2009-12-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

WHAT TO DO TO BUY THIS VEHICLE FOR GANGA PREM??
What’s your big idea??
You can imagine it’s a question that has obsessed us.
Some Buddhist and Quaker friends have said they will get together informally to make their own initiatives and are being very creative and having a lot of fun. How can you help?
Others more adept than us at social networking are using Twitter and Facebook et al to get this site and Ganga Prem’s famous. How can you help?

MY BIG IDEA is to try to sell my artwork for the project.
In fact three ideas:

To offer a print to anyone who contributes er say €250 or more. Please contact me direct - it can be a high res file to print yourself, or a framed print in the post or whatever.
An illustration for a magazine article or book cover. Unfortunately I have never had any ambition to use my work for recognition, fame or fortune… So I know nothing of this. Can you advise me in any way?
As a hook for articles about Ganga Prem via my own images. I am trying to get exhibitions in Amsterdam as a pretext to invite the media to publicise Ganga Prem.

SO HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES:
These are my most recent which stem from a thought in the early morning of how it was for the Buddha finally, finally to rise up from his long meditation and stretch:

And these two I made specifically to sell as illustrations to accompany articles on the Credit Crunch:

PLEASE NOTE I AM UNSURE OF COPYRIGHT OF THIS IMAGE

And a few more we like until I get organized with a Flickr gallery…

A friend has said she will buy one as a present for a loved friend AND the double whammy of making a contribution which will make a difference!

Best wishes Pete

2009-12-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

We would like to welcome you to this our first ever blog site!

The purpose of this is to introduce you to an ambitious and inspiring project in the foothills of the Himalayas which has snagged our imagination in a big way.
You are invited to visit their official website to meet the wonderful group of people who have come together around meeting the desperate need to support people dying of cancer.
Every year a million people in India will get cancer.
Of those who get to even see a doctor 75% will be diagnosed too late for treatment to be effective.
Less than 3% of patients will have adequate pain relief. That’s less than 3%.
Terminal palliative care which we so take for granted in the west is almost unheard of in India. Only 16 of India’s 28 states and 7 union territories have any palliative care services. Many states have absolutely NO medical facilities that prescribe morphine which is essential in those last excruciating days many will experience.
At http://www.gangapremhospice.org/index.htm you will find details of this breathless vision, the prime piece of land they have bought on the banks of the River Ganges, the laying of the foundation stone… and the ambitious project to raise funds to complete the building…
Well, its not our place to repeat all that here but to focus on a small pragmatic intervention for NOW which they say will transform the care they can offer until the building is up and ready.
For just $12,000 we can buy a vehicle to make ‘Hospice in the Home’ a reality. They can bring people to the free oncology clinic they have established, and take specialist carers and meds out people in isolated villages who would be dependant on the vagaries of rickshaw transport.
It’s a small, small thing - like emptying the Ganga with a teaspoon,
but imagine what a difference WE can make for those hundreds of souls WE can help in the last years of their lives.
The choice is your of course and there are countless thousands of Good Causes one could support. We hope you will see in this project the gift of another opportunity to practice generosity.

There are many images of Ganga Prem but this one does it for us:

a Muslim couple living in a land that is not always hospitable to them finding an open and compassionate hand which is blind to differences of caste, creed, gender, or anything else which might stand between them and the love and support they so desperately need right now.

SO THERE IT IS WE MADE A START!

We hope to discuss more about:

what it is to live with cancer in rural India.
The painful enquiry into our own ideas about our own generosity (and the lack of it!)
Ideas for fund raising.
Guest cancer specialists to invite to contribute
If you would like to contact us direct do so through:
petesketchley @ yahoo.com

Together we can make GANGA PREM HOSPICE a REALITY