Lepra - Helping To Beat Leprosy.

 

Dear  Friends ,

Throughout a tumultuous, sometimes tortuous and frequently tiring year, your unwavering encouragement has allowed Lepra to successfully adapt and evolve to continue to meet the needs of the people we work with, people affected by leprosy and lymphatic filariasis (LF). Our teams are working relentlessly to ensure that vulnerable people receive their COVID-19 vaccinations, with 15,503 people to date in India having received two doses. We will increase this number further as funding allows. We continue to provide vital PCR testing and essential PPE kits and have distributed 1,900 ration kits to communities where our help is desperately needed. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, working closely with Mission Oxygen, we distributed 80 oxygen concentrators to hospitals at the peak of the pandemic this spring.  Now, all hospitals with more than 100 beds are constructing oxygen plants in anticipation of future demand! Referral centres have continued to be staffed and open to patients, although the numbers of people attending outpatient clinics and seeking treatment have obviously decreased during lockdowns.  Active case finding and other community-based surveying activities have been put on hold whilst lockdowns are in place, but we have flexed our operations to work around the temporary restrictions in different districts. Using self-help self-care groups already embedded within local communities, Lepra is a valuable strategic partner working tirelessly to support the COVID-19 vaccination effort. This work has been underpinned by a public awareness campaign about the importance of testing and vaccination. With awareness levels extraordinarily low in rural communities coupled with visibly high levels of vaccination fear, careful and considered awareness raising is a critical component to the uptake of the vaccine in rural areas. A continued programme of vaccination is our best chance to beat COVID-19. You can help those most vulnerable, those most at risk, by donating today. Just £19 allows us to provide someone with leprosy both doses of the vaccine in a safe and dignified location. Thank you for continuing to support our wonderful work.

PLEASE DONATE

In collaboration with Mission Oxygen, Lepra has now delivered 80 oxygen concentrators to local hospitals across the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Read more.

Lepra has been working with schools and youth groups for many many years to educate young people about the damaging effects of the world’s oldest and most neglected disease, leprosy. Whilst COVID-19 has had a huge impact on schools in the UK, this hasn’t stopped our engagement work with schools who have hosted remote online assemblies for our team and even virtual Zumba workouts!  We are both privileged and honoured that so many schools have continued their fundraising activities throughout lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions.  Since 2019, our schools have raised a tremendous total of £203,326.

A Bit of Fuss In Canada Over The DOZENS of Arson Attacks on Churches?

 Odd, innit?

'A bit of fuss.' Under-reported throughout the leftist media. NOW - just imagine the outcry if mosques had been the targets!

Consider the headlines if just two mosques had been attacked!

With this matter alone, you can now fully grasp leftist-liberal double standards!

Seeking Racism Where It Does Not Exist.

What’s in a name? A great deal it would seem, including perhaps a diminished chance of being shortlisted for a job, offered a university place, or a rental property if you have an ethnic or racial minority background. Even a nursery place can hang in the balance, as Scotland’s secretary for health and sport, Humza Yousaf, recently discovered: he suspects that an application for his two-year-old daughter was denied by a nursery in Dundee on discriminatory grounds. (NB: The nursery in question has denied the allegation!) Guardian.

Blogger: this unending desire to identify 'racism' where, in all likelihood, it barely exists is a feature exclusive to the modern left.

'Institutional racism' is the biggest bugbear for those normal people who truly dislike real racism but who are profoundly suspicious about those uncovering it 'as a fact' when it is no more than a rather woolly opinion or half-baked suspicion.

Research from leftist academics is wholly unconvincing. It is short on facts and high on conjecture.

The few tangible examples uncovered are indeed, relative rarities.

The Jonathan Arnott (former MEP) statistical piece on whether the UK is racist or not is overwhelmingly convincing. The stats are conclusive that it is not. Racism exists in all societies but these are isolated examples in the UK. The stats reveal the real truth.

It was for that reason that it has now been published three times in just a year on this Blog. 

My Refuge & Fortress.

 

Post-Brexit Opportunities For British Workers.

Brexit EXODUS: More than 90,000 EU workers leave UK - job vacancies soar by 342%.

MORE than 90,000 EU workers have left the UK in a mass Brexit exodus, resulting in job vacancies soaring by a staggering 342 percent.

By RACHEL RUSSELL, Express.

Avoid Leftist Charities Like The Plague!

 https://tlatoolkit.wordpress.com/moneytalks/donate/

Blogger: do your research before giving money to any charity, irrespective of whether or not it has the word 'Christian or similar' in its title.

Birdies.

 

How Lovely For The Lady Patients!

UK Health Service: Trans Sex Criminals Can Go on Female Wards, Women Who Object Can Be Isolated, Reported to Police

The health secretary has ordered a review of NHS guidance after it was revealed that three hospital trusts in England advised that biological male sex offenders who ‘self-identify’ as women could be admitted onto female-only wards after a risk assessment.

