The SearchVoat Forum

Golden brains, golden lips, and golden balls were the three focal points of last night’s Scopus Award Gala at the Campus Biotech in Geneva. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem honored British architect Norman Foster with the award, which was designed and presented by Marina Abramović...

Before any guests could activate their brain cells with 24 carats, however, Abramović had to get acquainted with Geneva’s scientific scene. The day before the gala, Kreëmart founder Raphael Castoriano drove Abramović to the Campus Biotech to scope out the event space. As he yelled out the window to a stranger about a parking spot, a scraggly-haired man pulled up on the right, offering a spot in the garage. It was Professor Idan Segev, head of the department of Neurobiology at the Hebrew University, and he recognized Abramović through the window...

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros is a Cuban-born[1][2] philanthropist and art collector with an abiding passion, and discerning eye for contemporary art and design. Born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela, her vision has made a significant impact on the Miami arts community and arts organizations around the globe. She is the founder and Honorary President of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

..Ella Fontanals-Cisneros is also known as entrepreneur and a pioneer in new technologies and other industries. She has served as a board member in both the corporate level and non-profit. She was the Chief Executive Officer of TGF Technologies, board member of Pepsi-Cola Venezuela, President of Su Red; a portal of the mobile operator Telcel; President of EFC Holdings, trustee at the Institute of International Education in New York and the United Artist in California.

She is currently a board member the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Miami, the New Museum and El Museo del Barrio, both in New York...

Since the 70s she has been involved with the arts; at a very young age she opened an art gallery named “San Sousi” in Caracas, Venezuela, encouraging her to follow her passion of collecting art. Latin American art was her first encounter with collecting, later developing her interest for international contemporary art.

In 2002, she and her family founded The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO);[5] a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting contemporary Latin American artists. ..

During the past five years, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros has been actively working and collaborating with art programs in Cuba with institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, the Lam Institute, and also the promotion of Cuban artists.

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros has loaned selections from her substantial and eclectic collection of Latin American art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Museum of Fine Art of Houston (MFAH), Texas; The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, California; El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid; Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; among others....

Today, The Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection has more than 2,500 artworks from artists such as: Marina Abramović, Lygia Clark, Los Carpinteros, Ai WeiWei, Carmen Herrera, León Ferrari, Gego, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Barbara Kruger, Julio Le Parc, Sol Lewitt, Ana Mendieta, Helio Oiticica, Fischli & Weiss, Bill Viola, among others...

In 1988, she co-founded the Antonio Cisneros Bermudez Foundation with her former husband Oswaldo Cisneros. The mission of the foundation was to collaborate with public hospitals by providing them with training and know-how for the institution's personnel, helping them improve patient treatment before and after being admitted to the hospital. A couple of years later, she founded the Together Foundation in Venezuela with the mission of improving the lives of children by providing them with proper education, health and nutrition.

She is also a humanitarian and environmentalist. As an early advocate for the use of information technologies, she founded the Together Foundation in the United States in 1989 with the objective of uniting the world around environmental problems.

Working at the United Nations (U.N.), she organized the first information committee at the economic and social council, foreseeing that information and connectivity was key for the world to solve its problems. The Together Foundation worked in an important program organizing a database of best practices, in partnership with “Habitat”. This program has become useful for most of the U.N. departments and it remains a fundamental tool for the organization...

In 1992, the Together Foundation designed a program with the environmental department of the University of Vermont, with the idea of developing the first electronic communications database for the environment. This system later produced a new venue of public access that connected people in the state of Vermont and beyond. The venue became a company called Together Networks, which at the time became the largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in New England. In the year 1999, the company went public as One Main...

She divides her time between Cuba, Miami, Madrid and Gstaad. She has three daughters with her former husband Oswaldo Cisneros––Marisa, Mariela and Claudia––with whom she actively shares her passion for the arts.

Grupo Cisneros is a privately held, family owned business headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida, historically based in Venezuela, with a focus on Latin American and Spanish-speaking people worldwide. It is a conglomerate of media entertainment, digital media, property investment, tourism development and consumer product companies which reaches 550 million Spanish and Portuguese-speaking consumers in the Americas and Europe. It also provides media content to more than 100 countries. Its current CEO is Adriana Cisneros.

