ASR Opens First Academy in Haiti

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”                                                                                                     –  Margaret Mead Today we proudly inaugurated the first Aid Still Required Academy in Deuxieme Plaine, Haiti, for 119 children, 30 of whom are orphans.  The original inspiration came from the local community itself, a few hundred farm families earning…

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Andrea at UN Conference on Women

ASR founder Andrea is in NYC this week for the UN Womens Conference on Women connecting with female leaders from around the world as they seek to create a more just society for women.  One of the women Andrea met this week was Hania Moheeb, an accomplished Egyptian journalist who is speaking out to call attention to the plight of women in her home country.  Hania has related her personal experience of the sexual assaults on women in Tahrir Square.  According to an ABC News report last month, Tahrir Square has become a hotbed for violence against women with dozens…

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Jody Williams Event at UCLA

On November 16, Hunter, Andrea and their new assistant Dan Parziale attended a lecture by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations, presented by the International Human Rights Program at UCLA Law School. Her lecture, entitled “Rape as a Crime Against Humanity & War Crime: Accountability & the International Criminal Court,” was a powerful expose on the prominence of rape in war zones and areas of low government oversight. Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to ban landmines. Since then, she has taken on countless projects, most recently chairing the…

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Amazon #1 Bestseller Get Your Woman On with chapter by Aid Still Required co-founder

  A year and a half ago, ASR co-founder Andrea was approached by transformational business coach Kimber Lim to participate in a project with 38 other visonary women.  The result is Get Your Woman On: Embracing Beauty, Grace, and The Power of Women, an anthology of 39 women sharing their heartfelt personal stories of transformation.  Andrea’s chapter” Be Bold on Behalf of Others ” chronicles the actual and metaphorical journey which led to the founding of Aid Still Required. Other featured authors include peace activist and Jungian psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen, eWomen Network founder Sandra Yancey, actress Barbara Niven, and…

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ASR meets up with Mark Mustian

On May 1st at the LA Festival of Books at USC, Andrea and Hunter were happy to meet up with celebrated author and childhood friend Mark Mustian. Mark’s most recent award-winning novel Gendarme is a powerful exploration of prejudice, love, transformation, loss, and memory set against the background of the Armenian genocide and deportations of 1915. Gendarme moves back and forth through time between an elderly gentleman facing mortality and his younger self, a Turkish officer “doing his job” . The novel captures the officer’s amazement as he falls in love with an Armenian deportee, challenging all his previously held…

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An Evening with Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Mu Sochua

Hunter and Andrea had the opportunity to meet Mu Suchoa, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Cambodian parliamentarian and human rights activist at an  Artists for Human Rights event co-hosted by Anne Archer and Donna Isham last night. What an incredible evening and what an amazing woman. If you are not familiar with Mu Sochua’s work, she is considered the most prominent woman in Cambodia’s leading political opposition, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP). SRP is leading the fight for access to equal economic opportunities for the people of Cambodia and for the implementation of effective social programs and political participation. For more…

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Aid Still Required Celebrates Early Thanks-Giving with First Tuesday LA

Last night, at First Tuesday LA’s inaugural Thanks-Giving event, ASR chairman and co-founder Andrea Herz-Payne was invited to share the podium with five other charities to speak about their mission and projects.  The event took place at Venice’s G2 Gallery, a beautiful and eco-friendly art gallery run by Susan and Dan Gottlieb, which donates 100% of proceeds to environmental causes and provides a meeting space for like-minded groups. Fellow speakers included Zebiba Shekhia of Healing Bridges, building the first school for girls in a Sudanese refugee camp; Terry Mason of The Peace Alliance, working to create a US Cabinet Department…

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The Third Wave – Volunteering in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami

September 22nd marked the LA premiere and Academy Awards qualifying screening of the documentary, The Third Wave.  Made by ASR friend, Alison Thompson and her producing partner Oscar Gubernati, The Third Wave chronicles their experiences volunteering in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. It is a spectacular cinema-verite film, depicting the human reality of what it was like in the days, weeks, and months following the disaster.  In 2008, after seeing an early cut of the film, Sean Penn asked for a special screening at Cannes when he was head of jury there.  The film is scheduled to open nationally in…

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