VICTORIA FRIEDMAN

Clapped Out Computers Costing The Nation A Fortune.

 Keeping old computers going costs government £2.3bn a year, says report.

By Richard Morris
Political reporter, BBC News

Published

 4 hours ago

 

comments

 Comments

MAGE SOURCEBILL VARIE

Half of all government spending on computers is dedicated to keeping old systems going, a report has found.

The government spends £4.7bn a year on IT across all departments, and £2.3bn goes on patching up systems, some of which date back 30 years or more. BBC.

Good!

 Paul Embery: Pro-Brexit fire union official unfairly sacked, tribunal finds.

By George Bowden
BBC News

IMAGE SOURCELABOUR LEAVE/YOUTUBE

A firefighter was unfairly dismissed from his union job after speaking at a pro-Brexit rally in Westminster, an employment tribunal has found.

Paul Embery was also barred from being a Fire Brigades Union (FBU) official for two years after appearing at the Leave Means Leave rally in March 2019.

Norwich Employment Tribunal ruled he was unfairly dismissed after a "witch hunt" with a pre-determined outcome.

But it found Mr Embery was not dismissed for supporting Brexit itself.

Mr Embery, a prominent left-leaning political activist and writer, was employed by the London Fire Brigade but was released to conduct union duties as a full-time regional official in the capital between 2008 and 2019.

Over a three-day hearing in February the union argued Mr Embery displayed gross misconduct in his role.

This was because, it claimed, he did not exempt FBU officials from criticism during his speech at the rally and went against the union's anti-Brexit policy.

Mr Embery called for Brexit to go ahead, without a deal if necessary, during the 29 March event, which was held on the day the UK was due to leave the European Union.

'Stay relevant'

The tribunal heard there had been regular disagreements between Mr Embery and FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack over the issue of Brexit. Mr Embery was warned of reprisals and at one point accused of siding with the far right.

The conflict appeared to come to a head as Mr Embery planned to attend the Leave Means Leave rally in Parliament Square.

Before the rally, the tribunal heard Mr Embery was told by FBU President Ian Murray that he should not attend as a speaker and that to do so could breach the union's policy against Brexit, which passed in 2016.

Mr Murray was also said to have suggested it could contravene a statement prohibiting FBU officials from campaigning with political opponents during the referendum campaign.

Mr Embery believed Mr Murray was wrong, and that the policy had lapsed once the referendum was held, the tribunal was told.

The activist was introduced at the rally as an organiser of Trade Unions Against the European Union and used a speech to describe a battle to defend the principle of democracy, after a majority voted to leave the EU in June 2016.

Mr Embery said in the speech that the "message to the leaders of my movement is, if you want to stay relevant, then it's about time you put yourself on the side of the people over the establishment and big business, and you better do that damn quickly".

Other speakers at the rally included Nigel Farage, Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice and then Labour MP Kate Hoey.

IMAGE SOURCEGETTY IMAGES

image captionNigel Farage and then Labour MP Kate Hoey also appeared at the Leave Means Leave rally

Two weeks later, the FBU launched an internal investigation which found Mr Embery had gone against the union's anti-Brexit policy and appeared alongside individuals "with whom there should be no shared platform".

The investigation found Mr Embery had acted in a way that was "prejudicial to the interests of the union" and had failed to make a specific exception for the FBU when, it said, he criticised those in the movement who continued to oppose Brexit.

The tribunal heard that, as a result, Mr Embery was removed from office for gross misconduct and was subsequently barred from standing as a union official for two years.

In a written judgement, Employment Judge Robin Postle said Mr Embery's removal from office amounted to unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996.

He said the finding of gross misconduct "was not a reasonable response that a reasonable employer would or should make on the history of the claimant's campaigning with the open knowledge of the union".

The tribunal agreed with Mr Embery that the 2016 anti-Brexit policy did not apply at the time of the rally in 2019 because the referendum effectively made it irrelevant.

It also said that the transcript of Mr Embery's speech showed there was no mention of his role within the FBU.

The judgement added: "Where is the gross misconduct? How could any fair minded member come to a reasonable belief on the facts that the claimant had committed any form of misconduct?"

'Fishing exercise'

The judge said it appeared "right from the start... there was an agenda" to remove Mr Embery from his FBU role.

Part of the union's investigation looked like a "witch hunt, a fishing exercise" with its outcome "pre-determined", he added.

The FBU, which was represented at the tribunal by Oliver Segal QC, had also argued Mr Embery was not an employee of the FBU but was on full-time release from his job as a firefighter to the union as an elected representative.

Mr Embery, who represented himself, said that for 11 years being a full-time union official, working at least 42 hours per week, was the only job he had known.

The tribunal found Mr Embery "worked full time for the union in return for substantial remuneration" of around £7,000 on top of his normal firefighter's salary, which the union reimbursed.

