For A Change articles from August 2001

For A Change archives from August 2001

Beyond forgiveness.
August 1, 2001... I was in India in 1993 when news came through that two-year-old James Bulger had been abducted from a Liverpool shopping mall, tortured and killed by two 10-year-old boys. Such a heinous crime, reported around the world, shook the British to...

Gore wins - then loses: how far can Americans trust their media? The American media has many failings but it still acts as a gatekeeper against the abuse of power ...
August 1, 2001... For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American journalists, the news coverage of the 7 November 2000 presidential election marks one of the lowest points in their professional careers. They were either surprised or embarrassed as they watched...

Values in action: working in the media can involve tough choices. Anastasia Stepanova talks to young professionals who have to make them.
August 1, 2001... How often we hear that `the younger generation don't have a fixed system of values and beliefs apart from money'. And then people wonder where the `generation gap' is coming from. Interviewing young media professionals in London gave me a...

From stones to water: (Daphne Brown raises money for provide water to remote Zimbabwe villages).
August 1, 2001... When Daphne Brown's mother died she left some money to the Miriam Dean Refugee Trust, a small organization working in Zimbabwe. Brown, who lives in Datchworth, Hertfordshire, UK, learned that the money had been used to provide water for the...

Hair raising flight: (Shabibi Shah's recounts her flight from Afghanistan in 1982).
August 1, 2001... In 1999, seven million people--about the population of Switzerland--were forced out of their countries by war or persecution. Shabibi Shah understands their experience all too well. Next March will be 20 years since she left her home in Kabul,...

Teaching in Mafia-land: (Pia Blandano tries to keep children in school in Palermo, Sicily).
August 1, 2001... Pia Blandano was born and lives in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, known for its beauty and its Mafia presence. Since Blandano entered the state school system as a teacher of mathematics, she has always worked in schools in areas controlled...

Parents start with themselves: a remarkable series of courses is helping Taiwanese parents to cope better with their children - and their own lives.
August 1, 2001... When Ren-jou Liu tells a parent, `I don't see any problem with your child,' the effect is often dramatic. `I was stunned,' says Hwa, a mother who attended one of `Teacher' Liu's parenting courses in southern Taiwan. `If there isn't any problem...

Dealing with the legacy of slavery: two hundred people symbolically scrubbed the steps of the slave-built US Capitol during a forum on connecting communities.
August 1, 2001... How do we answer racism? That question will be focused this August at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. It is a vital question. Racism causes widespread pain and anger in most countries, and this has frequently...

Japanese forecast cultural earthquake.
August 1, 2001... For long years, Japan has been braced for the next earthquake. The city of Kobe, so devastated by the quake of 1994, may have been rebuilt, but memories of it are etched deep and the shockwaves linger. At the MRA Foundation's Asia Centre in...

Bishop (Richard Chartres) dedicates MRA's London centre.
August 1, 2001... Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, dedicated the new MRA centre at 24 Greencoat Place, London, on 13 June. `During the [UK] election campaign there were constant appeals for transformation,' Bishop Chartres said, but people had been...

Rebuilding Somalia: exiled and in despair, Osama Jama Ali had no idea of the impact an unexpected letter would have on his life. The Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia's first government for a decade talks ...
August 1, 2001... Osman Jama Ali has an unusual CV for a deputy head of government. It includes a nomadic childhood in the interior of what was then British Somalia, seven years in the USSR studying electronic engineering, 16 years in the government of dictator...

Heart and soul for Europe: Edy Korthals Altes shocked the Dutch establishment when he resigned from the diplomatic service to become an outspoken wirter and peace activist ...
August 1, 2001... Edy Korthals Altes has spent most of his working life as a Dutch career diplomat, serving in New York, Sri Lanka, Paris, The Hague, Bonn, Rome, Jakarta, Brussels and Poland before his appointment as Ambassador to Spain. So his voluntary...

Now for the evergreen revolution: Prof. MS Swaminathan, a pioneer of India's green revolution, calls for a new approach to world farming.
August 1, 2001... In India, farming is part of our culture. Seventy per cent of our population--700 million people--are engaged in farming. Half the world's farmers live in India or China: every fourth farmer is Indian. Famines were recurrent in India...

Why I'm learning Spanish.
August 1, 2001... A brightly coloured, meshed hammock caught my eye recently as I strolled by the Potomac River across from Washington, DC. Stitched on the hammock in big letters was `El Salvador', apparently the homeland of its owners. That hammock struck...

In good heart.
August 1, 2001... I am an ordinary citizen of Mumbai, India, a mother of three wonderful sons and grandmother of six. It was natural for the insurance agent to send me for a health check before my cover could be renewed. I was advised to have a thallium...

Time for a rethink in agriculture.
August 1, 2001... The British government's immediate reaction to the foot and mouth epidemic--`to close down the countryside'--highlighted for many the value of our agricultural areas. Some saw the potential billions of pounds lost to tourism, others the end of...