For A Change articles from February 2000

For A Change archives from February 2000

Heroic tasks for a world fit to live in.
February 1, 2000... Over the last months of the 20th century, this magazine reported and supported two grassroots campaigns, one global and the other British. Jubilee 2000 calls for the international debts of the poorest countries to be written off, removing a...

Power of forgiveness: could you forgive someone who destroyed your life, or even worse, killed you child? ... the world has reason to be grateful to people who, against all the odds, have found a way to forgive.
February 1, 2000... Who can deny the hope given to the world when a person's suffering or hatred is turned to good effect, either through remorse and repentance or a courageous act of forgiving, or perhaps through a dramatic religious conversion? It encourages the...

Forest: mankind's first and last refuge: Alan Channer joins people of many faiths and traditions at an ecological symposium in the Chateau de Klingenthal, France.
February 1, 2000... The Penan woman from the rainforest of Borneo plucked at the strings of a simple instrument and primordial music suffused the formal meeting room. An Algerian, dressed in white, held up the branch of a date palm. A Tibetan Buddhist monk lifted...

Harnessing Lusiana's human resources: (Francesco Montemaggiore's dedication to schools in Italy).
February 1, 2000... Three quarters of Italy cannot be farmed with modern equipment. The people, who have been living there since prehistoric times, would have left if the state had not provided services and offered incentives to stimulate the local economy. One of...

Helping Crimea's street children.
February 1, 2000... The Crimea is one of the best resort areas in the Ukraine, known for its beauty, warm weather, and recreational activities. However, one can easily find hungry street children. These homeless children need a `halfway point to help them...

Youth cyber cafe: (Claude Henrickson, Paul Auber and Dave McKoy set up a cyber cafe in Leeds to help youth with education and employment).
February 1, 2000... You are invited to make a better living. You move your family to a place where you think you can get good work and house and feed them, and even send your children to get a proper education. Instead you work your fingers to the bone only to...

Doing the music justice: Australian concert pianist Penelope Thwaites talks to Mike Lowe about music, parenthood and the need for grace.
February 1, 2000... `I've been working in an extremely competitive and unpredictable profession for 25 years,' says concert pianist Penelope Thwaites as she offers me another exquisite pastry in her beautiful north London home. `There is only room for so many...

How Dodds brightened up his game: fifties cricket star TC `Dickie' Dodds tells Paul Williams why he started hitting the ball harder.
February 1, 2000... When in 1959 TC `Dickie' Dodds retired after 13 seasons as opening bat for Essex County Cricket Club, the World of Cricket wrote that his had been a career `that delighted cricket followers all over the country'. What delighted them was the...

Peer pressure with a friendly face: when she was 16, Natalies Porter's stereotypes let her down. Drugs came to her in the hand of a friend, not some dodgy dealer.
February 1, 2000... Before I was 16, the words `peer pressure' mustered visions of playground bullies surrounding their victim and forcing them to do something they didn't want to do. Peer pressure seemed so forceful, that I was sure I would see it coming. In my...

New light from `down under'.
February 1, 2000... Just over 30 years ago the white Australia policy still controlled immigration to the largely Anglo-Irish society. Today Australia is renowned as one of the strongest and most diverse multicultural and multiracial societies in the world. ...

Weaving a tapestry in the Mediterranean.
February 1, 2000... Nagia Abdelmogney Said, an architect and mother of three from Egypt, placed a prayer rug woven by Muslim women in Cairo in the middle of the large meeting room at a Jesuit centre in Malta. Made of recycled cloth, the rug's many colours...

Political and religious leaders back Clean Slate Campaign.
February 1, 2000... The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, saw it as `a simple idea which expresses a deep spiritual truth'; the former Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Cahal Daly, said it `might have been designed for us--we are engaged in a new and...

Getting to grips with city issues: (dealing with urban problems).
February 1, 2000... `You are conscience-jerkers' was how a Leeds youth worker described the work of Hope in the Cities at a conference that drew people from British and American cities to Tirley Garth, MRA's conference centre in Cheshire, last December. Many...

Building community in Wales.
February 1, 2000... `Learning to be one community' was the theme of the fifth `Dialogue on Wales' role' held at St Donats on 20 November. A message from the National Assembly Health Secretary, Jane Hutt, was read to the 40 people gathered in Atlantic College's...

Grassroots Commonwealth: (Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Durban's theme "people-centred development; the challenge of globalization").
February 1, 2000... The November Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Durban, South Africa, had as its theme `People-centred development: the challenge of globalization'. In preparation for this, and to strengthen its grassroots...

Enlarged European market needs human values, says Poles.
February 1, 2000... The moral and ethical values needed in business and industry were highlighted at a recent international business conference in Rzeszow, Poland. `More and more countries are moving towards an integrated Europe in which the market economy will be...

Bridging the jobs-skills gap (in Britain).
February 1, 2000... Why are so many young people jobless in Britain, when manufacturing industry is experiencing recruitment shortages? What can be done to bridge the jobs-skills gap? These questions were discussed at a seminar organized by the shop-floor paper...

Forgiveness: breaking the chain of hate.
February 1, 2000... Forgiveness: breaking the chain of hate by Michael Henderson BookPartners, Oregon, 1999 ISBN 1-68151-050-0 Twenty years ago there were few books available on forgiveness; now there is a spate of them. Michael Henderson's is one of the...

Second conversion of Dr. George Dallas.
February 1, 2000... The second conversion of Dr George Dallas by Dr Roddy Evans Belfast, 1999 This important and insightful little book appears at the moment when negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland have reached a point where there are real grounds...

Wales and Lesotho - a unique partnership.
February 1, 2000... The path of aid does not always run smooth, as Welsh school children have discovered. A consignment of books worth [pounds sterling] 120,000 from Welsh primary school children was a casualty of the political unrest in the southern African...

Have you heard the one about --?
February 1, 2000... An English reviewer of a book of my commentaries wrote, `Michael Henderson has a good memory for old jokes.' Praise or criticism, the comment told me the reviewer was my age. This column may confirm his verdict. What with Clean Slate...

Window to another reality.
February 1, 2000... There is a growing interest in icons and icon painting, amongst people of all denominations and people of no faith. I believe this is more than a fashion trend. People are tired of empty materialism and intrigued by the spiritual depth of...

Asia's millennial message to the world.
February 1, 2000... Today we see a networking of humanity unprecedented in history. Our global megalopolis is linked by electronic communications and the global economic system, and shared values and lifestyles prevail. To its citizens, the dawn of the new...