WHAT IS NARCONON?

Narconon is a highly effective drug-free withdrawal, detoxification and rehabilitation program which utilizes techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard. Narconon, meaning “no drugs,” began as a grass-roots movement in the mid-1960s when an inmate of the Arizona State Prison solved his own drug problem using principles found in one of L. Ron Hubbard’s books. He then used those same principles to help solve drug-related problems of fellow inmates.

Today, the Narconon drug rehabilitation procedure is at work in over 40 nations. More than a quarter-million are now living drug-free lives through Narconon programs, while an estimated 18 million more have been reached through Narconon drug education services.

With success rates at least four times higher than international averages, Mr. Hubbard’s drug rehab technology has given rise to some 200 Narconon centers and groups. At the hub of the network is Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma where rehab specialists learn to apply the program to handle drug problems other facilities are loath to even touch.

http://www.narconon.org

Scientology Volunteer Ministers

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps is an embracive program of the Church of Scientology to provide community service, disaster relief and emergency response. Created more than 30 years ago by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, the program has expanded to over 200,000 Volunteer Ministers worldwide who have served at 187 disaster sites, including Ground Zero after 9/11, the Southeast Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Haiti.

Volunteer Ministers have trained and partnered with more than 1,000 different groups, organizations and agencies including the Red Cross, FEMA, the National Guard, and police and fire departments. The Volunteer Ministers Corps motto is “Something can be done about it.”

In addition to assisting people in need in their own communities, Scientology Volunteer Ministers have helped hundreds of thousands in major cities around the world and in far flung outposts. Our 18 Continental Volunteer Minister traveling centers (marquee yellow tents) and have toured through 170 countries covering over 300,000 miles, including a Volunteer Ministers barge traveling on the Amazon River, two centers traveling throughout Western and Central Africa and a traveling center in the outback of Australia.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers also routinely work side by side with other emergency response and relief organizations helping to save lives and bring order to disaster zones.

In 2001, more than 800 VMs responded to the World Trade Center disaster and provided spiritual and practical aid to emergency workers for many weeks. They have also been an integral part of rescue and salvage efforts at the sites of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and fires.

More than 500 VMs from 11 nations served in relief efforts in Southeast Asia, India and Sri Lanka in 2005 after the Tsunami. Their work was reported on by international media including CNN, The Economist, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

The service of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers has been recognized by politicians, police, military, other relief agencies and civic authorities. A mayor in Louisiana whose city had been hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 said, “I was very happy when more than 900 of your Church Volunteer Ministers arrived in my city from all over the world and became a major force in bringing physical and spiritual help to those in need.”

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Website

Scientology Gala in Hollywood

More than 1,400 attend Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre 41st Anniversary Gala

More than 1,400 guests attended the 41st Anniversary Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre Gala in Hollywood on Saturday, August 7. The guest list included many of the Church’s well-known members, including John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Leah Remini, Anne Archer, Erika Christensen, Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson) and Jenna Elfman.

The annual event highlights the humanitarian programs sponsored by the Church—programs addressing drug abuse, human rights, moral values for a modern world, illiteracy and disaster relief.

The evening’s guest speakers included California Congresswoman Diane Watson; LAPD Hollywood Division Captain Beatrice Girmala; Mr. Albert DeCady, Special Advisor to Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph; and the former Liberian Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Nathaniel Barnes.

Congresswoman Watson told the audience of her history in working with the Church: “As a public servant I’ve had the privilege of a close working relationship with you for many years on many vital issues of our society, and especially since becoming the U.S. Representative for this district in 2001. The relationship has been productive because your social programs are for people no matter who they are—and it has been rewarding because they work, and the resources you so generously provide are very effective.”

Ambassador Barnes traveled to Los Angeles from Washington, DC, for the event, to thank Church staff and parishioners for their work in his previously war-torn country and neighboring West African nations, citing the Church’s human rights programs and volunteers for sparking a human rights movement in his native Liberia.

“We now have more than 9,000 youth activists—young people who are educated, who are taking a stand and actively imparting human rights principles crucial for the continued peace and stability of not only Liberia, but all of Africa,” he said. “I would like to personally express our deep gratitude to you for giving these young people a new lease on life by empowering them.”

John Travolta and Kelly Preston were publicly acknowledged by Mr. Albert DeCady, Special Advisor to Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph, for personally flying medical personnel and four tons of needed supplies to his native Haiti in the weeks following the January 12 quake that devastated the island nation.

Mr. Travolta described the programs he has engaged in for many years with hands-on volunteer work and support: “What we are doing around the world—the programs for drug rehabilitation, for education rehabilitation, for the Scientology Volunteer Ministers that help in all the disaster areas around the world—there are so many programs our group is involved with.”

The popularity of Scientology among artists and professionals in many fields mirrors its current growth internationally, expanding more in the last year than the last five years combined and more in the last five years than in the five previous decades. The rapid expansion is fueled by word-of-mouth based on successful application of the religion’s practical principles to improve conditions in life. Scientology Churches, Missions and affiliated groups now exceed 8,500 in 165 countries. Concurrent to the increased international interest, new Churches of Scientology are opening at an exponential rate, with three new Churches opened in the last month, seven in 2010 alone and a dozen in the last year.

Celebrity Centres are those Churches of Scientology established to provide artists, professionals and leaders in every field with a distraction-free environment to practice their religion. Whether for up-and-coming artists or established public figures, Celebrity Centres provide an atmosphere where all can discover Scientology for themselves.

