For A Change articles from December 2003

For A Change archives from December 2003

Maiden voyage.(Ear To The Ground)(Stockholm to Tallinn)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Sailing between the rocky pine-clad islands of Stockholm's archipelago on my way to Tallinn, Estonia's capital, I was reminded strongly of my first trip in 1990, as the Iron Curtain began to crumble. We sailed on the maiden voyage of the...

Baltic necklace.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... This time, I went to Tallinn for a conference on cooperation and reconciliation in the region. Knud Simon Christensen, a Danish journalist, talked of the necklace of nine countries around the Baltic, and the role of small countries, whom no-one...

Bottled time.(Ear To The Ground)(Sweden in World War II)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... During World War II Sweden received many refugees from the Baltic region. Recently a Swiss tourist found a bottle containing a letter which had been thrown into the sea by an Estonian refugee in Sweden 60 years ago. 'Is the war over?' asked the...

'The best of us all'.(Ear To The Ground)(Anna Lindh remembered.)(Brief Article)(Biography)
December 1, 2003... With these words, Margot Wallstrom, Sweden's EU Commissioner, described Anna Lindh, our foreign minister, shortly after her murder in a Stockholm department store. A possible future Prime Minister, Lindh represented the best of Sweden's...

Saintly celebrations.(Ear To The Ground)(St. Birgitta is now one of the three patron saints of Europe.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Earlier this year I was one of 5,000 people--including the Swedish royal family and politicians--who attended an ecumenical service at the castle of Vadstena to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the birth of another great Swedish woman, St...

Nature names.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Swedes love nature and are very knowledgeable about it. They will not only tell you a bird's name, but how it sounds in the morning, its nesting habits and from where it has migrated. Their worship of nature is illustrated by some family names....

Don't do as I do.(From The Editor's Desk)(Editorial)
December 1, 2003... 'Adolescence is the time in our lives when parents become most difficult.' Jack, 15, is one of 500-plus teenagers who gave their views to The Times for four days in October, about what it is like to be young in Britain today. It is...

Repairing the carpet of community: housing is about people--not just bricks, maintains a trail-blazing housing non-profit organization in Richmond, Virginia. Mary Lean discovers how giving people the best can transform no-go areas.(Lead Story)(Cover Story)
December 1, 2003... If you want to improve the lives of the poor, housing is the place to start, maintains TK Somanath, the Executive Director of a remarkable coalition in Richmond, Virginia, USA. The Better Housing Coalition (BHC) has regenerated some of the...

Still hammering for humanity: Kenneth Noble looks at a charity which is rehousing poor people worldwide, and discovers that it has launched a most unusual 'theme park'.(Update)
December 1, 2003... Readers with long memories may recall a front cover of For A Change where former US President Jimmy Carter, surrounded by roof joists, wielded a hammer. He was helping construct a home for Habitat for Humanity (HFH), a charity which works with...

People to people.(People Making A Difference)(Direct Link is a charity that links people in Kenya and Britain.)(Interview)(Biography)
December 1, 2003... When Pam McGibbon booked a holiday of a lifetime in Kenya in 1988, she had little idea that she was embarking on a lifetime of love and commitment. McGibbon, then 46, was living in Scotland, where she and her husband ran a company...

SEED for big apple.(People Making A Difference)(Helping people in poverty.)(Interview)(Biography)
December 1, 2003... The thought of tackling poverty in New York City is enough to overwhelm most people. Even identifying where to begin is daunting. This has not deterred Melinda Lackey and Carlos Monteagudo from charting a vision to create widespread economic...

Art for people's sake.(People Making A Difference)(North Edinburgh Arts Council)
December 1, 2003... Every summer Edinburgh becomes a mecca for artists from all over the world thanks to the Fringe and International arts festivals. But what can art do for a local community with more mundane issues to tackle? Pilton and Muirhouse,...

