This blog is now only inactive. It foremost serves as a memory of my Red Cross and Red Crescent mission in Sudan from 23rd of August 2008 to 15th of June 2009.

Thank you all for following my journey it has been highly appreciated.

Take care

Thomas, 14th of September 2009

Saturday 31 January 2009

Comment mistake

I am sorry for the trouble with comments. I had some moderating options active, which made the comments unpublished till now. All comments and discussions are most welcome. :) 

Malaria and dengue fever carrying Mosquito`s


How would you like this to eat on you? This is a sample from our beautiful blue tiled bathroom floor. I hate these creeps. Anine has more resistance now, because she is bit soooo many times. hehe

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Reality of Second World War still around

Have you ever heard from your grandmother and your grandfather about how it was to be a child during The War? Have you ever heard the stories from your great grandparents on the life they lived during The War? I have heard them several times and I have not believed my own ears when I understood how horrible it must have been. Just to mention a few: Secret police, bombing, torture, prison camps, racial differences, religious differences, hunger, famine and maybe most of all the unsafety. Nothing was sure. To plan ahead just one month was a joke, a luxury. You could be in pieces by evening or just several minutes from now.

Do you see where I am going with this? Do you understand what I find myself having to say right here and now? War means war. With this I mean that every civilian now enclosed in Gaza is in these writing minutes in The War. We Norwegians have a near relationship to The War, even after almost three generations. What happened during this time was so horrible we still remember the details. Can you tell me anything we remember better then the years of The War? The War is also, by the way, on a longer visit to Sudan, DR Congo, Sri Lanka, Somali, Afghanistan, Colombia and many other places. The War is truly an enemy of human kind. We agreed on this after the Second World War. We answered this by establishing supranational organizations and strengthening the ones who were already there. These are designed to work on the lowest level of human decency all humans SHALL be treated after.

And then what do I see today? I see a bunch of people highly educated or otherwise strongly opinionated people criticize and hack away on the problems of these organizations. That is their contribution. It is possibly not hard to agree that there are enough people out there to evaluate the work, so can we who itch for participation and action get together and drown this misery with our hope and ability for action? What say YOU? I would gladly walse straight into Gaza with YOU right now if we go there to save life and demand the basic level human dignity amongst the fighting. And the same goes for all the other places.

So what do you say? We are either a part of the solution or the problem. Silence is acceptance. And I do not very often see criticizers as part of a solution, I find them criticizing the solution as well. Let us get behind the forces that represent Human Rights and The rules of War. These are the basic demands for respect of human dignity. This is what we SHALL have. And we do not ask for much. Come with me and screw all the people sitting comfortably at home with all their knowledge and strong opinions. A human rights fighter in Sudan said to me: “The state sets up a large number of fake Human Rights Organizations to drown the ones who are serious. This is after they realize they cannot stop us. And I understand them, because if they did not and we would have our voice freely distributed we would very soon take over in just share numbers.”

This is the power we have been given. We as humans have an own ability to realize what we crave the strongest and we are without a doubt the majority of earth who wants these rules respected and upheld. All I need is YOU, and then you say the same. Soon we are annoyingly many.

Write to me on: johmoetho@gmail.com and read my blog at: lifeofthomasmj.blogspot.com. On mail we can speak directly on topic or you could just go for it through Red Cross (Or your local Red Cross Branch) or Amnesty: http://www.amnesty.no/web.nsf/pages/index (It is also a infinite number of organizations to work from, but in my personal opinion Red Cross forms the best network platform as a starting point)

All the best

Thomas Moe Johansen, Youth Delegate in Sudan for Norwegian Red Cross.

Sunday 11 January 2009

Saturday 10 January 2009

Back to keep fighting

My role here is to get to know more about the situation in Sudan with a focus on the people suffering. And I will start working to share my knowledge and skills to anyone who is strong enough in english to understand me. The goal is to be a central part in a work to create a democratic movement within the Red Crescent in Port Sudan City and Red Sea State. This movement will crave their elected in the board positions up and through the system in time. The focus will be this because I can not see how we can build the organization by and work for the suffering in this society if we do not give our own volunteers, on the ground, a voice.

Finaly I am back in the desert by the Red Sea. It is a looong painstacking journey here. Luckely the roads where built only 3 years ago, but then again the traffic is really dangerious. The road here is one of the oil roads out of sudan through Port Sudan City port into the Red Sea and the world. The traffic is huge overloaded trucks and blown tires lies scattered by the road in the thousands.

The heat is down know from 50 degrees celcius to approx 28. Life should be alot more comfortable. And it is somehow, except know the insect, espesially the flies, are booming and creating local epidemics here and there with diarrhea, eye infections and water pollution.

I feel tired today. It is hard to explain how one can feel so tired after four weeks of vacations back home in Norway. If feel frustrated at the sight of my enormous challenge here. To create as much humanitarian support as possible for the people here, through well trained and motivated local youth volunteers, without funds from Norwegian Red Cross. Except the youth delegate activity budget which is to low to get any activity started in a sustainable focus. 

And the secret is I see this enormous potential in Sudan, but feels the heel of the ruling elite crushing down on its people. The people here are powerless. To speak out means jail. One of our coordinators from the Red Crescent spoke out about the horrible situation of the street children in Port Sudan City in the newspaper. He was jailed in a "secret prison" or "ghost house" for three days and was let out after his family paid him out. So the time has not yet come for a free and productive people in Sudan. This is the time of patience and frustations. The wait for a military regime to collapse.