For A Change articles from December 2006

For A Change archives from December 2006

Ear to the ground.
December 1, 2006... Letting go In the yogic tradition, the practice of pratyahara teaches you to let go, through first facing up to your pain and entering into it. This requires determination. We tend to defer things like this which have to do with our...

Who cares?(FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK)
December 1, 2006... With a name like For A Change the choice of theme for the last lead story was an obvious one: living with change. And of course it' s not only at milestone moments like these that we face change. We wake up to it every day--global change,...

Climate of change: the world has the resources to respond to climate change, maintains Alan Porteous. But we need to get on with it.(LEAD STORY)
December 1, 2006... HUMANITY is faced with a menacing question. What happens if we hit nature's thresholds, the so-called tipping points of the global systems that sustain us? And will we be left with the resources to adapt? The evidence for global climate...

Business of change: when the whole context in which you've existed changes, what do you do? The Managing Director of a family firm describes his experience.(Company overview)
December 1, 2006... OUR FAMILY firm was founded by my great-great-grandfather in the early 19th century. My forebears had a strong Christian ethos, and this had significant consequences for the company when, in the 1930s, my grandfather accepted the challenge to...

Life of change: Mary Lean reflects on a major upheaval in her life.(LEAD STORY)(Editorial)
December 1, 2006... 'YOU MUST have seen a lot of changes in your time?' the visitor asked the ancient churchwarden. 'Yes,' he replied, 'and I've opposed every one of them!' I can identify with that. I hate change. It makes me edgy, fearful and...

To Romania, withCdetermination: his dream was to go to Antarctica. Instead he has spent his life challenging totalitarianism, and its aftermath. Patrick Colquhoun talks to Mary Lean.(Profile)(Brief biography)
December 1, 2006... YEARS AGO, when he was living in Oxford, Patrick Colquhoun rode his bike at full speed into the back of a truck. He went on down to the river to ride along the bank directing a boat in a sculling race. Two hours later he had an x-ray, and...

Building peace from the grassroots.(PHOTOSTORY)
December 1, 2006... THIS MONTH sees the release of a new film, The Imam and the Pastor, which tells the story of a remarkable peacemaking partnership in northern Nigeria, a region where thousands have been killed in Muslim-Christian conflicts. The film's...

Faith and reason is Islam: Egyptian professor Nasr Abu-Zayd speaks up for Islam's respect for the rational.(IN MY VIEW)
December 1, 2006... THE POPE'S LECTURE in September in Regensburg, Germany, about faith and reason in Christianity provoked the anger of Muslims all over the world. In some minor instances there were violent reactions. Though I would have preferred an...

The path to hope and dignity: despair and fear are the enemies of Saliba Sarsar, a Palestinian American, and Yehezkel Landau, an Israeli American.(impact of polarity and antiterrorism measures on society)(Viewpoint essay)
December 1, 2006... OUR GLOBAL society is fast losing its balance and its moderate centre. It is becoming more and more polarised and violent. Human life and dignity are losing their sacred character for an increasing number of people, including those who claim to...

A walk on the wild side.(people making a difference)
December 1, 2006... TERRY O'LEARY'S brother was doing a PhD when he discovered he had a life-threatening disease. O'Leary dropped everything in order to take care of him. When he died, she was left without money, without a job and without a home, since she was not...

Cards for an eco-friendly Christmas.(people making a difference)
December 1, 2006... WATABARAN, which means environmental sustainability in Nepali, is a fair-trade company established by Nepalese and Swedish youth. When its founder, Bjorn Soderberg, first arrived in Nepal in 2001, the environmental state of the capital city,...

Hope for a change: Stan Hazell looks back over the years since the magazine was launched.(PAST AND FUTURE)
December 1, 2006... WHEN For A Change was launched 19 years ago the magazine team set out to feed you, the readers, with a diet of hope. They said they wanted to create something different from other publications by focusing on what was going right in the world as...

For A Change Online: Mike Lowe is at the hub of a team shaping a metamorphosis for the magazine.
December 1, 2006... IT'S TIME for a change at For A Change. From early 2007 an enthusiastic new team will begin to chart a course for the next phase of the magazine's development. For A Change Online will appear at www.forachange.net and the site will also still...

Seeing the world through new eyes: Jose Carlos Leon Vargas looks back on nine months in Asia with an unusual training programme.(FIRST PERSON)(Action for Life (AfL) leadership training program)
December 1, 2006... IF GLOBALISATION had a positive face, it would look like the Action for Life (AfL) leadership training programme, with its 45 participants from 27 countries and different cultures and religions, living and learning together. From November...

Hooked for life: Paul Williams has been editing Turning Point since it began in 1992. He tells Laura Boobbyer about some of the significant moments in his own life.(turning point)
December 1, 2006... PAUL WILLIAMS can't remember the first major turning point in his life. He was an 11-month-old baby, curled up in a tight ball with a severe form of tubercular meningitis. The doctors tried flashing lights in his eyes and sticking pins in his...

Something to sing about.(A DIFFERENT BEAT)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... IN MY last column I pay tribute to three American brothers whom I first met in a Hollywood theatre more than 50 years ago. Any history of Initiatives of Change might have one chapter headed 'the Colwell years'. Their contribution to this work...

A, be, see.(REFLECTIONS)
December 1, 2006... 'THERE IS no way to peace,' Mahatma Gandhi declared. 'Peace is the way.' More enigmatically, English poet TS Eliot wrote, 'In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not!' In Australia, social...

Peace, bread and health.(GUEST COLUMN)
December 1, 2006... In my culture, as in most other cultures, we wish somebody well when we wish them peace, daily bread and good health. These three things embody humanity's greatest longings. The main precondition for peace, or comprehensive security as some...