By Frank Scarpa
At the April 13 meeting of the Retired Men’s Association, Charlie Adams introduced Dr. Jun Xu, who has been practicing acupuncture and rehabilitation medicine in Riverside since 2000, and is the founder and president of Africa Cries Out, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization devoted to providing medical and humanitarian aid to Senegal in West Africa. Dr. Xu first became interested in the needs of Senegal, where the average life expectancy is 50, during a photography trip in 2013. Xu and his team have returned there almost every year since then as “medical missionaries” and providers of educational and humanitarian aid. His annual group of volunteers has grown to 40 people. Since 2019, Dr. Xu has made a point of including American teenagers (including his own children) in order to expose them to this sort of volunteer work. This effort has morphed into ACO’s Youth Leadership Program.
Dr. Xu’s work in Africa was inspired by many of the “heroes” that he encountered there. Through a vivid slide presentation, the RMA audience learned about Ana Paul, a woman who saved a whole village of women from genital mutilation. They heard the story of a Brazilian fashion model who visited a Senegalese village and remained there to serve others. One couple adopted twin children and started an orphanage. A French-trained physician devoted his career to the people of Senegal from 1995 until his recent death.
Africa Cries Out purchased 11 acres of land and built a 10,000 square foot school and a 12,000 square foot dormitory. Students are taught skills such as carpentry, organic farming, sewing, baking, and gas cooking, as well as the French language. ACO now has two hospitals (one of them in a leprosy village) staffed by local physicians. Basic subsistence aid is provided to the leprosy village.
ACO’s motto is “Helping others is an affirmation of one’s existence in this world.”
According to the organization’s website,
1. We serve students and patients, including those with leprosy in the poorest area in Africa.
2. We don’t have any administrative cost, we have no paid secretary, or any paid staff. All donations will go directly to African people.
3. We focus on the principle of “Teaching them fishing, instead of giving them a fish.” We teach our students the skills to be useful workers.
Financial aid is obtained from individual contributions and organizations such as Americares (in Stamford) and Direct Relief (in California). Contact information for ACO:
Website: www.africacriesout.net
Phone 203 637 7720
Whatsapp: 19174343767
Address: Jun Xu, M.D., 1171 E. Putnam Ave., Riverside, CT 06878
To watch Dr. Xu’s presentation, click here https://vimeo.com/699926750.
The RMA’s upcoming presentation “Stalin’s War: A New History of WW II” by Sean McMeekin, Ph.D. is scheduled for 11 AM on Wednesday, April 27. For the western allies World War II has always been Hitler’s war. But in the view of Dr. McMeekin, the international conflicts that eventually erupted into WW II began before Hitler came to power. Furthermore, Hitler’s armies did not fight in multiple theaters and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. Rather that central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. In this sense, the Second World War was really Stalin’s War.
Sean McMeekin, prize winning historian, drew upon recently opened Russian archives and materials in Poland and the Balkans seldom examined by Western historians, and argues that the war’s true epicenter was in the east. While Hitler’s genocidal ambition may have unleashed the Armageddon, Professor McMeekin shows that the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was one that Stalin wanted, not Hitler.
Sean McMeekin is a professor of European History and Culture at Bard College. He has an A.B. from Stanford University, an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and studied at the University of Paris, Moscow State University and Mezhdunarodny Universitet, Moscow. Among his other publications are The Russian Revolution, The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, The Russian Origins of the First World War, and History’s Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks.
To stream Dr. McMeekin’s presentation at 11 AM on Wednesday, April 27, click here (https://bit.ly/30IBj21). This presentation will also be available on local public access TV Channels, Verizon FIOS channel 24 and Optimum (Cablevision) channel 79.
RMA speaker presentations are presented as a community service at no cost to in-person or Zoom attendees. The RMA urges all eligible individuals to consider becoming a member of our great organization, and thereby enjoy all the available fellowship, volunteer, and community service opportunities which the RMA offers to its members. For further information, go to www.greenwichrma.org, or contact our membership chairman (mailto:members@greenwichrma.org).
