The TOS in Calgary, Canada held a successful TOS meeting recently with a PowerPoint presentation on the subject, “Welcoming New Canadians”.
What does welcoming new Canadians have to do with the TOS, though?  “Everything,” replies National Director, Lorraine Christensen.  “Many immigrants arrive in their country of adoption and receive no help in learning new customs and ways of doing things.  They find themselves quite isolated.  This is surely a golden opportunity for TOS members who wish to serve?”

The group’s guest speaker was Promila Sharma, who joined the TS in India in the mid-1980’s and is a strong advocate of the TS’s principal object of promoting universal brotherhood and sisterhood. Promila, who recently joined the TOS in Canada, seeks to carry that message through her work with newcomer clients in Calgary.  

TOS National Director, Lorraine Christensen

Through her absorbing one-hour presentation, members learned about Promila's endeavours in promoting social and cultural awareness among immigrants and in helping to facilitate their settlement and integration into the Calgary community.  “Promila’s talk,” reports Lorraine, “helped us stand in the shoes of an ever-growing segment of humanity and to realise how much those of us in the cultural, racial and religious majority can take for granted.  I am sure our meeting made us more sensitive to the problems immigrants face.”

As a matter of fact, out of the 16 members the TOS has in Calgary, nine have come to Canada from other countries.  In addition to the new Canadians shown in these photos, Denmark, Burma, Germany, Iran and the United States are represented.  A veritable miniature United Nations!
 

Seated next to guest speaker, Promila Sharma, we see new arrival to Canada – Olimi Shirinbek, a medical doctor from Moscow who is on a visiting permit.

At the TOS meeting, we were very happy to see him join the TOS in Canada. Three other new Canadians can also be seen in this photo. Seated on the left is Svetlana Borovko from Russia who is a member of the Veritas Study Centre of the TS. Seated together in the left back corner is guest Ayesha Hyder from Pakistan and Pearl Sztain from Israel. Pearl is also a member of Veritas Study Centre and serves on the Administrative Committee of the TOS in Canada.

TOS member Elaine Pederzolli (left) presents Promila with a gift to thank her for her presentation.

The TOS in Hungary has ‘adopted’ a flood-affected village with the blessing and support of the town’s municipal officers. They began by offering emergency relief and then, at Christmas, they put together collections of gifts for families. You’ll find more about their continuing support for the village in the Featured Project on our website.
 

Recently the Brisbane TOS group conducted a successful one-day seminar to raise awareness of the importance of our forests. Participants also donated to the Qandeel schools in Pakistan, supported by Australian TOS groups.
Guest presenters spoke about:

• Using essential oils and herbs from the forest
• Restoring the world’s tropical forests
• Our spiritual connection with nature

Following a relaxed and social lunch, participants enjoyed creating baskets from natural and recycled materials under the leadership of artist and TOS member, Karen Cipressi.

The TOS was invited to participate in a very successful Open Day held at the HPB Lodge of the TS in Auckland, New Zealand in March. 
To the right we see Renée Sell, TOS Coordinator for New Zealand. She reports: “We were graced with a lovely sunny day for the first ever Open Day at HPB Lodge.  There were a number of new faces who got to see what the TOS was about.  We raffled a quilted bag with small gifts in it and a donated book.  The delighted winner was a long- time HPB Lodge member and our TS HQ’s postal librarian, Sharn Laurie.  We also set up our usual stand of donated items for sale.”

Here we see Renée and her husband Richard in front of some of the TOS’s display items providing information on the TOS around the world, on the specific projects overseas that NZ members support (such as the Golden Link College) and on the Geoffrey Hodson Scholarship Fund.  Renée made a small presentation on the work of the TOS during the day.

Much to the delight of the TOS, the NZ Vegetarian Society also had a display stand. TOS members around the world do a great deal toward the improvement of human health, for animal welfare and for the protection of the environment so the Vegetarian Society’s table was considered particularly welcome.