Las Vegas - Cassandra Hepburn, 33, who recently returned from 12 days on the Scientology Disaster Relief Response Team in Haiti, has joined staff at the new Church of Scientology and Celebrity Centre in Las Vegas. The actress, who appeared in the Quentin Tarantino film "Hellride" and the daytime dramas "The Young and the Restless" and "As the World Turns," is eager to assume her new position at the Church to serve the Las Vegas community.
Ralph-Marie Gedeon, 22, lost his leg in the Haiti earthquake and is a little closer to walking once again after being carried off the airplane.
The Haitian native spent two days trapped under the rubble in the devastating earthquake that hit the country last month as his father desperately tried to set him free.
“His father, day one, started digging for him and couldn’t quite get to him, so came back day two with a few of his friends and literally, with no special tools but his hands, dug him out of this rubble field and transported him to what’s left of this hospital,” Dr. David Gibson, of the Center for Orthopedics in New Haven, said.
But Gedeon was severely injured. His leg, which was crushed by the debris, had to be amputated, but Gedeon would’ve rather died before giving up his leg, so Ayal Lindeman, the man from Scientology Volunteer Ministers who helped nurse Gedeon back to health, made the young man a promise.
“He calls me and says, ‘Can you help me with this scenario. If I tell this kid, he’s got my friend of 30 years to take care of him and he’s going to get a leg, a stateside leg, he’ll have the amputation, will you do it?’ What do you say to that? You say thank you for the blessing to be able to help with that,” Gibson said.
Now Gedeon will be under the care of Gibson, an orthopedic surgeon who hopes to give Gedeon a prosthetic leg and the ability to walk once again.
All of his services, the prosthesis and the hospital stay at the Hospital of Saint Raphael will all be free of cost, as was the ambulance ride from the airport.
“The opportunity to do something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; it’s a blessing to be able to do,” said Dr. Gibson.
-----WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Family members looking for information about relatives in 
Iman Shabazz was there; several of her relatives are unaccounted for.
"My heart is more than broken," she said. "That's my ancestry, my roots, where I'm from."
Bob Remy was on the phone with a friend in Haiti when the quake hit.
"She was frantic," he says.
Remy quickly tried to phone other friends there before the communications system went down.
"My relatives are okay, but my friends daughter broke both legs and an arm, and he can't help her, Remy said. "The roads are cut off."
About a dozens volunteers from the Church of Scientology came to the embassy today too.
"We can see these people are in big trouble," Ken Spliethof says. "We are here to help."
Written by Audrey Barnes
Scientology Volunteer Ministers, Nick and Erin, traveled to Kolkata, India in an effort to make a difference.
Every year, 26 million children reach school age in India. With this, the problem of education in a severely overcrowded school system becomes even more unmanageable. Despite increased school enrollment, some estimate that as many as 50% of India’s children do not attend school. That’s more than 150 million kids.
Time to bring out the Volunteer Ministers! As Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige, described the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program: “The final word, as regards our front-line work bringing our help wherever and whenever needed is our corps of Scientology Volunteer Ministers — on call, 24 hours a day in scores of nations.”
“Slumdog Millionaire opened our eyes to the horrible conditions in India. We decided to go there and volunteer in the slums and we funded it ourselves,” said Erin.
“We thought if we could bring help there to some of the children who had no formal education and no real hope in life, at least that would be doing something about it,” said Nick.
While in India, Nick and Erin documented their work in the slums to communicate an accurate view of living conditions in India. “We wanted to let people back home know what it’s REALLY like living here, and through raising awareness get more help to the people here, especially the children,” reflected Nick.
These two young Scientology Volunteer Ministers helped teach English and mathematics to the slum children. They used study technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard to helping the kids improve their learning.
“Mr. Hubbard discovered that the first barrier to study is not having the real thing there that you are studying about. The real things or the object that you study are called mass,” said Erin “So, for example, we made sure the kids had things they could actually count with, 5 little wooden blocks lets say that represented the number 5, so they didn’t have to do it all in their heads. They liked that!”
“Conditions here are the worst of the worst,” they wrote to their friends. “It’s been just a continual amazement to both of us that there have been such magical moments, and bright smiling faces in amongst everything else. With all that’s going on in the world it can be very easy to get wrapped up in one’s own problems,” they continued. “The truth is that there are so many people in need of help and with far worse conditions than most can possible imagine. We decided to turn our efforts toward others for a few months and make a difference.”
For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program visit their web site at www.volunteerministers.org or the Scientology Video Channel.