For A Change articles from December 2002

For A Change archives from December 2002

Power of the powerless.
December 1, 2002... Those of us who saw them will never forget the TV images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, with terrible loss of life. But perhaps we also recall other images from earlier in the year. The protests at the G8...

Beyond the smoke of Turtle Hill: film-maker Alan Channer describes the journey that has led him to make `The Cross and the Bodhi Tree', a film about Christian encounters with Buddhism.
December 1, 2002... The Monastery of Turtle Hill looks out over the rice fields and the minefields of north-west Cambodia. It was desecrated during `the Pol Pot time', like nearly every other Buddhist monastery in the country. Today it has been rebuilt, and its...

Say sorry? Impossible! Mary Lean hears how Joseph Wainana's quest for revenge turned into a campaign for reconciliation.
December 1, 2002... Twice in one year, Joseph Wainana was driven out of his home by mobs from an opposing ethnic group. He planned revenge, but chose instead to forgive. He now devotes all his time to promoting reconciliation between Kenya's 42 tribes. ...

Return of the White Flowers: (White Flower Day - a popular charitable event started back in 1910).
December 1, 2002... White Flower Day--a popular charitable event of the 1910s--has made a comeback in Nizhny Novgorod in response to the increase of tuberculosis (TB) in Russian cities. Its roots go back to the TB epidemic at the beginning of the 20th century...

New hope for Tiedoli: (for 40 years Mario Tommasini has campaigned for better social conditions in Parma, Italy).
December 1, 2002... For the last 40 years Mario Tommasini has campaigned for better social conditions for the most vulnerable people in his home province of Parma, Italy. His latest project is bringing the small mountain village of Tiedoli back to life. It...

Freedom of the airwaves: (radio broadcaster Peter Onebe).
December 1, 2002... Not many people are alive to tell the tale that they have been knocked down by Idi Amin, Uganda's President from 1971-79. Radio journalist Peter Onebe not only survived this encounter but also being declared state enemy number one by Amin's...

Saving lives in the shanty town: at the age of 23, Diana Patricia Pabon-Ramirez has already devoted more than a decade to tackling the social problems of her Colombian community.
December 1, 2002... Altos de Cazuca is a hillside shanty town on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia. It was built on a former sand quarry and is home to 70,000 people whose numbers are constantly being inflated by refugees from the fighting in the interior of the...

Towards the future by way of the past: memories are the primordial soup of politics, says German theologian Geika Muller-Fahrenholz, and how we deal with them can determine the future ...
December 1, 2002... This is an awkward time to speak about forgiveness and healing. Just now it is difficult to look forward to the time when the processes of rebuilding can begin. But in the long term, it is always the peacemakers who must come to the fore. ...

Welcome to Britain: do we have to make the people who come to us for help so unwelcome.
December 1, 2002... In 1996, when I first volunteered to visit immigration detainees held near Gatwick Airport in south-east England, I had little idea of what a huge world issue I was getting involved in. Since then applications for asylum in Britain have...

Declaring war on corruption: Michael Smith attends the world's biggest anti-corruption conference in the Czech Republic.
December 1, 2002... At the west end of Wenceslas Square in Prague, a crowd gathers around mime artists who show how greed and graft make grasping animals of us all. Nearby, a marquee houses an `Art against Corruption' exhibition of posters, photos and bitingly...

Tackling corruption in Kenya.
December 1, 2002... Kenya is a beautiful country with rich natural resources but it is rocked by corruption. The result is that though most people work hard they are trapped in terrible poverty. I heard about corruption but always thought that it would never...

Quest for principled business: Bernard Marguerite, a French journalist living in Poland and President of the International Communications Forum, reflects on what he heard at a recent meeting of business leaders.
December 1, 2002... On the day of the terrorist attacks on America I was sitting as an observer at the final day of a London session of the Caux Round Table (CRT) for members of the business and banking communities and NGOs. I had already been impressed by the...

Time for rethinking.
December 1, 2002... For most Americans life has changed since 11 September. The events of that day and its aftermath have riveted indelibly on the American psyche how fragile were the peace and comforts we enjoyed. We had become too comfortable, too complacent....

Twain shall meet.
December 1, 2002... Waving my husband, Idrees, goodbye as he flew off to his country of birth, Pakistan, after the tragic terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, I had mixed feelings. He was going to visit his family and, in particular, his brother who had...

