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[GGN] #9 Saviour Sheriff, Change For Delhi Children, Outstanding Octogenarian

Day 5,996, 02:23 • Published in United Kingdom

• by Garth Lidlington

Happy good news day! Almost double figures in GGN editions, might have to celebrate that next week. Hope you enjoy this week's instalment of uplifting stories!

Deputy Sheriff Saves Struggling Manatee

Despite weighing a tiny fraction of the creature’s massive bulk, a determined Pinellas County deputy leaped into shallow water to save a manatee struggling to breathe. Cradling it in her arms for over an hour so it could get enough oxygen, Jill Constant saved the animal from becoming a victim of toxic red tide.

“This manatee is going to die right in front of us and I’m not letting that happen! We docked the boat, I took off my equipment, and got in,” Constant said in a June 20 news release. “We stayed in the water for two hours holding its head up until it could be rescued.”

The irony of a terrestrial mammal leaping into the water to help an aquatic mammal breathe was that the manatee, who quickly grew agitated with Deputy Constant holding its head, began to try and drown her.

Despite fearing she would drown, the thrashing at least informed Constant that the beast was recovering its strength and would soon be able to swim itself to a cleaner, safer environment.

Therapy School Transforming Lives In Delhi’s Struggling Districts

On a balmy spring morning in Delhi, 21-year-old Rohan Balan (main picture) sings in a park, too immersed in his music to notice his steadily growing audience.

“Four years ago, I was an angry teenager in a Delhi slum,” he says, his impromptu concert having come to an end. “Today, I’ve composed more than 100 songs; I’m making a music video and life is looking up.”

His friend Sohail Khan – also 21 – smiles in assent, because his story is similar. The son of a sex worker, he grew up in a brothel. He worked in food delivery, graduated from college, pursued his passion for dance and today has managed to extricate not only himself but also his mother from the red light area. “I often wonder: would my life have taken this course had I not connected with Project Phoenix?” he says. “I don’t think so.”

Balan and Khan are among the first batch of teens to graduate from Delhi-based non-profit Light Up’s flagship programme Project Phoenix. The one-year preventative mental health programme works in some of India’s most under-served communities: slums, children’s homes and red light areas. During that year, participants undergo one-to-one therapy, group exercises, and perhaps most innovatively, training to develop their social and emotional learning (SEL).

“That year transformed my life,” Khan says. “I used to be acutely self-conscious about my mother being in the sex trade. It was here that I learned to understand, even accept, my circumstances and move beyond them.”

Octogenarian’s Delight After Charity Coastline Walk

Derek Adams, 81, who is from Northampton but lives in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, is aiming to complete the 4,500 mile (7,242km) trek before he reaches 85. He has already walked about 2,400 miles and is visiting every lifeboat station.

Mr Adams has raised more than £5,600 in support of The RNLI, Cancer Research UK, and the British Heart Foundation.

"I do have a wanderlust, but it's meeting people that's important," he said. "Maps are fine - and I love maps - but the best thing is asking local people."

Starting in June 2022, Mr Adams has already trekked up the east coast of England and Scotland, as well around the south and west of England. His said his walk around Wales earlier this year had been the highlight so far.

"It would be hard to beat the Wales coast path," he said. "The Welsh people are absolutely fantastic, very hospitable."

Mr Adams said he felt "superb" and "on top of the world" ahead of his latest stint, and thanked his "smashing family" and "wonderful wife" for their support. When asked how he found the navigation, he joke😛 "As long as I keep the sea on my left, I know I'm going in the right direction."