Grupo Cisneros was founded in 1929 in Venezuela by Diego Cisneros and his elder brother Antonio José Cisneros as a small material transport business called D. Cisneros & Cia..The brothers then obtained a license to operate a bus route and transformed the dump truck business into a bus business. In time, the Cisneros brothers created a bus line made up of 400 buses, which they sold in 1939...

In 1939, D. Cisneros & Cia. became an exclusive franchiser for Norge, Hamilton Watch Company, and REO Truck brands in Venezuela. In 1940, rapid growth led to the acquisition of the exclusive license manufacture and bottling concession of Pepsi-Cola products in Venezuela, which established the company's fortune. In 1944, the company founded Liquid Carbonic, which produced carbon dioxide as well as other beverage products...

The companies belonging to Cisneros include.. Miss Venezuela: The Miss Venezuela beauty pageant is now a multimedia event. During the Interactive Gala, the public can vote for their preferred candidate through social media networks. In 2013, the Miss Venezuela contest partnered with CIC Media and Sony Entertainment to create a reality show titled “Todo por la Corona” [All For the Crown] which was broadcast throughout Latin America by Univision. Similarly, in 2013 it partnered with P&G to create pan-regional product and works with 30 brands.

Eglantina Zingg.. is an actress, model, television personality and peacemaker Venezuela ... She was in 2012, co-presenter of the Pepsi Music Venezuela Awards , and co-presenter of the Miss Venezuela 2012 pageant ...

Mar 23, 2018

The Miss Venezuela beauty pageant, one of the most successful in the world, announced yesterday that it has closed down the casting for its contests to investigate a "break with the values and ethics of the event," after former beauty queens and employees were accussed of having ties to prostitution....

Nuestra Belleza Latina's Osmel Sousa has been in the middle of it all...He moved permanently to Miami after that and has kept quiet about the whole thing...

His story of sequins and triumphs worked very well as long as the resources existed. But as of 2013, when Adriana Cisneros, daughter of Gustavo Cisneros, took over as CEO of the business group that owns the Miss Venezuela Organization (OMV), the beauty czar lost the monopoly he held. Since then, Sousa shares the jury's choice with the contest's parent company, Venevisión. Before it was a prerogative that corresponded exclusively to him...

The Cisneros group is a business conglomerate that handles telecommunications, media, sports teams and real estate. According to the Forbes list, Gustavo Cisneros, who is at the helm, has a fortune valued at $ 1.38 billion. One of the sources explained that this decision is due to business interests, because since Jonathan Blum is at the helm of Cisneros Media (2013), he has tried to include figures from the entertainment world who have contracts with Venevisión in the jury, as a way to promote the talent of the company...

For more than a decade, Sousa has been exhibiting with people close to the government. In previous years, politics used to be excluded from the contest. At least from the doors to the outside. Now that has changed. The czar celebrated the triumph of US President Donald Trump: "he and his wife have always been very special to me," he commented when asked about this. ....

Miss El Salvador, Vanessa Velásquez...is a model, brand ambassador, and influencer.

She founded the charity Angel Hands by Vane to "provide aid to children in hospitals, provide food to low-income communities, and support people who've suffered after natural disasters," according to the Miss Universe website...

https://www.instagram.com/p/COwJDqflJHa/ Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ16HhSlhzC/ Dior Cafe

Ari Emanuel ..

https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2019 ... agent.html
He was in charge of finding the youngest possible girls for "modeling," and also had them shipped all over the world, including to the pedophile whenever they found someone especially appealing. This agent, who has a very recognizable last name, specialized in Central and South American girls.

Lauren Sanchez was married to Patrick Whitesell.. Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell ..

Both men were up late, especially Whitesell, who joined longtime clients Ben Affleck and Matt Damon at Guy Oseary’s after-after-afterparty until well past 4 a.m. But their energy and enthusiasm still are apparent, as are the roles they immediately fall into — Emanuel the unfiltered streetfighter agent who, with four colleagues, famously packed up his ICM office in the middle of the night 21 years ago and founded Endeavor; Whitesell his complementary opposite, a gentlemanly Iowan who stepped into the co-CEO role when Endeavor engineered a takeover of the venerable William Morris Agency in 2009....

On March 23, Japanese telecommunications giant Softbank revealed a $250 million investment in WME-IMG that valued the 5,000-employee company at $5.5 billion. ..