No bribes for healthy business: corruption is bad for business, says Suresh Vazirani, managing director of an award-winning hi-tech company.(Profile)
December 1, 2003... You are in hospital with a life-threatening illness. Malaria, say, or TB or hepatitis or, God forbid, HIV/Aids. The doctors need to diagnose exactly what you've got. And they need to know fast. They take a sample of your blood and run it...

The crisis of maleness: men today behave as if they're dispensable, maintains Tim Muirhead--but they're not.(FAC Essay)
December 1, 2003... Don't get me wrong. I like being a bloke. But it does come with certain drawbacks. We die younger; we get sick more; we are much more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of violence; more likely to commit suicide; more likely to lose...

Women on top of the world: Yana Bey encounters heartbreak and triumph as a team of Indian women conquer Argan Kangri, an unclimbed peak in the Karakoram Range.(Endeavour)
December 1, 2003... It is mid-morning on 17 July 2003 and l am perched on a rock in Camp I (5,190 metres), facing the icefall of the Phunangma glacier in Ladakh, India. The mountains towering into the azure sky above our heads are part of the eastern Karakoram...

An infectious spirit of self-help: Gajanan Sawant tells Bhanu Kale how deciding not to accept poverty led to the transformation of his community.(Turning Point)
December 1, 2003... Life was tough, even for someone like me who was used to poverty,' says Gajanan Sawant as he looks back to his early married life in Mumbai. 'There was no drinkable water, no road, no school, no doctor and no electricity. We had to walk half an...

Young Poles face EU membership: Poland's decision to join the European Union has been a subject of hot debate in schools and universities.(First Person)
December 1, 2003... I was born and raised in Poland. But as my father is French, I've often questioned my true allegiance. Which of the two countries should I put first? What if they were at war with each other? Since December 1997, when Poland became an...

Addict's journey of hope: Neichu Angami describes a young man's fight against addiction and his campaign to help HIV/Aids sufferers.(Living Issues)
December 1, 2003... Peshia Lam was 32 when he died earlier this year. During his short life he had suffered many hardships, been a drug addict, recovered, contracted Aids and lived life in such a way that many remember him with pride. His native village,...

Fiji's highschool students learn to care.(Newsdesk)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The South Pacific island nation of Fiji has experienced three coups d'etat since 1987. These have highlighted tensions between indigenous Fijians and those of Indian extraction, many of whose forebears were brought to the country as indentured...

World unites against corruption.(Newsdesk)
December 1, 2003... In October the United Nations reached agreement on a groundbreaking Convention Against Corruption. A signing ceremony takes place on 9 December in Mexico, whose President, Vincente Fox, is a leading supporter of Transparency International (TI),...

From Rev Logan Kirk, Lockerbie, Scotland.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... When I read Kenneth Noble's review (Oct/Nov 2003) of the book Married, a fine predicament by Anne Roiphe, I was reminded of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a marriage address for his niece (which had to be sent rather than personally...

For a change.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... FOR A CHANGE 'During the war in Lebanon, the Christian militias bombed my car and shelled my region, killing 10 people. I wanted revenge. Then in the early 1990s, when I was teaching at the university, one of my students brought me 'For A...

Pointing the way to peace.(Webbsite)
December 1, 2003... To Mubarek Awad, the inside of an Israeli jail cell was nothing new. He'd been in many. What was new in 1988 was that outside that jail an Israeli man had joined him in his hunger strike. He found it baffling. Awad, who was (and is) by no...

Opening up to honesty.(Reflections)
December 1, 2003... The origin of honesty is in the soul. I have an image of a big central place inside where the accountability, the direction--giving, the sorting-out and the discerning in my life takes place. It is only as I've moved into this place that I've...

Don't underestimate UNESCO--or the power of women.(Guest Column)
December 1, 2003... I shall never forget the 31st General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It took place only a few weeks after the terrorist attacks on Manhattan and Washington. The atmosphere before the...