KRCB's North Bay Report has won an Excellence in Media award from the California Teachers Association, for a report last April on peer-driven non-violence training for junior high school students. Today we reprise that award-winning report.

 

Rick Phillips (left) is the creator and leading advocate for the Safe School Ambassadors program, which is a project of the Sebastopol-based non-profit, Community Matters.

This story, which originally aired last April, has been honored with a 2009 John Swett Award for Excellence in Media by the California Teachers Association.

The 6^th annual "Real Heroes" of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties are being honored this week by the local Red Cross office. In this report we meet two of them.

 

  

His Bar Mitzvah is successfully completed, but Gabe Ferreck is not stopping his work on behalf of the displaced children of Darfur. Here he is pictured with the tabletop display he created for the  JWW Backback Project. In the audio clip below, Here he describes his next project for them, the Walk for Darfur.

 

 

How does a helicopter airlift rescue unfold? Pilot Paul Bradley (right)  gives a step-by-step account of the episode for which he was honored by the Red Cross this year.

 

Two of this year's other Red Cross Real Hero honorees are being recognized for actions that were truly a family affair.

 Through their Project Africa program, Food for Thought, the Sonoma County AIDS Food Bank, is now a sponsor of Hope Initiatives' soup kitchen and other projects in Namibia, including their new vegetable garden. 

 

It's not easy to measure progress in the medical effort to rein in HIV in Namibia, but Mark and Paula Nethedra  say some encouraging trends are beginning to emerge.

 

Click here to read about all of this year's Real Heroes.

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.

 

John Muir (right) died 95 years ago, but he still speaks to modern day California. And not just through his writings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retired Methodist minister Don Baldwin (seen here in character) has embraced the role of ground-breaking environmentalist John Muir in public appearances throughout northern California and beyond.

 

         

 Even after studying biographies and Muir's own extensive writings, Don Baldwin remains amazed by the early environmentalist's ability to survive handily in the wilderness with the most minimal supplies.

 

 

 

 

 Despite his capacity for extended solo sojourns,  Baldwin reports that Muir was also a highly social person, when he came back down from the mountains.

 

 

"John Muir" will be appearing twice in Sonoma County on Sunday, April 19th, first at the 11 am service at the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Santa Rosa  and at 2 pm in Sebastopol for the annual Earth Elders event (left) at Luther Burbank's historic Gold Ridge Farm.