Well-Being For All

Terry's field Trip to Asia

As I struggle to sit in this extremely cramped Air Canada seat in "cattle class", I swear that they have moved the seats even closer together. The woman in front of me cannot recline her seat at all. It is going to be a long 17 hours to Delhi, India!

This is going to be the first in what I hope is a daily BLOG posting on this Asian program visit for World Accord. I have long since stopped month long project visits. I fall far too far behind in my office work. Sandra has to deal with my regular tasks and family responsibilities at home for too long. Yet, here I am on a 31 day international trip to Asia.

It has been 7 years since anyone from World Accord last visited our ongoing program in Nepal. That is where I will start. We have a lot of catching up to do and some long term plans are hoped for. After 10 days there, I will fly to the southern Indian city Bangalore to meet with an old colleague and several community group leaders there about some new initiatives they are trying to start. After 2 days in Bangalore, I will proceed west to the coastal city of Chennai, India and the CORDI Women's Shelter Program for 2 more days. The Kumar family that lead the CORDI Program, need to have some planning and program support for a new shelter building construction project.

The main reason for this trip at this time is what is called "An Inception Mission" for a new 2 year program in Sri Lanka. The people in the coastal areas who survived the Tsunami of December, 2005 are still struggling to restore normalcy to their lives. The "Aid" agencies have pretty well left. They provided emergency food, medicine temporary shelter and even some permanent new shelter homes because of the huge charitable response from all around the world. What World Accord is planning to do is join forces with another long term development agency to provide some support to restoring lasting family livelihood projects.

I will try to make a daily posting but I will not always have access to the Internet. Still... I will try. Watch for the postings.

Now I return to the problem at hand ... lack of leg and knee room on Air Canada! Who ever made the corporate decision to take leg room away from every passenger in favour of one more row of seats on the plane has caused me to look for another airline next time. What is that old saying? "Short term pain for long term gain"? Well, my new saying is "Long term discomfort for Last Choice Airline status". So it isn't a catchy and musically pleasing bit of ear candy. Neither are my thoughts toward Air Canada decision makers. Too bad! The flight attendants are all friendly and doing their part to make the flight pleasant. What were the bean counters thinking?

Until tomorrow!

Terry

posted by World Accord Staff @ 8:51 AM