For A Change articles from April 2004

For A Change archives from April 2004

Breathtaking.(EAR TO THE GROUND)(Bogota airport)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... It's not only the altitude of 2,700 metres which takes your breath away when you arrive at Bogota airport. The sight of this city of seven million inhabitants is impressive, as it sprawls out onto the savanna in three directions and is held in...

Warmth and war.(EAR TO THE GROUND)(treatment given to guests and history of Colombia)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The welcome one gets from friends could not be warmer. The way they offer to take you wherever you want to go, by car or on foot, is typical--even if, as an individualistic European, you would sometimes rather go by yourself! People are...

Tough approach.(EAR TO THE GROUND)(Alvaro Uribe)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The previous government's attempt to negotiate with the guerrillas led to interesting televised debates but to no ceasefire whatsoever. After this, the nation overwhelmingly elected Alvaro Uribe, who has set out, with US help, to defeat the...

Traffic.(EAR TO THE GROUND)
April 1, 2004... One feature of life in Bogota is pico y placa, ('rush hour and number plate'). The final figures on your number plate decide which two days of the week you are not allowed to drive between 7 and 9am or 5 and 7pm. Fines are high, so this...

Love of country.(EAR TO THE GROUND)(Foundations for Freedom)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... In January, 40 people, half of them under 25, took part in a weekend course run by Foundations for Freedom in a lovely retreat centre in the mountains outside Bogota. Many more wanted to take part. The course helps people identify the changes...

Welcome to the EU!(FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK)(European Union)
April 1, 2004... On 1 May, the European Union will have 75 million new inhabitants--and ten new member nations, bringing its total to 25. The 'rich man's club' is opening its doors to its less wealthy neighbours--amid muttering from many of those already...

The art of survival: Kenneth Noble looks at the importance of maintaining the Earth's biodiversity and, first, meets two daring artists who aim to let nature speak for herself.(Olly Williams, Suzi Winstanley)(Interview)(Cover Story)
April 1, 2004... A large, rather austere studio off Ladbroke Grove, London. White walls, exposed metal girders and a large extractor fall below the roof-lights which are the only source of outside light. A few chairs and a sofa. Yet wildlife painters Olly...

Our hand in the future: what can be done to avert mass extinction on a scale not seen since the age of the dinosaurs.
April 1, 2004... Last summer I saw an extraordinary sight. A dunnock, a bird about the size of a sparrow, was feeding a young cuckoo which was about eight times as big as itself. European cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other species. Each female cuckoo...

Why should they be good citizens? James Wood teaches a subject which challenges both schools and society at large.(EDUCATION)
April 1, 2004... Since September 2000, Citizenship has been a compulsory subject in English and Welsh secondary schools. Its aim is to develop young people as fully-fledged members of all the communities to which they belong, from their school to the global...

The F-word.(PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE)
April 1, 2004... THE F-WORD: Images of Forgiveness, a powerful and moving exhibition which ran in London in January, gave voice to 26 people from around the world who had experienced tragedy or atrocities. Their photographs, by Brian Moody, were accompanied by...

Restoring a Bosnian jewel.(PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE)(Donald Reeves)(Banja Luka mosque)
April 1, 2004... WHEN DONALD REEVES retired as Vicar of St James Church, Piccadilly in London in 1998, his mind turned to Europe. 'I still had some energy, and a lot of conviction, left,' he says. 'I began asking myself about the state of Europe's soul.' ...

Lesson from the dying.(PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE)(Leslie Davies)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... WHEN CANADIAN volunteer Leslie Davies set out to make a difference to the lives of the poor in Calcutta, she was surprised at the difference they made in her own. A former high school teacher in Calgary, Alberta, Davies now works as a...

Pride, perjury and the psalms: twenty-three years in Parliament, nine months in the Cabinet, seven months in prison--Jonathan Aitken talks to Mary Lean.(PROFILE)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... For a British national newspaper to print an extract from a new book on the Psalms* is unusual, to say the least. All the more so, when the book is by someone who has waged an acrimonious libel battle against the paper--and when the interview...

