Her quiet efforts to provide homes and medical care for orphaned children in rural South Africa have brought international recognition to a 75-year old nurse, as well as a visit to northern California.

 

Perhaps because she was 14 by the time she was able to start school, Sister Abigail knew that she wanted to be a nurse, a career path she says was based on two sorts of inspiration.

 Today, Sister Abigail is lauded and loved for her dual community based projects, Clouds of Hope, a home for orphaned children, and  The Khuphuka Project, which provides heath care services for adults, especially those who are HIV-positive.

It's a long, long way from the mountains of South Africa to Sonoma County and San Francisco, a journey that Sister Abigail recalls began with a whim, and took flight with a big surprise.

 

After living in Sonoma County for nearly 60 years, civil rights advocate Willie Garrett has seen--and instigated--some substantial changes here. But he'd still like to see more.

One of Willie Garrett's first moves toward expanding integration in Santa Rosa, focused on the city's swim center, sometime around 1956.

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In the late 1960s, Mr. Garrett (seen more recently here)  was one of the co-founders of the Ethnic Studies Department at Sonoma State University, where he told the mostly white students not to expect an easy A, because community service would be an important part of his classes.

Typically, Mr. Garrett has not joined in recent public handwringing over the continuing absence of ethnic diversity among the Sonoma State student body. But he is planning to do something about it.

Willie Garrett has been named the 2009 recipient of the Jack Green Civil Rights Award from the Sonoma County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, an honor that will be bestowed at the group's annual Awards Dinner tonight (April 3). Last minute reservations can be made by calling (707) 765-5005.

 

 

Mary Lightfine's first foreign nursing experience was in a decaying hospital in an African war zone. It inspired her to found her own international immersion agency, Volunteers without Boundaries.

Lightfine will talk about her personal history and her organization in the Cooperage at Sonoma State University, on Thursday, March 12 at 7:30 pm. 

Mary has also written this memoir about her experiences during that tumultuous first year in Somalia, which she says is intended in part as a cautionary tale for others heading abroad to do volunteer work.

 

They call it "the pedagogy of place"--  using the natural environment as a learning tool for kids. And it may be the best available antidote to passive, media-dominated childhoods that can result in obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.

 

Rocky Rohwedder (left),  a professor of Enviromental Studies and Planning at SSU, believes that kids in today's industrialized societies  are not spending enough time outdoors  and are missing out on what nature has to teach them.

 

 

The term "nature deficit disorder " was coined and popularized by writer by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods. You can hear him interviewed about it on NPR's Morning Edition here.

Louv is also the co-founder and chairman of the Children & Nature Network, which was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature.

 

 

 

Just about everyone agrees that preserving California's productive agricultural lands is a good idea, even if there have been some highly charged disagreements over the best means to accomplish that objective. Sidestepping these policy debates, California FarmLink is working directly with farming and ranching families to help them decide what they want to do with their lands from one generation to the next, as reported on today's North Bay Report:

Shrinking real estate values in California are prompting some ag families to re-evaluate their plans for their land. But Steve Schwartz, Executive Director of California FarmLink, says the shifting economic climate also holds some unexpected opportunities for new farmers to get established.

California Farmlink is hosting a series of regional conferences in Sonoma, Humboldt and San Luis Obispo counties titled Sowing the Seeds of Farm Succession:  Planning the Transition to the Next Generation of Family Farmers. the next session in Sonoma county will be held on Saturday, Feb. 21 at SRJC's Shone Farm, 6225 Eastside Road, Forestville. Click here for registration information.