Portland to New York

I wanted to share with you the courageous and amazing efforts of Athein and Zaw, two Burmese refugees, former Burmese students, and former ABSDF members. On March 1st, 2008 Athein and Zaw stepped out from Portland, OR on a journey to New York, to raise awareness about the crisis in Burma. They will walk over 3,000 miles to present a petition to the UN on August 8, 2008, the 20th anniversary of the 8-8-88 protests in Burma. They are on foot walking 25-30 miles a day holding two flags, one the flag of United States of America and the other the flag of National League of Democracy's (Burmese opposition political party) flag. I ask you to please do whatever you can to help support their efforts, weather donating funds, talking about their efforts to everyone you know, walking with them, providing them food and shelter, joining their Facebook group and inviting all of your friends to join or simply forwarding this email to everyone on your email address list. Here are the two websites where you can find more information and learn about this courageous and amazing efforts by two men doing what they can to help save the lives of millions: Official website: http://88portland.wordpress.com/ or their Facebook group site: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8522122953 .

You can also contact me as well for more information. I hope you do what is right by taking the few simple suggested steps to do your part to help save the lives of the innocent, those who are in desperate need of our voice. Lets not turn away from this courageous effort, instead lets help embrace it and do all that you can to help in anyway you can to end the daily horrific conflict our fellow human beings are enduring. Athein and Zaw are my heroes, the scarifies they have made for the good of others, giving themselves to save lives of those whom they do not even know...... Let us all pray for their safe journey. I thank you for all of your efforts in advance.

Fast Facts about the conflict in Burma:

*GENOCIDE 400,000+

*3000 VILLAGES BURNED

*BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

*2 MILLION + DISPLACED REFUGEES

*WORLD’S LARGEST RECRUITMENT OF CHILD SOLDIERS UNDER THE AGE OF 17 (70,000)

*SYSTEMATIC RAPE AND TORTURE OF YOUNG CHILDREN

*ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST OUTBREAK AREA OF HIV AND AIDS WITH NEARLY NO TREATMENT FOR MOST OF THE INFECTED

*NO FREEDOM

*WORLD'S POLITICAL PRISONERS TORTURED DAILY

*WORLD'S ONLY NOBLE PEACE PRIZE WINNER DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI JAILED FOR THE LAST 16 YEARS FOR SPEAKING OF DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM

Sincerely,
Sophie
sophiel444@msn.com