Workers' butterfly aims to start a whirlwind: how can enterprises better serve the wider community? David Erdal has a radical solution.(BUSINESS)
April 1, 2004... 'Corporate social responsibility' has become a business mantra. But how to make it practical? It is one thing to pay decent wages, support local charities, or clean up the environment. But businessman David Erdal has a more radical solution. He...

My biggest mistake.(SINCE YOU ASK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... I WAS 14, and had been fostered on and off since birth. My mother visited me regularly and paid for my upkeep. But since I was 11 my foster mother had indicated many times that she'd be glad to see me go--she blew hot and cold. I recall...

Ethics and the journalist: what does it take to make a responsible journalist.(ESSAY)
April 1, 2004... Bob Lowery, an award-winning journalist based in Thompson, Manitoba, once remarked to me: 'If God could trust us with success, we'd have changed the world long ago.' As a fellow journalist, that set me thinking. Dealing with failure is fairly...

Hope in Liverpool.(NEWS DESK)
April 1, 2004... IT WAS A weekend of hope as representatives from communities from around the UK got together in February to discuss initiatives being undertaken to bring opportunities to deprived areas. The occasion was the Hope in the Cities National...

Encouraging good governance.(NEWS DESK)(IC Centre for Governance)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... IF ONE WERE to total up the collective number of years of experience among the audience present, a new Indian centre for governance was launched amidst several centuries of work in that field. The IC Centre for Governance was inaugurated in...

IC web insights.(NEWS DESK)
April 1, 2004... A SERIES OF signed commentaries has become a weekly feature on the international website of Initiatives of Change. Writing after a visit to Lebanon, Indian academic and author, Rajmohan Gandhi, said how impressed he was by Beirut, which...

Call for good governance in Switzerland.(NEWS DESK)(Cornelio Sommaruga)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... CORNELIO SOMMARUGA, President of the Caux Foundation, spoke at two public meetings in Geneva in January on 'Switzerland after the federal elections; the world after the war in Iraq'. International civil servants, diplomats, retired...

Beyond hunting, shooting and fishing: the once dilettante scion of a Scottish business family tells Paul Williams of the revolution that God brought to his life.(TURNING POINT)
April 1, 2004... DAVID HOWDEN HUME, who was born into a well-to-do business family in Scotland, pinpoints the major turning point in his life to an evening out at university. In the early 1950s, Hume spent his period of national service as a junior officer...

The power of music: English musician Kathleen Johnson Dodds talks to Ann Rignall about song-writing, India and Renewal Arts.(RENEWAL ARTS)
April 1, 2004... Kathleen Johnson Dodds has always loved music. Even as a small girl she used to make up tunes. However, when she came to leave school in Hertfordshire, England, the idea of a musical career had never occurred to her. 'I was smothered with...

Narrowing the gap between ideals and interests.(CAUX CONFERENCE 2004)
April 1, 2004... A series of international conferences will take place from 8 July-19 August 2004 at the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux, Switzerland PROGRAMME 8-14 July: Service, Responsibility, Leadership: enabling individuals and...

Cracking coconuts for God.(DATELINE ASIA)(Lee Jaeku)
April 1, 2004... On a recent visit to Bangalore I met a South Korean martial arts teacher with an extraordinary story to tell. When Lee Jaeku was five he started training in Tae Kwon Do. Now over six feet tall, he towers above his students, who address him as...

Too busy not to listen.(REFLECTIONS)
April 1, 2004... THERE IS SO much talk today--sound-bites, TV, radio, mobiles, internet chat. Do we take time to listen, even to think? We sometimes comment 'I hear you', but do I listen to what is behind the words--the pain or the joy, the fear or the...

Romania deserves better than medical terrorism.(medical profession corruption)(Column)
April 1, 2004... Over the last 14 years, 160 British health professionals have made 267 visits to Romania under the auspices of Medical Support in Romania, a charity which provides equipment and training. Bemused by this, a young Romanian asked me why such...