For A Change articles from April 2003

For A Change archives from April 2003

Ear to the ground.(positive thinking)
April 1, 2003... Communication skills Recently I took my son and daughter and three of their friends for a short holiday with my elderly parents in Normandy. One of my exuberant carload was Ange, the 12-year-old son of Congolese friends. It didn't take...

Iraq poses long-term questions. .(Editorial)
April 1, 2003... By the time you read this, some of our countries may well be at war. Few issues have caused such division in recent times as Saddam Hussein's despotic regime. The Bush and Blair governments argue that such a regime must not be allowed to...

On the frontiers of a needy world: like most western Europe countries, Switzerland is seeing a rise in asylum applications. Mary Lean finds out how the Swiss are responding. .(Cover Story)
April 1, 2003... It has been snowing heavily in the border town of Vallorbe, Switzerland. On the steps of the railway station, two men from Iraq are smoking and gazing out across the valley at the people skiing on the slopes opposite. They have been in...

Sierra Leone's grassroots peace-builders: Keith and Ruth Neal, retired school teachers from Manchester, recently visited Sierra Leone, where a devastating civil war ended last year. They found people determined to rebuild. (Healing History).
April 1, 2003... On 18 January 2002 a peace agreement between Sierra Leone's central government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels formally ended a brutal ten-year civil conflict. This was followed by peaceful elections in May, when Ahmad Tejan Kabbah...

A musician, heart and soul: not many people launch out on a new career in their late sixties, but composer Margaret Rizza did. She talks to Mary Lean. (Profile).(Interview)(Biography)
April 1, 2003... Margaret Rizza writes music to lift the heart and still the mind. Her chants, hymns and choral works have made her something of a celebrity--a description she would detest--on the Christian retreat circuit. She describes her work simply as 'a...

Jazz and spirituality: a trip to India transformed life and music for Uwe Steinmetz. He talks to Paul Williams. (Turning Point).(Interview)(Biography)
April 1, 2003... German saxophonist and composer Uwe Steinmetz is passionate about art. 'Through it I experience dreaming, laughing, crying,' he says. 'When I listen to my favourite jazz musicians or to an organ work of Olivier Messiaen, I feel carried away...

Clean Election Campaign diary: Wanjiru Mungai writes about her experience of working with a campaign to end corruption in Kenyan politics. (Kenya Elections).
April 1, 2003... On the evening of 29 December last year, Samuel Kivuitu, the Chairman of Kenya's Electoral Commission announced the victory of Mwai Kibaki in the presidential elections, bringing to end the 24-year presidency of Daniel Arap Moi. Kenyans were...

From Antoine Jaulmes, France. .(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2003... Congratulations to Bryan Hamlin for his courageous attempt to bridge the gap between Europe and the USA by reminding us Europeans of a few facts about America (Feb/March FAC). Yet he may have partly missed the point. If European 'animosity'...

Globalization: threats and opportunities. (Newsdesk).
April 1, 2003... Over 170 guests from 16 countries, some 35 distinguished speakers, more than 30 hours of speeches, discussions, papers and presentations. By sheer volume and richness of content the recent conference 'Globalization: embracing opportunity,...

Voice for people power: David Swann is a medical doctor who has become known in Canada for sticking his neck out on points of principle. He talked to Gordon Legge at a moment when the debate about war with Iraq was at its height. (Profile II).(Interview)(Biography)
April 1, 2003... When Canadian physician David Swann was in Iraq last November, he attended a birthday party. An elderly Iraqi woman looked at him and said, 'We look to you [in the West] for leadership. I hear you want to bomb us. Yet you say, very few...

Dramatic response to 11 September. (People Making A Difference).(International Institute of New Jersey theater project)
April 1, 2003... A remarkable theatre project is building bridges between communities in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from the site of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 9.001. Jersey City was labelled 'terrorist city' by a...

Jamaican award. (People Making A Difference).(Woodrow Mitchell wins Norman Manley Award)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Woodrow 'Woody' Mitchell, Managing Director of a remarkable community-based company in Walkerswood, Jamaica, has won the 2002 Norman Manley Award for 'excellence in service to the community'. Walkerswood Caribbean Foods grew out of 50...

Fight for life: Janet Walton writes from her experience of mental illness--one of the few remaining taboos of our age. (Living Issues).
April 1, 2003... Most of us are against discrimination. Yet we fail to see that we often discriminate against those things we fear most. Psychotic illness is one of those strange enigmas people fear. They therefore discriminate against those who suffer from...

From welfare to what? Reading 'Nickel and Dimmed' opened Cricket White's eyes to the invisible Americans. (Bookmark).(Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America)(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... I have never held a job as a waitress or worked in Wal-Mart or in any other aspect of the service industry. When I read Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America *, I was dismayed at my ignorance. I didn't know: * that most adults...

A different view of Australia.(No Longer Down Under: Australians Creating Change)(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... No Longer down under: Australians creating change by Mike Brown Grosvenor Books, Toorak, Australia, 2002, ISBN: 0-9592622-3-7. This is an MRA/Initiatives of Change book and like MRA/IC it breathes optimism, joie de vivre and commitment to...

Voices of sanity. (Webbsite).(Forgiveness: Breaking the Chain of Hate)(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Little of the news from Washington is calculated to raise the hopes of a world that urgently needs answers. Yet clues to those answers often arrive here from abroad. The question is whether our policy shapers grasp them. Case in point: the...

Free enough to care. (Reflections).(practicing purity)
April 1, 2003... It is remarkable how a new look at something can inspire personal transformation. During my two years of participation in this global movement, I'd learned that IC adherents share a common moral compass for daily decision-making. Its four...

Kenya offers hope again. (Guest Column).(peaceful elections held)(Column)
April 1, 2003... Kenya has given hope to the entire African continent. In 1963, Kenya surprised the world. Its founding father, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, invite people of all races to help build the you nation. There had been fears that the white community...