VOA慢速英语2012 THIS IS AMERICA - American Helps Reunite Trafficked Nepalese Children with Their Families

THIS IS AMERICA - American Helps Reunite Trafficked Nepalese Children with Their Families

FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I'm Christopher Cruise. This week on our program, we meet an American man working to reunite children with their families in Nepal. Then, we have a story on the Girl Scouts² of the USA -- the organization is celebrating a big birthday. And, finally, we look at what some people are willing to do for another member of the family: their pets.
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FAITH LAPIDUS: Conor Grennan was nearly thirty years old when he decided³ he wanted to do something different with his life. He left his job and used his life's savings⁴ to plan a trip around the world. He began with Nepal near the end of its ten-year civil war.
There, the American volunteered at an orphanage⁵ for three months. Eighteen young children were living in the Little Princes Children's Home near Kathmandu, the capital. Mr. Grennan helped take care of the children and taught them English.
CONOR GRENNAN: "I was very worried about it because I had never really spent much time with children before. As soon as I got into that world, I really enjoyed it. We became very, very close by the end of my time there."
Conor Grennan meets with the family of a lost child
He decided to return to Nepal a year later, in two thousand six, after the war ended. He discovered then that the children were not really orphans⁶ but the victims of human traffickers.
CONOR GRENNAN: "All these children had parents. They weren't orphans at all. These children had been actually taken because their parents feared that they would be abducted⁷ by the rebels. Their parents had actually paid these traffickers not knowing that the traffickers intended to sell their children. They thought they would take their children to protect them."
The children had been sold and then abandoned, and ended up at the Little Princes Children's Home.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Conor Grennan now had a new goal. He set out to help reconnect Nepalese families with children sold into trafficking.
CONOR GRENNAN: "There were so many children, probably fifteen thousand children that were affected⁸ by this problem."
Mr. Grennan became an advocate for those children. In his book "Little Princes," he explains why.
CONOR GRENNAN: "It's amazing how a problem can really come to life when you get to know the people who are victims of these problems."
He says he wrote the memoir⁹ to help raise awareness¹⁰ about child trafficking, but also to show that anyone can make a difference.
Mr. Grennan established a nonprofit group in Kathmandu called Next Generation Nepal. The organization works to find lost children and reunite them with their families. So far, he says, his group has reconnected three hundred Nepalese children with their relatives.
FAITH LAPIDUS: Nancy Wong is a volunteer who has been working with Mr. Grennan since last August.
NANCY WONG: "I basically give up my life in the U.S. and I feel like I need go to Nepal to join your group and really try to make a difference for these trafficked children."
Ms. Wong says reuniting the children with their families is a process.
NANCY WONG: "The first step is, of course, rescuing them from exploitation and securing them into our transit¹¹ homes. We do that in partnership¹² with the government of Nepal."
The second step is to search for the biological family. She gave an example of a girl who had been separated from her family since she was two years old.
NANCY WONG: "We had no real name. We had no idea even what part of Nepal she's from."
But she says workers known as integration¹³ managers guessed the general area where the girl was from based on her facial features.
NANCY WONG: "[They] literally¹⁴ went from village to village, from bus stops to tea shops to restaurants, asking for any clue. And finally after a few months we found her uncle."
She says the work continues even after children are reunited with their families. "We monitor the progress," she says, "to make sure that they are integrating well, going to school, and are not being exploited at home."
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Conor Grennan says child trafficking in Nepal is part of a bigger problem.
CONOR GRENNAN: "There is the sexual trafficking, there's the labor¹⁵ trafficking, there's the trafficking we see in Nepal. There has to be some kind of, I believe, external pressure on the government to take these seriously and to start looking at policies that can really combat these problems effectively."
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FAITH LAPIDUS: The Girl Scouts of the USA are celebrating their one hundredth birthday this year. A woman named Juliette Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scout¹ troop on March twelfth, nineteen twelve. It was in Savannah, in the southern American state of Georgia. Since then, more than fifty million American women have been in the Girl Scouts.
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These are Girl Scouts singing in a neighborhood park in New Orleans. Ten-year-old Cassidy Lee Brookes enjoys all the outdoor activities that her troop does.
CASSIDY LEE BROOKES: "We go canoeing, we go camping, we do sing-alongs, we do all kinds of stuff."
Cassidy wears a green Girl Scout vest covered with the badges she has earned by learning new skills, like going on a camping trip.
CASSIDY LEE BROOKES: "If you do camping you get badges and all kinds of stuff for cooking and cleaning, because you have to do everything on your own. You have to cook the food, you have to serve it. So it is really fun."
Brownie Scouts selling cookies in a Raleigh, North Carolina neighborhood