Emanuel and Whitesell have used the Silver Lake money to acquire or team with a whopping 12 businesses, branching into areas including Professional Bull Riders, an e-sports league with Turner and buying former client Donald Trump’s Miss Universe Organization. Emanuel, who has taken the lead on the fashion and international businesses, and Whitesell, whose focus is sports, also are executing an aggressive strategy of integrating the formerly siloed divisions.

Lawrence Bloom is on the Advisory Board of Lifestyles Magazine.. Founder - Gabriel Erem ... Lots of pics of Erem with Heidi Albertsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Albertsen

Isadore Sharp, founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain is on the board of Erem's Lifestyles Magazine http://lifestylesmagazine.com/web/governing-committee/

Dominican Republic Ambassador Francis Torres attends the 2015 South-South Awards at The Waldorf=Astoria on September 26, 2015 in New York City. (L-R) Dominican Republic Ambassador Patricia Gonzalez attends..... with Miss Universe...

UN Briber Francis Lorenzo Used Africa ICF Fund Now Wants Supervision Ended Early http://www.innercitypress.com/uncorrupt ... 10521.html

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 5 – Francis Lorenzo used his position as UN Ambassador for the Dominican Republic to take and pay bribes for a Macau "UN South South Development Conference Center proposed by now incarcerated Ng Lap Seng...

Inner City Press then reported that convicted and sentenced UN briber Francis Lorenzo has been spotted right back in UN world, at an event for the new Holy See / Papal envoy to the UN no less. ..Others in the UN said he was back working with the Dominican Mission, which oversaw and was complicit in lack of protection of civilians in Cameroon and elsewhere during two years on the UN Security Council.

Earlier this month, architect Gianfranco Fini, hosted a fabulous dinner party for family and friends at his gorgeous Casa de Campo villa in Vistamar.

With more than 50 guests, including many jovial Italians of the Casa de Campo community, Gianfranco Fini hosted the dinner in honor of his good friends Sergio and Corrine Gobbi.

Other honored guests at the gathering including Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros, Ana Maria and Alfonso Paniagua, Eduardo and Jeanette Martinez-Lima, and many more. Acting as hostess alongside her father was Nicola Fini, joined by her husband Diego Fernandez and their 2 beautiful daughters

Before his life became consumed by the madness of Pizzagate, restaurateur James Alefantis, the man behind Comet Ping Pong and Buck’s Fishing and Camping, took a trip to Cuba last year with the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art. He invited Nathan to join him, even though they would have different aims. Alefantis had art business to attend to. Nathan was there to visit “like all the Jews in Havana,” Alefantis jokes. “We met all these young Jewish Cubans.”

But they also met Paolo Titolo, husband of Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban president Raúl Castro and director of the country’s National Center for Sex Education. Titolo is an Italian photographer known for shooting members of Cuba’s transgender communities. Titolo took Nathan and Alefantis to a shantytown where they stopped at a shack with a corrugated metal roof, home to a local drag queen who makes dresses for young girls to wear to their quinceañera celebrations. Titolo told the Americans they would have to be discreet at the home.

Artists are the plutocrats in Cuba and, with trade embargos with the US likely to be lifted soon, storied collectors and celebrities are already scouting around for their works...

Like the peso – the one for locals worth 20 cents, the one for tourists five times that – everything in Cuba manifests a through-the-looking-glass ambivalence. At a polite distance from the local mercados that fly the bright but pitted colours of seasonal home-grown fruits and vegetables, high-end markets flash a year-round spread of frozen and wrapped goods, plentiful, pricey and shipped in from the world’s farther corners. The compliant are libre, while the dissenters, rendered as invisible as the nether-half of an iceberg, are in jail. Homosexuality, denied by law, is tolerated by custom, since Raúl Castro’s daughter identifies as lesbian and another high-ranking member of the island’s ruling family is loudly rumoured to be, covertly, gay. The sea is an inviting tile-blue, but there is not a sailboat, fishing boat, or inflatable raft on the horizon. Cuba, in this context, is a prison.