Facing Prague's demons.
December 1, 2002... I stand in a narrow underground corridor with a group of young American students and feel panic rising inside. `Some memories should not be brought back.' Some warped entrepreneur has turned the former Communist secret police preliminary...

To war against poverty.
December 1, 2002... In the wake of 11 September, Western governments pledged that the war against terrorism would be accompanied by a war against the poverty which kills millions of people in developing nations every year. A year on, and after the Bali...

What can Bouganville teach the peacemakers?
December 1, 2002... Bougainville, an island province of Papua New Guinea, had all the classic ingredients of conflict: a colonial border, differences of colour and culture, and a potential `gold mine' in the shape of a huge copper deposit. Many different strands...

Roots of conflict in Bouganville.
December 1, 2002... In 1899 Britain, the power in control of the Solomon Islands, ceded the northernmost islands, including Bougainville, to Germany in exchange for Western Samoa. No allowance was made for the fact that the people of Bougainville were of the same...

Mahboba's promise: three out of five children in Afghanistan are orphans. Jane Mills meets an Afghan refugee (Mahboba Rawi) who is determined to help them.
December 1, 2002... Afghanistan, standing at the crossroad between East and West Asia on the legendary Silk Road, has experienced wave after wave of invaders from before the time of Alexander the Great. According to Ahmed Rashid(*), the country and the people...

Will the world keep its word? Afghanistan is still waiting for freedom from hunger, disease and violence.
December 1, 2002... Afghanistan was in the spotlight for a few months last year. Today it is no longer `catchy' or `newsworthy'. Yet in April 2002, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that 6.1 million...

Forgiveness: asked for and granted.
December 1, 2002... A remarkable exhibition whichopened in Salzburg last July marks a further step towards Austrians' recognition of their past. Jewish people in Salzburg--their history, their culture, their suffering, at the Carolino Augusteum Museum, will run...

Cycling for others (Jenny Pye organized a bike ride around Lesotho).
December 1, 2002... When Jenny Pye announced her plan to organize a sponsored bike ride around the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa, she may not have fully appreciated just how high and remote some of the mountain routes would be. A mother of...

In their own backyard (teacher Andrew Mauhwana's work with educating girls in Uganda).
December 1, 2002... Andrew Mukhwana has a demanding teaching post in a large primary school in Kampala, Uganda. Yet, together with his wife, her sister and husband, he has started a project in his own back garden. When the Mukhwanas moved into a new suburb on...

Disaster averted, opportunity missed (Earth Summit).
December 1, 2002... Award-winning environmental journalist Geoffrey Lean has seen Earth Summits come and go. On his return from Johannesburg in September, he spoke at a meeting at the Initiatives of Change centre in London. We print extracts: It was a shame...

Will our children have water to drink? The Johannesburg Earth Summit highlighted the urgent need of many countries to secure greater freshwater supplies ...
December 1, 2002... `Water, water everywhere; and not a drop to drink.' The lament of the ancient mariner could soon have a prophetic ring to it. As highlighted by the recent Earth Summit in South Africa, we live on a planet which is largely covered by water but...

`I knew what I should do': ... Me Mokokoane, a pioneer of women's enpowerment in Lesotho.
December 1, 2002... As the seventh of ten children, growing up in rural Lesotho in the 1940s, Alixe `Malikeleli Mokokoane learnt hard work and discipline from her father, and generosity from her mother. She has put these qualities to good effect in a life devoted...

Can-do spirit of Vietnam: on a recent visit to Vietnam, British teacher Rob Neal found a nation that refused to be held back by its suffering.
December 1, 2002... Weaving through Saigon's Sunday night traffic on the back of a Honda Dream, it is impossible not to feel the energy and vibrancy of Vietnam's largest city. Local teenagers, resplendent in their dazzling ao dais and designer shirts, exchange...

Greening up the killing fields: Australian Harry Nesbitt had to contend with danger and hardship in his bid to rebuild the base of Cambodia's shattered agriculture.
December 1, 2002... Perched on a roof above Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, two Australians pulled the stopper from a bottle of Russian champagne and made a toast. It was a poignant snap shot; the buildings blackened by mildew and war and the brown puddled...

