assisting in operations including amputations and other life-saving procedures, and provided urgently needed medical care to more than 400 patients each day.
The international director of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps, Ms. Maria Reyher, announced the next phase of Scientology Haiti Disaster Response—a new base in Port-au-Prince that will enable the volunteers to work throughout the rainy season and will include classrooms for seminars, workshops and courses to train first responders in police, military and humanitarian organizations in disaster preparedness.
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps is an embracive program of the Church of Scientology that provides community service, disaster relief and emergency response. Created more than 30 years ago by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, the program has expanded to 203,000 Volunteer Ministers worldwide who have served at 161 worst-case disaster sites.
For more information on Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps disaster response, visit blog.volunteerminsters.org.
The Haiti earthquake of January 12 killed over 200,000 and left an estimated 300,000 injured and needing treatment. Ayal, a licensed practical nurse, EMT and Scientology Volunteer Minister, arrived in Haiti on January 22. A veteran of disaster response, he served at Ground Zero after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but other disasters paled beside what he saw when he first got to the Port-au-Prince General Hospital.
Doctors were battling to save lives in the Operating Room, performing operations under primitive conditions without anesthetic, sterilization or the most basic supplies or equipment.
After a long day's work, Ayal and Darell, a dentist and trained Volunteer Minister, took on the overnight care of four wards with 40 patients in critical condition. When they entered these wards, patients were lying in beds without sheets, bodies soiled with body waste and blood.
Learning that three patients had died there in the last hour alone, and realizing many of the patients wouldn't make it through the night without care, they worked through the night until the International Medical Corps arrived at 8:00 the next morning. Two patients nearly died that night. One patient pulled his IV out and almost bled to death, the other nearly drowned from a build-up of fluid in the lungs.
Night in the wards had other challenges. When the lights failed they were forced to care for patients care by flashlight until army medics gave them chem sticks--plastic tubes that provide light for five hours when broken open.
There were so many patients and so few professional resources, patients families were providing most of the patient care. But food was scarce and not only was there none for the families, there was none for the patients . So the Volunteer Ministers found food and water for the patients and their families.
One night, one of his patients was dying of a major cardiac and respiratory situation. They had no medications or oxygen. Fortunately, that night a Russian doctor and an Emergency Ward doctor who had been a US Army field surgeon were on duty. The two of them improvised, mixing the medications they did have to create the needed effect, and together they kept the patient alive long enough to get him to the US for the surgery he needed to save his life.
One young man on the ward was told if they didn't amputate his leg, he would die. He refused to have the operation-didn't want to live in that condition. Lindeman talked to him, helping him look at his options. In the end he decided he could face it, and he went through with the operation.
In one surgery where he was assisting they missing vital equipment and Ayal used a Leatherman as a clamp to stop a young woman's abdominal bleeding which kept her alive long enough to get her moved to the USS Comfort where she could get the help she needed.
For the past twelve days Ayal and his team have been caring for 50 and 300 patients a night, often pulling 20 hour shifts. The wards are now clean and well lit, and staffed day and night.
Haitian Nationals Learn Volunteer Ministers Skills--Travel to Haiti to Help
I heard that the Church of Scientology of Miami contacted a Haitian Church in Miami after Tuesday's earthquake. They trained a corps of the parishioners of that church in basic Scientology Volunteer Ministers technology so they can help their countrymen, and then on Monday a dozen or so of these new VMs were flown into Haiti to join up with the team that landed on Sunday. So far the 12 Haitian VMs are still in Santa Domingo, making their way to Haiti. This is a photo of them boarding the airplane in Miami this morning, courtesy of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers blog.