Privilege across the board seems linked to money, star-power, or connections that bring in the much needed tourist dollar. Swimming pools, for example, are illegal in Cuba, but I was told of at least five, all fronded from view. The only one acknowledged, at the villa-hugging embassy row in the suburb of Cubanacán, belongs to Cuban-born, Venezuela-raised, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. Relocated to Miami, she became a heroine of sorts after ploughing a large portion of an $80m divorce payoff from her billionaire husband Oswaldo Cisneros, not into the pet grooming / nails / flowers / entertaining / travel and house expenses he had thought it for, but into the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation . Known as CIFO, this splendid free-to-the-public exhibition space, in a splendid warehouse conversion by local architect Rene Gonzalez, presents museum-worthy shows curated around her Latin-inflected, 2,650 piece art collection that have been focusing in - as with this year’s Gustavo Perez Monzon retrospective - on long-emerged Cuban artists...

$500,000+
The Galaxy Gives, a Donor Advised Fund of Renaissance Charitable
Michael and Sukey Novogratz
John J. Studzinski CBE

Studzinski is heavily involved in hands-on philanthropy, patronage, and charity work. His numerous charitable activities revolve mainly around the arts, the homeless, and human rights. His own charity, the Genesis Foundation, supports and nurtures people in the creative fields in the early stages of their careers. He co-founded and chairs the Arise Foundation, which combats human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide.

Also on the board of the Arise Foundation is Sr. Patricia Murray IBVM

Among her many other responsibilities, she works with the international coordinator to oversee the development of Talitha Kum – the International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking.

In 2011 she was named as one of Inside the Vatican Magazine’s Top Ten People

So, here you'll see many images of Studinski with Prince Charles and Prince Harry as he's also president of the American Friends of The Royal Foundation.

The Royal Foundation has some interesting trustees. For example, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton : He's also a trustee at the Varkey Foundation

Their Honorary Chairman is Bill Clinton https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/about

Varkey runs massive, sharia law supporting GEMS education. He has donated over 5 million to Bill Clinton. they're headquartered minutes from comet ping pong and besta pizza https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1474351

Sunny Varkey's organisation also runs something called Gems Education

Gems Education also works closely with the ICMEC

Ricky Dearman- father of the Hampstead children had an agent : Peter Ferris of FEA Management. Peter Ferris was nominated for a Global Teacher Award, a Varkey Foundation award.

and in the comments:

Blackstone Group's John Studzinski is the guy we've read about before, who sends out 1,100 nuns posing as prostitutes to purchase children from brothels!

That's part of the Talitha Kum project of his Arise Foundation.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY is THE premiere group that has been the progenitor for the Tavistock institute, responsible for every PLAGUE in history and were part of the original settlers into America, INCLUDING the Folger family, that CARRIED WITH IT THE PAGAN BELIEF SYSTEMS OF OLD EUROPE WITH THEM FLEEING PERSECUTION AND FREEDOM OF "RELIGION" as I covered in Beyond Magic: Unclean Spirits; David Copperfield, Mulholland, Blaine, Geller; Mk-Ultra, Laurel Canyon, Caribbean and Hellfire Club https://searchvoat.co/v/pizzagate/2370750

Michael Edward Novogratz (born November 26, 1964) is an ex-hedge fund manager, formerly of the investment firm Fortress Investment Group.[2] He is current CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners which focuses on cryptocurrency investments such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Robert Novogratz (brother)
Jacqueline Novogratz (sister)
Chris Anderson (brother-in-law)

Global Fund for Children has invested in two documentary films .. War Child, a 2008 documentary about former Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal, and Journey of a Red Fridge tells the story of Hari Rai, a child porter who carries a red Coca-Cola refrigerator through the Himalayan mountains. Filmed by Lunam Docs.

Prince Andrew touted as Donald Trump's golf escort on UK trip, a dodgy property deal, Sir Alan Reid and an Honours system under scrutiny after sex abuser kept title for years - https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/3262526/19038035

Prince Andrew's Pitch at Palace ...Ella's Kitchen is a company that makes organic baby and toddler food, sold in supermarkets internationally .. Ella's Kitchen sold to The Hain Celestial Group, Inc., ..Hain Celestial Group is involved with the Core Club NYC

Ella's Kitchen was founded in 2006 by Paul Lindley ..He is an author of a best-selling book Little Wins: The Power of Thinking Like a Toddler and is a co-founder of a social enterprise called The Key is E with former child soldier and international hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal. He was previously deputy managing director of Nickelodeon UK. ..Paul Lindley sits on the Santander SME advisory board and is an ambassador for the Family and Childcare Trust. international firm Carillion .. known to have received investment from HSBC, Barclays and Santander.