We have only one house.
December 1, 2002... For Washington DC it was a first--30,000 Muslims in the city for the convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) over Labour Day weekend in September. I'd first heard about it in June when I met Nafeesa Syeed, an aspiring...

Magic for my generation.
December 1, 2002... I used to see myself as a rather vindictive individual and, though a Catholic, never quite believed in what I proclaimed in church every Sunday: `as we forgive those who trespass against us'. I always remembered exactly who did what to my...

Partnerships for everyone.
December 1, 2002... The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg was the product of more than a year of preparatory meetings, tens of thousands of participants, millions of words and dollars. Was it all worth it? I do not think anyone expected a...

Exciting. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... Every morning I wake up and I wish I was back in South Africa. I am hoping I will win the lottery, get my exams without any work.... South Africa's warmth and vibrancy excites me. One of the main reasons my parents and I went to South...

Keeping on caring. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... Tummelong is a Christian-based charity with 12 different projects. These include an Aids hospice, orphanage, vegetable farm, and a centre for abused women and children. We were shown around by Thabang, who works in the abuse centre. You...

Unbalanced world. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... Awoken from my disturbed sleep Still these images are with me Making music live Dying to survive In this unbalanced world We went through some of the shanty towns and poorest parts of South Africa. Girls as young as 12 or 13 stood at the...

Safety nets. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... Safety nets These little houses, can you call them that? Colours there are, but a cold little shack. Metal and plastic, boxes they find, Equals tears and happiness, people so kind, The smokey smell,...

Colours of hope. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... Despite the problems, many of the people whom we visited were hopeful about SA's future, and the more we talked about it together, the more I saw this too. I noticed the way people said hello to each other on the street, the way there were...

Warmth. (Ear To The Ground).
December 1, 2002... We spent seven days in the the Kruger National Park. After we left I still found myself peering out of the window, eyeing trees up and down to spot leopards' tails, and rhinos' bodies. The light in South Africa is so warm. When the sun goes...

To war against poverty. (From The Editors' Desk).
December 1, 2002... In the wake of 11 September, Western governments pledged that the war against terrorism would be accompanied by a war against the poverty which kills millions of people in developing nations every year. A year on, and after the Bali...

A note on initiatives of change.
December 1, 2002... Initiatives of Change (formerly Moral Re-Armament) works for moral and spiritual renewal in all areas of life. It was born out of the work of Frank Buchman, an American who believed that change in the world must start with the individual. ...

What can Bougainville teach the peacemakers? Alan Weeks, an Australian worker with Initiatives of Change, points up lessons from the peace process that ended the nine-year conflict on the South Pacific island of Bougainville. (Lead Story).
December 1, 2002... Bougainville, an island province of Papua New Guinea, had all the classic ingredients of conflict: a colonial border, differences of colour and culture, and a potential `gold mine' in the shape of a huge copper deposit. Many different strands...

Correction.
December 1, 2002... In our last issue (Vol 15 No 5), we referred to the `settling of the bloody conflict in Bougainville, after the Papua New Guinean island seceded'. As made clear opposite, Bougainville is an autonomous province of PNG, and has not seceded.

The roots of conflict in Bougainville.
December 1, 2002... In 1899 Britain, the power in control of the Solomon Islands, ceded the northernmost islands, including Bougainville, to Germany in exchange for Western Samoa. No allowance was made for the fact that the people of Bougainville were of the same...

Mahboba's promise: three out of five children in Afghanistan are orphans. Jane Mills meets an Afghan refugee who is determined to help them. (Profile).
December 1, 2002... Afghanistan, standing at the crossroad between East and West Asia on the legendary Silk Road, has experienced wave after wave of invaders from before the time of Alexander the Great. According to Ahmed Rashid *, the country and the people are...

Will the world keep its word? Afghanistan is still waiting for freedom from hunger, disease and violence. (Afghanistan).
December 1, 2002... Afghanistan was in the spotlight for a few months last year. Today it is no longer `catchy' or `newsworthy'. Yet in April 2002, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that 6.1 million...

From Virginia Mariezcurrena, Lund, Sweden. (Letters).
December 1, 2002... As an Argentinian student in Sweden and Germany, I am astonished by the way Europe thinks about corruption in developing countries. I have to teach them that it is not unavoidable, and that you can live a whole honest life down there. It is...

