It’s difficult to hold your head high with your hand out. This mother and baby pictured in Puerto Lopez Ecuador, is a common sight here, and in Latin America in general. A Venezuelan refugee humbly begging in front of a Tia grocery store.

Today is Independence Day in the USA. On many Native American reservations, they celebrate this day by holding ceremonies and giving gifts, so much so that the Indian Bureau calls is “Give-Away Day”. On this day back in 1776, these great words were pinned in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

A photo of A Ripple’s president from today, a couple of miles from Shiprock hospital, New Mexico, USA. Dr. Suzanne willfully came to the Navajo Nation in May of 2020, during the hight of an unknown pandemic. At that time, the Navajo had the highest infection rate in all of the USA, the country with the highest numbers of Covid cases in the world. Here on the reservation 14 months ago, it was desperate. Many elders of the Navajo, some only speaking their native tongue, dying from this grave virus. Patients in the hall of an overcrowded emergency room. Unfortunately nothing progressed when working here in September, even as the Navajo Nation was on strict lockdown. Many tribal elders, story tellers, historians, moved on to the Great Spirit.

Happy Fathers Day! Here in South America, do you know how many fathers it takes to change a light bulb? A brazilian. Today is also World Refugee Day! “Happy Day” to the over 80 million people displaced in the world. You get a day too. Could we please introduce you to one? Please meet Inaky. Inaky departed from Venezuela 3 years ago, and now calls the town of Puerto Lopez Ecuador home. With a heavy heart, he left his family in Caracas as he felt there was not a future, no work, and plenty of danger.