Apprendiamo con sorpresa e costernazione che JULIA BOEHLE non è piu’ fra noi.
Julia è stata una delle prime amiche dei Corridoi Umanitari dal Libano; il primo nostro contatto avvenne infatti già nel dicembre 2015, proprio all’inizio del Progetto.
Grazie alla sua caparbietà ed al suo impegno nel seguire persone in stato di estrema vulnerabilità, ⁹fummo allora messi a conoscenza della situazione di colei che sarebbe diventata la prima ospite dei Corridoi in Italia: Falak bambina siriana di 7 anni che viveva con la famiglia a Tripoli ed era affetta da una rara e potenzialmente mortale patologia tumorale: un neuroblastoma oculare.
Non possiamo ripercorrere il lungo percorso burocratico e medico, necessario per portare la bambina in Italia, cui Julia attivamente partecipo’ anche se non in presenza – era infatti già dovuta rientrare nel suo Paese per problemi di salute-.
Basti sapere che alla fine Falak e la sua famiglia poterono giungere in Italia dove la bambina fu sottoposta alle lunghe terapie necessarie ottenendo alla fine la guarigione.
Ci piace ricordare oggi Julia con le parole da lei scritte allora in una mail: “ognuno di noi è responsabile di quello che fa, ma ancor di più di quello che non fa”.
MEDITERRANEAN HOPE
We learn with surprise and consternation that JULIA BOEHLE is no longer with us.
Julia was one of the first friends of the Humanitarian Corridors from Lebanon; in fact, our first contact took place back in December 2015, right at the beginning of the Project.
Thanks to her stubbornness and her commitment to caring for people in a state of extreme vulnerability, ⁹we were then made aware of the situation of the one who would become the first guest of the Corridors in Italy: Falak, a 7-year-old Syrian girl who lived with her family in Tripoli and suffered from a rare and potentially fatal tumour: an ocular neuroblastoma.
We cannot go through the long bureaucratic and medical process necessary to bring the child to Italy, in which Julia actively participated even if not in attendance – she had in fact already had to return to her country due to health problems -.
Suffice it to say that in the end Falak and her family were able to travel to Italy where the child underwent the necessary lengthy therapies and was eventually cured.
We like to remember Julia today with the words she wrote then in an email: “each of us is responsible for what we do, but even more so for what we do not do”.
MEDITERRANEAN HOPE
Farmworkers pick strawberries at Lewis Taylor Farms, which is co-owned by William L. Brim and Edward Walker who have large scale cotton, peanut, vegetable and greenhouse operations in Fort Valley, GA, on May 7, 2019.
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Mr. Brim talks about the immigration and disaster relief challenges following Hurricane Michael. USDA helped this farm with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) for structural damage cleanup. He also mentions the importance of having Secretary Sonny Perdue, a person with agricultural background, come visit and listen to 75 producers six months ago, in southern Georgia.
The farm’s operation includes bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, squash, strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and a variety of specialty peppers on 6,500 acres; and cotton and peanuts on 1,000 acres. Near the greenhouses is a circular crop of long-leaf pines seedlings under a pivot irrigation system equipped with micro sprinklers. Long-leaf pines are an indigenous tree in the Southeast. Growers are working to increase the number of this slower growing hearty hardwood tree in this region.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung. Original public domain image from Flickr