From John Bond, Canberra, Australia. (Letters).
December 1, 2002... In recent weeks Australians have gone through the agony of our worst peacetime disaster--the Bali bombing--in which 180 people died, half of them Australian, almost certainly at the hands of Muslim extremists. It happened a year after an...

From Kate MacLachlan, Invernesshire, Scotland. (Letters).
December 1, 2002... Tomorrow is 9/11 and I wonder how many people even remember where Srebrenica is, let alone that twice as many people died in that act of violence as died in the Twin Towers. I come from Belfast and have also watched my countrymen destroy their...

From Guri and Rolf Ulfrstad, Oslo, Norway.
December 1, 2002... Andrew Stallybrass's interview with Cornelio Sommaruga (Aug/Sept 2002) is really outstanding, in its content as well as in its style and form. The man and his story, so told, go right to one's heart. There is hope for our battered and torn...

Forgiveness: asked for and granted. (People: making a difference).
December 1, 2002... A remarkable exhibition which opened in Salzburg last July marks a further step towards Austrians' recognition of their past. Jewish people in Salzburg--their history, their culture, their suffering, at the Carolino Augusteum Museum, will run...

Cycling for others. (People: making a difference).
December 1, 2002... When Jenny Pye announced her plan to organize a sponsored bike ride around the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa, she may not have fully appreciated just how high and remote some of the mountain routes would be. A mother of...

In their own backyard. (People: making a difference).
December 1, 2002... Andrew Mukhwana has a demanding teaching post in a large primary school in Kampala, Uganda. Yet, together with his wife, her sister and husband, he has started a project in his own back garden. When the Mukhwanas moved into a new suburb on...

Disaster averted, opportunity missed: award-winning environmental journalist Geoffrey Lean has seen Earth Summits come and go. On his return from Johannesburg in September, he spoke at a meeting at the Initiatives of Change centre in London. (Earth Summit).
December 1, 2002... It was a shame that the dates of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg were brought forward a week. The orginal plan, made long before the Twin Towers attack, was that it should end on 11 September 2002. The date would have emphasized two...

Will our children have water to drink? The Johannesburg Earth Summit highlighted the urgent need of many countries to secure greater freshwater supplies. Alan Ervine talks to Kenneth Noble about what can be done to turn aspiration into reality. (Water).
December 1, 2002... `Water, water everywhere; and not a drop to drink.' The lament of the ancient mariner could soon have a prophetic ring to it. As highlighted by the recent Earth Summit in South Africa, we live on a planet which is largely covered by water...

`I knew what I should do': Paul Williams meets Me Mokokoane, a pioneer of women's empowerment in Lesotho. (Turning Point).
December 1, 2002... As the seventh of ten children, growing up in rural Lesotho in the 1940s, Alixe 'Malikeleli Mokokoane learnt hard work and discipline from her father, and generosity from her mother. She has put these qualities to good effect in a life devoted...

The can-do spirit of Vietnam: on a recent visit to Vietnam, British teacher Rob Neal found a nation that refused to be held back by its suffering. (First Person).
December 1, 2002... Weaving through Saigon's Sunday night traffic on the back of a Honda Dream, it is impossible not to feel the energy and vibrancy of Vietnam's largest city. Local teenagers, resplendent in their dazzling ao dais and designer shirts, exchange...

Greening up the killing fields: Australian Harry Nesbitt had to contend with danger and hardship in his bid to rebuild the base of Cambodia's shattered agriculture. (Sustainable Development).
December 1, 2002... Perched on a roof above Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, two Australians pulled the stopper from a bottle of Russian champagne and made a toast. It was a poignant snap shot; the buildings blackened by mildew and war and the brown puddled...

We have only one house. (Webbsite).
December 1, 2002... For Washington DC it was a first--30,000 Muslims in the city for the convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) over Labour Day weekend in September. I'd first heard about it in June when I met Nafeesa Syeed', an aspiring...

Magic for my generation. (Reflections).
December 1, 2002... I used to see myself as a rather vindictive individual and, though a Catholic, never quite believed in what I proclaimed in church every Sunday: `as we forgive those who trespass against us'. I always remembered exactly who did what to my...

Partnerships for everyone. (Guest Column).
December 1, 2002... The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg was the product of more than a year of preparatory meetings, tens of thousands of participants, millions of words and dollars. Was it all worth it? I do not think anyone expected a...