WOMEN’S GROUP
Barbara Rosasco
KASUMISOU FOUNDATION
“Help never comes for people who are in urgent need,” says Barbara Rosasco of those her charity supports. Providing financial and educational support for some of Southeast Asia’s most deprived people, the Kasumisou Foundation is currently focusing its efforts on sick and homeless women and children in Cambodia. “This is a serious personal responsibility,” Rosasco says of the demands of running the foundation. “Failure is simply not an option when results can mean life or death or homelessness for vulnerable families and children.” As a result, the American says, balancing her work and home lives presents challenges. “Friends and family are a lifeline, but the reality is that our rather consuming passion may not be theirs,” explains Rosasco, who often finds her workweek stretching beyond 80 hours. However, she adds, the sacrifice is entirely worthwhile in the “sure knowledge that our programs have rescued thousands of distressed children and their families and have allowed them a second chance at life.”
http://kasumisou.org
Vickie Paradise Green
RUN FOR THE CURE
When faced with a life-threatening disease, many people would be excused for being a little self-indulgent. Not Vickie Paradise Green. In remission from breast cancer after being diagnosed in 2002, she was shocked at the lack of support and awareness about the disease in Japan. The Philadelphia native decided to set up Run for the Cure in 2004. “The one test that can save a woman’s life—mammography— is not covered by Japanese health insurance,” she says. Run for the Cure now donates mammography machines to rural hospitals and sponsors free mammograms. In addition, it publishes a free Japanese-language magazine and has started an English-speaking support group for breast cancer survivors in Tokyo. Although Paradise Green says she encountered numerous obstacles to starting the nonprofit organization, she is made aware of the palpable impact of her efforts every day. “I [recently] met a young Japanese woman who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at a clinic where the foundation had donated a mammography machine and provided free screenings,” she says. “She survived.”
www.runforthecure.org
Kim Forsythe-Ferris
TYLER FOUNDATION
There can surely be no grief greater than that of losing a child. Yet when Kim Forsythe-Ferris’ “inspirational son,” Tyler, passed away in 2005 after a two-year battle with infant leukemia, she and her husband, Mark, decided to set up a charity to provide support for child patients and their families—something they found was sadly lacking during their ordeal. More than three years later, the American says the Tyler Foundation has come a long way with “the support of our friends and the expat community.” The organization’s latest project is the Shine On! House, which partly opened in April this year. It provides long-term, lowcost accommodation for families of hospitalized children, as well as counseling and support workshops. If ever Forsythe-Ferris needs validation for her work, it is tangible whenever she visits hospitals. “We receive hugs and tears of gratitude from moms and handmade thank-yous from patients all the time,” she says. “But it’s the smiles of children in the hospital that are the constant affirmation that we are absolutely doing the right thing and making a difference.”
www.tylershineon.org
Geeta Mehta
ASIA INITIATIVES
Geeta Mehta, who founded Asia Initiatives together with her husband, Krishen, prefers the term empowerment to charity when talking about her organization’s work to support projects aimed at sustainable development, alleviating poverty and environmental protection. “[We] were deeply troubled by the poverty [in India] and in many other…Southeast Asian countries,” she says. “We believed that the inequity and lack of opportunity for poor people is unforgivable given the growing wealth of these countries, and wanted to do something about it.” First, however, there were local challenges to surmount. “Japanese companies do not seem to have a tradition of supporting charities, perhaps due to lack of tax deductions available,” Mehta says. Depending largely on individual donations, Asia Initiatives is able to fund rural entrepreneurs through microcredit loans. “Every time I go to visit the women’s self-help groups, who have doubled or tripled their incomes using microcredit, I am strengthened in my belief to keep going,” Mehta says. “[They] are the most vulnerable members of poor societies in Asia, so when their education and healthcare needs are met, the cycle of poverty can surely be broken.”
www.asiainitiatives.org An interactive community 23