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Outdoor activities have remained a large part of scouting¹⁶ for girls and boys. But as roles for women in society have changed, so have the Girl Scouts. Fifteen-year-old Mania¹⁷ Gaver says scouting helps her to gain valuable experience for the future. For instance, the girls can earn patches for their vests by learning about jobs and serving in the community.
MANIA GAVER: "To get patches you have to interview different people in different jobs, you can shadow like museum curators and stuff like that. There are a lot of trips you can go on, service-wise, and a lot of volunteer opportunities."
Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts in the United States a few years after two organizations, the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, began in England. Her goal was to help girls develop physically¹⁸, mentally and spiritually by bringing them into community service and the open air.
FAITH LAPIDUS: Lidia Soto-Harmon, chief executive of the Girl Scout Council, says Low faced many challenges.
LIDIA SOTO-HARMAN: "There were people that did not believe that girls should do anything more than learn how to bake and be at home, and here she was taking girls camping. We have pictures of her with girls and machetes because when they would go camping, they really went out into the wilderness¹⁹."
Today more than ten million girls take part in scouting in one hundred forty-five countries -- from Argentina to Zambia. There are three million girls and adult volunteers in the Girl Scouts of the USA. Ms. Soto-Harman says this year is a time for the organization to look back and ahead.
LIDIA SOTO-HARMAN: "As we approach this one hundredth anniversary we are just bursting at the opportunity we have to really inspire a new generation of girls with the message of leadership, with the message of caring for the environment, with the message of being kind to others, respecting country. These are values that we all share and that we need to celebrate."
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CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: In New York City last week, a four-year-old Pekingese named Malachy won the top prize at the nation's top dog show.
ANNOUNCER: "Best in show at the one hundred thirty-sixth annual Westminster Kennel²⁰ Club, America's dog show, is the Pekingese."
Malachy defeated six other dogs to take the top prize on Valentine's Day. The five-kilo dog with a big head of hair has won many top prizes. But last year he finished second at Westminster. More than two thousand dogs competed in the two-day show.
This year, the club replaced its longtime television sponsor, dog food maker²¹ Pedigree. News reports said Westminster officials were unhappy with commercials showing sad images of dogs in need of adoption²². The new sponsor, Nestle Purina PetCare, presents much happier looking dogs in its commercials.
FAITH LAPIDUS: Half of all Americans own a pet, mostly cats and dogs. That means a lot of business for the pet care industry. Americans spent fifty billion dollars on their pets last year. That was twenty-three percent more than in two thousand seven.
In Alexandria, Virginia, Gay Lynn Fourney brings her dog to A Dog's Day Out, which offers day care and overnight services.
GAY LYNN FOURNEY: "She's my little girl, and I just want to make sure that she has a good time during the day while I'm at work."
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Chas Richardson owns A Dog's Day Out. He says his business earns a twenty-five percent profit.
At “A Dog’s Day Out” in Alexandria, Virginia, people bring in their dogs to stay either for the day or overnight
CHAS RICHARDSON: "The pet industry continues to explode with growth. Our market, dog care, we believe has nothing but growth ahead of it."
Duane Ekadahl heads the Pet Food Institute, a trade group. He thinks the pet care industry has grown because more people are treating their pets like members of the family.
DUANE EKADAHL: "People want to return the affection they get from pets, and so they buy good food, good products, toys and so on."
Some cans of higher-priced pet foods have names meant to sound like something their owners might order at a restaurant. One example for cats: "Tender Turkey Tuscany With Long Grain Rice and Garden Greens in a Savory²³ Sauce."
In Arlington, Virginia, Kamala Mohammed manages a bakery for dogs -- the Dogma Gourmet²⁴ Dog Bakery and Pet Boutique.
KAMALA MOHAMMED: "We don't put any added salt, sugar or preservatives²⁵ into our cookies. In fact, I have some people that come in and buy a cookie for themselves because it's all human-grade ingredients."
Judy Smith shops there -- she buys cookies for her three dogs. She also owns a travel agency, Woof Woof Travels, which serves the growing number of people who travel with their pets.
JUDY SMITH: "I can tell you which cities are very pet-friendly, and once you've decide on that, fix you up in a hotel or motel, give you activities that you can do there, including restaurants that are pet friendly."
FAITH LAPIDUS: Bark and Bubbles in Fairfax, Virginia, is a business where owners can wash their dogs themselves or pay to have it done. Dogs can also have a birthday party and even get a facial so they look their prettiest.
High school student Shannon Parker chooses the self-serve dog wash. She gives her dog a bath and a blueberry facial. She says the visits are worth the cost compared to the trouble of washing her dog at home.
SHANNON PARKER: "She kind of gets the water all over the house. For me, it's just a much better option than me trying to do it myself."
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CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Our program was produced by Brianna Blake, with reporting by Faiza Elmasry, Selah Hennessy and Deborah Block. I'm Christopher Cruise.
FAITH LAPIDUS: And I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

