…I’d like to suggest an organization that could use your charitable donations.
As regular readers may have noticed, the posts I did for Shambhala Sun Space and Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly Online this year moved away from news aggregating and towards more interesting conversation pieces. Among the many remarkable people I had the privilege of speaking with in the last twelve months were Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Tyler Dewar, Frank Ostaseski, James Ishmael Ford; and my old buddy Alisa Roadcup, one of the organizers behind the recent Parliament for the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia.
The interviews that stand out most in my mind and heart, though, were the ones I did with those contributing to the struggle for human rights and democracy in Burma. In particular, I was humbled to interview Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of the Oslo-based news organization Democratic Voice of Burma (which was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year); film director Anders Østergaard, who was Oscar-nominated this year for his extraordinary documentary Burma VJ; and especially the monk U Pyinya Zawta, who spent ten years of his life behind bars for his activism in Burma, and was one of the leaders of 2007’s “Saffron Revolution”—the nonviolent demonstrations by thousands of Buddhist clergy and others which called for social, economic, and political justice in the military-ruled country.
This is a cause I’ve supported in my own very small ways for many years now, as both a concerned member of a few human rights organizations and someone who has benefitted enormously from the country’s rich Buddhist culture. Speaking with these gentlemen and educating myself in order to get a better picture of the current struggles inside and outside of Burma only served to reinvigorate me in this regard.
This being the case, I’ve done all of my holiday gift-giving this year by making donations in the names of everyone on my “nice” list to the U.S. Campaign for Burma (uscampaignforburma.org)—an NGO that works to strengthen the position of Burma’s democratically elected leaders (including Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi), and address both the junta’s crimes against humanity and other crises in the country. If you’re looking for an organization to donate to this holiday season, or you’re just generally on the lookout for good causes to support, I hope you will consider making a donation to:
The U.S. Campaign for Burma
1444 N Street NW, Suite A2
Washington, DC 20005
uscampaignforburma.org
For all those celebrating a holiday at this time of year, Happy Holidays!
