May 16, 2008 6:18 pm US/Mountain
Denver Professor Pays It 4ward To Myanmar Victims
Written for the Web by CBS4 producer Libby Smith
The idea behind CBS4's Pay it Forward Colorado project is to give $1,000 to a Coloradan (or group of Coloradans) who will use the money to change someone else's life. Submit your ideas
on YouReport
. Below lies CBS4's May 16 report at 6 p.m.
DENVER (CBS4) - From a small office in the business school at University of Colorado Denver, Prof. Blair Gifford keeps a close eye on a situation going on thousands of miles away. He calls connections he has in Asia and watches Internet reports for the latest coming out of Myanmar.
"The need there is almost unbelievable," Gifford said.
The cyclone that swept through Myanmar left tens of thousands of residents dead and hundreds of thousands more without food, water or shelter.
"It's a race against rain, disease, epidemic -- a race against death itself to reach these people," one relief worker said.
Gifford is a professor of international health management. He and his students have traveled Asia. He's familiar with the military government that rules Myanmar and the humanitarian groups working in nearby countries that can get across the border.
"So in this case, we actually have to do a ground level approach: that is, work with agencies that can get in without visas, have permission to work in the country and work through the grassroots approach," Gifford told CBS4.
Gifford has just the contacts to make that grassroots approach work. He is connected with an organization of Buddist monks that have permission to do community service in the country. He's now raising money to get them supplies like water purification tables, food stuffs and other necessities.
"They're doing the aid that we would normally see being done by the aid agencies."
Gifford says it's rare that monks are stopped or delayed by the military. He is confident that the aid coming from Denver in the hands of these young Buddists has the best chance of making it to the people who need it the most.
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