While the tribunal agreed Mr Embery's pro-Brexit stance was "well advanced, argued and long held" and a protected philosophical belief in national independence under the Equality Act 2010, it found it was not the reason for his dismissal.

In a statement, Mr Embery described the judgement as "emphatic".

He said: "While I am glad that, after two years, justice has finally been served, I take no pleasure in the outcome. It was an honour to serve as an FBU official for 20 years, and I remain to this day a proud member of the union."

The FBU has been approached for comment.

‘Liquidator of the Catholic Church?'

Former Papal Nuncio Brands Pope Francis ‘Liquidator of the Catholic Church?’

TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images

THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.

 4 Aug 2021.

ROME — The former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has issued a scathing indictment of Pope Francis, calling him “the head of the most extremist faction of progressivism.”

In an hour-long video message posted to YouTube earlier this week, Archbishop Viganò attacks the pope’s July 16 letter restricting the use of the Traditional Latin Mass, which Viganò calls the “highest and most sacred expression of prayer.”

Francis’s “dual role as pope and liquidator of the Catholic Church allows him on the one hand to demolish it with decrees and acts of governance, and on the other hand to use the prestige that his office entails to establish and spread the new religion over the rubble of the old one,” Viganò declares in his diatribe.

The ways in which Pope Francis “acts against God, against the Church and against the Lord’s flock,” the archbishops asserts, stand in stark contrast to his frequent appeals to “building bridges and not erecting walls.”

Viganò goes on to accuse the pope of a hypocritical double-standard, whereby liberals are given a pass for anything whereas conservatives are punished.

“After years of this pontificate, we have all understood that the reasons given by Bergoglio for declining a meeting with a Prelate, a politician or a conservative intellectual do not apply to the molester Cardinal, the heretic Bishop, the abortionist politician, or the globalist intellectual,” he states.

“Not only does Bergoglio not condemn the errors of the present time,” Viganò continues, “but he actively seeks to disseminate these errors, to promote them, to encourage their supporters, to spread them to the greatest possible extent and to host events promoting them in the Vatican, simultaneously silencing those who denounce these same errors.”

“We have come to the point that even simple people with little knowledge of doctrinal issues understand that we have a non-Catholic pope, at least in the strict sense of the term,” he asserts.

In his strongly-worded condemnation of the pope’s decision to roll back accommodations to priests who want to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, Archbishop Viganò joins a growing list of high-ranking prelates who have expressed their anger and consternation over the “harsh” measure.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a canon lawyer and the former head of the Vatican’s highest court, expressed his “profound sorrow” over the sweeping restrictions.

Those who are attached to the Traditional Latin Mass, “are deeply disheartened by the severity of the discipline” imposed by Pope Francis in his letter and “offended by the language it employs to describe them, their attitudes and their conduct,” he stated in a July 22 essay.

The pope’s message to the “devout faithful who have a deep appreciation and attachment” to the Traditional Latin Mass is that “they suffer from an aberration which can be tolerated for a time but must ultimately be eradicated,” Burke declared.

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former head of the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal office (CDF), similarly criticized Pope Francis for imposing severe restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass while allowing progressives to deny basic tenets of the faith with impunity.

Cardinal Müller wrote that the pope’s move signals the clear intent to “condemn the Extraordinary Form to extinction in the long run.”

In his reflections on the pope’s punishment of conservative peripheries, Müller noted that Francis “ignores the religious feelings of the (often young) participants in the Masses according to the Missal John XXIII” without the “slightest empathy.”

“Instead of appreciating the smell of the sheep, the shepherd here hits them hard with his crook,” Müller stated, in reference to one of the pope’s favourite expressions.

In another response to the pope’s letter, Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong, said that the document contains “many tendentious generalizations” that “hurt more than expected the hearts of many good people.”

The pope “considers the very existence of a parallel rite to be an evil,” Zen stated, and clearly wishes “for the death of the [traditional] groups.” Breitbart.

The real problem is not “which rite do people prefer?” Zen insisted, but rather “why don’t they go to Mass anymore?” Breitbart.

Mobile Phones - One Root Cause of Appallingly Poor Manners.

How many times have you been in the midst of a friendly conversation with a number of people only to suddenly find that you are talking to yourself?

You check around and pairs of eyes are, every one, glued to a phone screen. You have been edited out and quite possibly deleted. (Even I am not that boring!)

To apologise and take a quick glance when you receive a text or call is one thing but to ignore people around you as you do one of 1001 different things online is downright rudeness!

Healing Ultimately Comes From God.

How Can Atheism Possibly Create A Better World?

 https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Like-it-or-not.-Religion-is-good-for-us

Enjoy 16 Year Old Taking Test Hat Trick.

 https://www.bbc.com/sport/av/cricket/51436954

Sins As Opposed To Crimes.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes. Man's ultimate responsibility is to God alone.

Geoffrey Fisher. AofC.