For A Change articles from April 1999

For A Change archives from April 1999

Who's to say who's right.
April 1, 1999... Groucho Marx once quipped, `I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member'. Not everyone is so self-deprecating about the organizations, groups and cultures from which they gain their sense of identity--and often their...

Britain's multicultural schools: good but could do better: in the last 50 years pupils from many different ethnic minorities have entered the British education system.
April 1, 1999... In the last 50 years pupils from many different ethnic minorities have entered the British education system. How well are secondary schools handling the situation Fiona says that her fellow sixth-form college students don't say anything...

Getting beneath the frail cloak of colour.
April 1, 1999... The Victorian Multicultural Commission recently launched a campaign aimed at getting students to value Australia's diversity. It encouraged students to complete, on a postcard, two sentences beginning: `Being an Australian means...' and `If I...

`Everybody can go to college'.
April 1, 1999... Children who would never have considered higher education are having their sights raised by a programme sponsored by the colleges in Claremont, South California. Each year `I'm Going to College' Day gives fourth graders (eight- and...

School for Salboni.
April 1, 1999... As the first person from his village in India to graduate from college, Sanat Mahato had his sights set on a job in the city. So he went to a hospital in the nearby city of Jamshedpur to talk to a doctor, whom he had been told could help him to...

Electric connections.
April 1, 1999... Italian businessman Luciano Silveri has followed a star in life--the challenge of combining business and a commitment to social justice. It has led him to be a pioneer in the field of green electricity generation and to set up a foundation...

Talent for job-creation: over 165,000 people in developing countries found work in 1998, thanks to David Bussau and his organization.
April 1, 1999... Over 165,000 people in developing countries found work in 1998, thans to David Bussau and his organization. John Williams meets a man who knows how to help people to help themselves. If you had gone to a football game near Wellington, New...

Mother to Berlin's minorities: ten years after the fall of the Wall, Michael Smith visits Berlin and meets the woman charged with bringing down the barriers between the city's multi-racial communities.
April 1, 1999... Landing in Berlin last November, 10 years to the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I discovered a vibrant new city in construction. Potsdamer Platz, the commercial heart, is a forest of cranes, putting up showcase offices and shopping...

Brief history of time.
April 1, 1999... `A brief history of time' by Stephen Hawking, Bantam Books, 1988 In the clear frosty predawn of 17 November I was watching the Leonid meteor shower. Not far away a tawny owl was calling. Pieces of comet debris blazing trails through the...

Selfish gene.
April 1, 1999... `The selfish gene' by Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 1989 In the clear frosty predawn of 17 November I was watching the Leonid meteor shower. Not far away a tawny owl was calling. Pieces of comet debris blazing...

Conflict and resolution.
April 1, 1999... Conflict and resolution by Allan Griffith New Cherwell Press, Oxford, UK, 1998, [pounds sterling] 14.95 paperback. ISBN: 1 900312 15 8 Fifteen years ago in a ground-breaking article in Foreign Policy magazine in the United States, Joseph V...

FT (Financial Times) hosts media soul searching.
April 1, 1999... Mahatma Gandhi once said that `the sole aim of journalism should be service'. Many see the aims of today's newspaper moguls as increased profit margins and political influence. Press ownership was one of several issues dissected at a recent...

Farmers' solidarity.
April 1, 1999... Farmers from rich, developing and former Communist countries met at the Agricultural Advisory Centre in Plonsk, Poland, late last year for the latest in a series of Farmers' Dialogues. These started when French and Swedish farmers met to talk...

Other 3 Rs.
April 1, 1999... When Ann Rignall and Joy Weeks wrote The other 3 Rs, a resource for teaching values in secondary schools (see FAC July/August 1992), they had no inkling that its fiercest champions would come from the world of business. The resource pack,...

Monday morning with nowhere to go: the experience of unemployment has changed Kathy Beenen's approach to people who are going through hard times.
April 1, 1999... In 1989 my husband Kelly and I made two big decisions, to which we believed God had led us. I left my career of 13 years in order to spend more time with our two young sons. We also sold our house without knowing where we would go. After...

Signpost in the jungle.
April 1, 1999... Towards the end of World War II, David Young, an officer in the Royal Engineers, had been seconded to a division of the Indian army in Burma. His unit had just crossed the Irrawaddy River and reached Katha, 300 miles north of Mandalay, when...

Watching Myrlie fly.
April 1, 1999... Racism is often subtle these days in the United States. It is more likely to come in a Brooks Brothers suit than in a Ku Klux Klan robe. But it is still the biggest issue that needs to be tackled here. This is the view of Myrlie Evers-Williams,...

When the doing has to stop.
April 1, 1999... By nature I am what Australians call a `doer', not a contemplative. Sitting still, reading a book, was not my strong point. About three years ago I was in end-stage renal failure and very ill. I could barely walk around the block, and life...

Dancing outside Parliament.
April 1, 1999... It was one of those nights in January 1991 which were to decide Lithuania's destiny. A group of us had gathered beside one of the huge fires which had been lit outside the Parliament Buildings night after night. We were singing, dancing and...