L. Ron Hubbard once wrote, “A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists.” As an artist himself, Mr. Hubbard understood how important those dreams are to the creative person. He recognized as well that artists supply the spark of creativity and the vision leading the society into tomorrow.

The Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood was founded in 1969. Celebrity Centres in other world cultural centers include New York, Paris, Nashville, Vienna, Florence and London, and in February of this year the new Church of Scientology & Celebrity Centre Las Vegas opened its doors. Celebrity Centres, like all Churches of Scientology worldwide, are open to the public.

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Worldwide, there are more than 8,500 Scientology Churches, Missions and affiliated groups in 165 countries.

Since the beginning of 2010, the Church of Scientology has opened seven new Churches in Seattle, Washington; Pasadena, California; Mexico City, Mexico; Los Angeles, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Quebec City, Canada; and Brussels, Belgium. Each is configured to provide the full services of the Scientology religion to parishioners and to the community, housing extensive public information multimedia displays, and ministering religious services in efficient and aesthetic spaces, including congregational services in expansive Chapels. These new Churches have expanded their ministry of religious services many times over, giving more than a million new people the opportunity to find out about Scientology.

Each of these new Churches is active in its community while also providing a strong base for Scientology-sponsored social and humanitarian programs aimed at curbing drug abuse, illiteracy, immorality and criminality, as well as restoring human rights, assisting individuals with personal troubles, and helping in times of disaster, both natural and man-made.

Another five new Churches of Scientology are scheduled for completion before the end of 2010.

Scientology Social Betterment Programs

Update of the Church of Scientology about the reach of the Church's social programs:

• Through the anti-drug and drug abuse education programs we sponsor, every 15 seconds someone pledges to be drug free.

• Through the human rights education programs we support, every second of every day, 26 people learn about their human rights.

• And across all of our sponsored programs, every 25 seconds someone volunteers in their community.

Because our programs are non-discriminatory, 60% of those active in them are from faiths other than Scientology. Working with thousands of schools, churches, governments, businesses, law enforcement agencies and others in 150 countries, last year individuals working through Scientology sponsored programs volunteered more than 4.8 million hours to their communities — tutoring kids, rehabilitating inmates, delivering drug education lectures, promoting human rights and more.

As a result, the Church can proudly say it sponsors the single largest drug education initiative on earth, with fully developed educational materials including 16 award-winning public service announcements and an hour and half documentary educating kids about the dangers of drugs, as well as the world's largest non-governmental residential drug rehabilitation network. We also sponsor the single most proactive human rights group on Earth which also includes freely provided educational materials with 30 public service announcements educating kids and adults alike on the subject of human rights.

These are just a few of the programs we are proud to support and make Scientology one of the most active and contributive social betterment forces on earth:

• 17,700,000 received drug education lectures;

• 3,400,000 people took a Drug Free Pledge;

• 32,000 criminals and juveniles rehabilitated, 80% have never returned to jail;

• 183,111 signatures collected in support of human rights;

• 2,750,000 reached weekly with human rights message;

• and in the last year 1.1 million tutoring hours volunteered with 36,000 students receiving one-on-one tutoring resulting in 45% academic improvements in tests.

While the above is just a sampling, all told over a half billion people have been reached by these programs.

Scientology in Washington opens new Founding Church building

The scene at Saturday's ribbon-cutting ceremony.
(Founding Church of Scientology)

Los Angeles, 3 July 2009 - More than a thousand Scientologists, their friends and families cheered the lighting of a new state-of-the-art LED sign Friday night atop the Scientology complex on the corner of L. Ron Hubbard Way and Sunset Boulevard.

http://ping.fm/TigZC

Scientology Volunteer Ministers African Goodwill Tour Reaches Out

Scientology Volunteer Ministers bring their help anywhere and everywhere.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers African Goodwill Tour brings help to the most far-flung regions of Africa. With a bright yellow van, a large yellow tent, and volunteers who care, it travels to towns and villages, no matter how remote.

Zambia, a country just larger than the State of Texas, is a land of beauty, famous for Victoria Falls and its spectacular wildlife preserves. However, it is also a land where the life expectancy is less than 50 years, one in seven adult Zambians live with HIV, and millions subsist below the poverty threshold of $1 a day.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers were entrusted with a mission, as stated by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology religion. Each volunteer “helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.” Mr. Hubbard continued, “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”

The volunteers accomplish this purpose through courses, seminars and individualized assistance, based on the Scientology Handbook, which provides tools to help people confront and overcome the problems they encounter at work, at home and in their dealings with others.

Recent testimonials from some of those helped by the Scientology Volunteer Ministers African Goodwill Tour show the value of the work the volunteers are doing.

“I have attained the ability to think logically, and discover the causes of situations good and bad,” wrote one recent course graduate.

“It is my great honor to take this opportunity to thank all the Volunteer Ministers for what they are doing,” was the message from a man who completed a course in communication. “In this course,” he went on to say. “I have learned that there is no life without communication and that nothing can be done without communication. Therefore communication is life. I am ready to apply to this in my day-to-day life. The Volunteer Ministers are doing a great job. I urge them to continue.”
Yet another student wrote, “I have really learned the importance of respecting other people. May God bless our nation as it strives to develop.”

For more information visit the Scientology Volunteer Ministers web site or the Scientology Video Channel.