Carillion, Capita, Serco and Interserve run by criminals..Hackremco is the previous name of Interdean, one of the companies owned by Paul Evans, ... Evans runs Santa Fe Relocation

Santa Fe Relocation works with Chambers of Commerce around the world.. so does Prince Andrew ..

..past members of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board as of 2019:

John D. Negroponte, former Deputy Secretary of State and the first Director of National Intelligence
Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen
John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama

Rick Scott and wife invested in parent company bidding on Tampa high-speed rail - http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politic ... peed-rail/

Scott said in June he believes a high-speed rail line from Orlando to Tampa is a good idea. He and his wife last year invested at least $3 million in a credit fund for All Aboard Florida’s parent company, Fortress Investment Group

Voat post re Fortress Investment Group:

Brightline and Virgin Trains USA. After the trains you know that Branson will target the children, right? https://searchvoat.co/v/pizzagate/2861651

Brightline, the Miami-based train and real estate development company that wants to expand to Tampa, has a new partner: the Virgin Group, run by swashbuckling British tycoon Sir Richard Branson.

Brightline announced the partnership Friday and said it would change its name to Virgin Trains USA this month. Virgin Group will make a minority investment in Brightline, which will be managed and operated by Brightline executives and affiliates of its parent company, Fortress Investment Group[1][2][3].

..Fortress founder and co-CEO Wes Edens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Edens

..He began his career in 1987 at Lehman Brothers, where he was a partner and managing director until 1993.[6] He then went to BlackRock's private equity division BlackRock Asset Investors, where he remained until 1997 as a partner and managing director.

Michael Novogratz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Novogratz

Prior to joining Fortress, he was a partner at Goldman Sachs where he spent much time abroad including leadership roles in Asia and Latin America....His sister Jacqueline Novogratz is founder and CEO of Acumen Fund,

The Nyumbani USA Board of Directors is extremely honored to announce that the John and Patty Noel Humanitarian Award will be presented to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) at this year’s benefit Gala on September 21, 2019.

Founded in 1988 by Elizabeth Glaser, Susie Zeegen, and Susan DeLaurentis, EGPAF’s mission is to end global pediatric HIV/AIDS through prevention and treatment programs, research, and advocacy. The organization has had a presence in Kenya since 2000 and has since grown into one of the largest HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs in the country.

Well, it seems that Fauci's next vaccine will be for HIV: https://www.rosemaryfrei.ca/hiv-now-set ... vaxx-race/

When Jane Tewson was 23 and I was 30 she convinced me to fund the overheads of her new charity. Comic Relief & Red Nose Day have gone on to raise over £1 billion https://virg.in/3Re

British Airways & Comic Relief to assist such vulnerable children in a new charity programme dubbed Flying Start..

I promise we'll visit our Aids orphanage children next time..

The Nairobi bound British Airways Flight 2069 hijack.. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec ... .lizstuart

2000

A packed British Airways jumbo came within seconds of disaster yesterday when a mentally unstable passenger stormed the cockpit and attempted to seize the controls.

The Nairobi-bound Boeing 747, with 379 passengers on board, plunged 10,000ft as the captain and one of his first officers wrestled with the intruder on the flight deck for two minutes.

BA flight 2069 had left Gatwick six hours earlier and was cruising 35,000ft above Sudan when one of the struggling men accidentally disengaged the autopilot.

Passengers screamed in terror and prayed for their lives as the plane dived steeply down then, witnesses said, banked left at a sharp angle heading for the ground...

A flight attendant was thrown to the ground, breaking her ankle, as Captain William Hagan struggled with the intruder, poking his fingers into the man's eyes...

In the scuffle the intruder bit one of the pilot's fingers and his ear but, aided by one of his first officers, Capt Hagan succeeded in dragging him out of the cockpit and into the club class cabin. There passengers rushed to help, including a 6ft 6in tall American who helped bundle the man to the ground.

Phil Watson, 38, the co-pilot, who had been sitting at the controls throughout, pulled the plane out of its dive and ended the two-minute crisis, which took place just before 5am.