1 scout   

n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索

参考例句：

• He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵，受了重伤。
• The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。

2 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

5 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

6 orphans   

孤儿( orphan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poor orphans were kept on short commons. 贫苦的孤儿们吃不饱饭。
• Their uncle was declared guardian to the orphans. 这些孤儿的叔父成为他们的监护人。

7 abducted   

劫持，诱拐( abduct的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（肢体等）外展

参考例句：

• Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that she was abducted. 侦探尚未排除她被绑架的可能性。
• The kid was abducted at the gate of kindergarten. 那小孩在幼儿园大门口被绑架走了。

8 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

9 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

10 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

11 transit   

n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过

参考例句：

• His luggage was lost in transit.他的行李在运送中丢失。
• The canal can transit a total of 50 ships daily.这条运河每天能通过50条船。

12 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

13 integration   

n.一体化，联合，结合

参考例句：

• We are working to bring about closer political integration in the EU.我们正在努力实现欧盟內部更加紧密的政治一体化。
• This was the greatest event in the annals of European integration.这是欧洲统一史上最重大的事件。

14 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

15 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

16 scouting   

守候活动，童子军的活动

参考例句：

• I have people scouting the hills already. 我已经让人搜过那些山了。
• Perhaps also from the Gospel it passed into the tradition of scouting. 也许又从《福音书》传入守望的传统。 来自演讲部分

17 mania   

n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好

参考例句：

• Football mania is sweeping the country.足球热正风靡全国。
• Collecting small items can easily become a mania.收藏零星物品往往容易变成一种癖好。

18 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

19 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

20 kennel   

n.狗舍，狗窝

参考例句：

• Sporting dogs should be kept out of doors in a kennel.猎狗应该养在户外的狗窝中。
• Rescued dogs are housed in a standard kennel block.获救的狗被装在一个标准的犬舍里。

21 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

22 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

23 savory   

adj.风味极佳的，可口的，味香的

参考例句：

• She placed a huge dish before him of savory steaming meat.她将一大盘热气腾腾、美味可口的肉放在他面前。
• He doesn't have a very savory reputation.他的名誉不太好。

24 gourmet   

n.食物品尝家；adj.出于美食家之手的

参考例句：

• What does a gourmet writer do? 美食评论家做什么？
• A gourmet like him always eats in expensive restaurants.像他这样的美食家总是到豪华的餐馆用餐。

25 preservatives   

n.防腐剂( preservative的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The juice contains no artificial preservatives. 这种果汁不含人工防腐剂。
• Meat spoils more quickly without preservatives. 不加防腐剂，肉会坏得快。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》