Among those on board were Lady Annabel Goldsmith, widow of the businessman Sir James, her daughter Jemima Khan and her son Benjamin.

Mrs Khan was travelling to Kenya with her children, Kasim, aged 18 months, and Sulaiman, four, for a two-week holiday.

Also on board were the singer Bryan Ferry and his wife Lucy Helmore, en route to Zanzibar for a family break. "I'm relieved to get here in one piece," he said on his eventual safe arrival in Nairobi.

Capt Hagan, 53, whose wife and two children were on board, said: "It all happened very quickly. My first thought was for the safety of the aircraft and the passengers. We just did what we are trained to do.

"In the struggle the intruder bit my ear but my first officer Richard Webb and I managed to get him out of the cockpit while my other first officer Phil Watson flew the aircraft. With the help of some passengers we managed to restrain the intruder...

Captain Bill Hagan has now retired from commercial flying after 31 years. He is for the first time in his career free to tell the complete story of the attempted hijacking incident on board British Airways, London-Nairobi flight BA2069, which came within a whisker of becoming at the time the world's 3rd worst airline crash.

Captain Bill Hagan was awarded a bravery medal at the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR) People of the Year awards.

What makes this incident so interesting?

✦The incident was the most extreme in UK commercial aviation history in terms of the extreme loss of control.

✦It was one of the most significant in UK history in that it led directly to the locking of aircraft cockpit doors in UK Airlines in late 2001. Even if the awful events of September 11th had not occurred, UK Airlines would have a locked door policy, as a result of what happened on the BA2069 flight.

✦It is perhaps the most intriguing incident because in spite of the above, there was no CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) enquiry- merely a review of the flight, commenced months after the event, and which was not made public.

Halloween brought our ever-loyal BA crew group to host a Fun Day for our Nyumbani Home children https://www.amigosdenyumbani.es/noticia ... -nov-2011/

Dear Friends of Nyumbani,

Greetings from all of us – over 4000 children and 260 staff.

I write at a time when all our children are facing end-of-year examinations, particularly crucial for end-of-primary and end-of-high school students whose future paths will be guided by their results. We have 154 candidates sitting their final Primary School examination, 8th – 10th November, while our 39 form four candidates are more than half-way through their final examinations. Please keep them in thought and prayer...

I have just returned from my annual fundraising/PR trip in UK, Ireland and USA. I am always very happy for the opportunity this trip affords to meet with members of our International Boards in these countries. In Ireland I was delighted to be invited to speak in 5 schools from which groups of students come for educational and service experience in the Nyumbani programs. Currently we have been hosting 16 students and four staff from Loreto College, St. Stephen’s Green, my Alma Mater. The highlight in USA was the Annual Benefit on 30th September which reached record heights with an attendance of over 400 guests and a superb array of auction and sales items which attracted great funding. I was thrilled to be invited to speak and receive a collection in 3 Catholic parishes, while Receptions on Capitol Hill and in homes of Friends of Nyumbani, meeting with significant Nyumbani mission-related organizations, together with time with members of Fr. D’Agostino’s family, all contributed to what I believe has been my most fruitful USA trip.

What has now become an annual event, a group of 10 Nyumbani Home children and 2 of our young adults accompanied by two staff had a three-week holiday in Ireland during the August school vacation. From visits to places of educational interest, like the Dail (Irish Government) and Trinity College, activities like kayaking and pottery-making to fun days climbing the Suarloaf Mountain and at Funtasia, their days were filled with excitement and enjoyment and they have returned with memories that will last a lifetime. Our gratitude to our Irish Board and their friends who gave of their time and resources to make this possible for our children.

We are still in the aftermath glow of the Official Opening of the new laboratory facility and now look forward to extending our outreach and finally reaching 1S0 15189 accreditation. Recently Lea Toto featured in a publication of the Centre for Health Market Innovations(http://healthmarketinnovations.org) which identified two enhancing processes in the program: Diagnostic Laboratory Testing and Data Management. Another enhancing process which has developed recently in Lea Toto is a mentorship program which reaches out to our older adolescents to prepare them for the transition from pediatric care and treatment to adult centres through group seminars and a one-to-one accompaniment with an adult mentor who is living positively.

I was sad to miss the visit to Nyumbani Home of Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy SecretaryGeneral of the Council of Europe, on 25th September, 2011. To our delight, she took Nyumbani Home as a model when, some days later, she addressed the 9th Council of Europe Conference of Health Ministers in Lisbon. Other special visitors I missed were Bishop Ramirez of Las Cruces, New Mexico, who headed a delegation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to Kenya, together with Ambassador Johnny Young (Ret.), now Executive Director of the USCCB. However, I am happy that I had earlier met Ambassador Young at the Benefit in Washington DC.

Halloween brought our ever-loyal BA crew group to host a Fun Day for our Nyumbani Home children. This is a day the children look forward to with great excitement. Dressed in Halloween outfits, playing games and partying, the children were able to spend several hours in the world of imagination, so important in childhood. Another exciting day took place in Nyumbani Village when the Village youth challenged the Nyumbani Youth to a football tournament. Can you spot which team won?

We are still struggling to get birth certificates for our children, many with no known info re their parents. Recently, Protus Lumiti participated in a radio show to draw attention to their plight. To be abandoned at birth or in the early years of life and then to experience that their right to an identity is problematic is surely one of the greatest injustices a child can experience. At this stage, they are unaware of this denial of their rights, but will learn about it later and have to cope with a second rejection. A follow-up of the radio show to bring this situation to wider audiences is now planned.

Currently, an assessment of Nyumbani Village is in progress. Being a unique response to the orphan crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, we are interested in having an objective evaluation of the model carried out with a view to replicating this pioneer approach in other parts of Kenya and Africa. Currently, we have 80 families in residence and hope to reach our target of 100 families during 2012. I have just commissioned the building of the last two clusters of family houses, Cluster 22 and 23, and, with the completion of staff housing for 24 persons due in the next few months, we will be able to evacuate Clusters 24, 25 and 26 presently occupied by staff.

On 20th November, we will celebrate the 5th Anniversary of Fr. Angelo D’Agostino’s passing away. This year, with the anniversary falling on a Sunday, we will be able to mark this significant day with more time and space to celebrate what his vision back in 1991 has realized for thousands of children infected and affected by HIV over the years. When in the States, I was privileged to talk with key personnel from the National Institute of Health in Washington DC who opened up for me the world of young adults living with HIV as experienced in USA where there are many years of experience with this group. As our young adults leave us to re-integrate into the wider community, we hope and pray that we will be more and more enabled to prepare and accompany them during this important transition in their lives.

May God bless you

Sr. Mary Owens, IBVM

archived: https://archive.ph/yjvyo

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and an authoritative presence on the COVID-19 pandemic task force, is one of the people whose wedding was officiated by Nyumbani Founder Father Angelo D’Agostino? Dr. Fauci was a personal friend of Father D’Ag, as well as a colleague involved early on in the fight against HIV/AIDs.

Endeavor is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting high impact entrepreneurship. It currently supports 1000 entrepreneurs around the world. It began operations in September 2013 in Miami thanks to support from the Knight foundation where my daughter Adriana was invited to form part of the founding committee.

Since her incursion into Cisneros, Adriana has infused a great entrepreneurial spirit both inside and outside the company...

This is why in December last year, in my capacity as an Endeavor Mentor, I had the honor of participating as a judge for the ISP (International Selection Panel). Alongside my counterparts Jocelyn Cortes-Young, Daniel Heise and Lisa Raggiri, as well as Board Members Maurice Ferré, Sean Wolfington, Andrés Moreno and Ernest Bachrach, I was able to meet and interview people with entrepreneurial projects from 15 countries who are participating in the rigorous process of becoming part of this global network...

A Spanish company that really caught my eye during one of the group of presentations where I was involved, was Shazura (previously known as Shot & Shop). It is a software which plans to revolutionize the way we search for images on the internet. Its modern technology was developed by Sira Pérez de la Coba and transforms photos and videos into numbers. These numbers are then converted into data which means they are able to be compared with one another on the internet and facilitate searching...

This is why I am pleased to share with you that alongside my daughter Adriana, Edgar Bronfman Jr. (Former Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group) and Jordanian entrepreneur Walid Tahabsem, we have decided to support Sira to take use of his platform to the next level. This will be done with financing of US$1 million and will mean the company will very soon be able to set up in Silicon Valley.