For A Change articles from June 2000

For A Change archives from June 2000

Europe needs refugees.
June 1, 2000... On my way home the other day, I was stopped by a young girl, probably about 12 years old. She looked like a Romany asylum seeker from Eastern Europe--and, because I'm aware of the hard time they have had both at home and here in Britain, I...

Best of enemies: divided by 20 miles of water, France and England are old friends, neighbours and rivals ...
June 1, 2000... Sixty years ago, the English writer GK Chesterton wrote, `If an Englishman has understood a Frenchman, he has understood the most foreign of foreigners. The nation that is nearest is now the furthest away.' We even measure the distance...

Voice for the unheard believer: an unexpected chance to study in Russia led to Michael Bourdeaux becoming an authority on the Church under communism ...
June 1, 2000... Like many retired people, Canon Michael Bourdeaux doesn't let the grass grow under his feet. When I arrived at his Oxford home he was on the phone to The Guardian newspaper, negotiating to write the obituary of a Russian intellectual. Half way...

Seeds of hope for India's green revolution: (Deepak Mullick helping to do this).
June 1, 2000... One of the biggest challenges facing India is how to feed and clothe its vast population, which officially reached one billion in May. Deepak Mullick, Managing Director of Advanta India in Bangalore, is a man who is helping to do this. He is...

Transforming family conflicts in Mozambique: (Alfiado Manzuga, a conflict resolution facilitator in Mozambique).
June 1, 2000... For all their good intentions, non-governmental organizations often forget to deal with people in their own culture and instead try to influence them by involving them in projects. While providing financial resources, materials, food and other...

Tales for holistic education: (Christopher Gilmore, Director of Britain's Holistic Education Foundation).
June 1, 2000... At school Christopher Gilmore often failed in maths and science. Today, as Education Director of Britain's Holistic Education Foundation, he is encouraging children to overcome their fear of numbers and to change their concept of success and...

Making cooperation work: business consultant John Carlisle believes relationships are the key to success. He talks to Edna Yee about personal integrity, efficiency and faith.
June 1, 2000... Judging by John Carlisle's CV, with its list of academic achievements and publications, one might expect to find him in a white lab coat observing human behaviour. Instead, as a businessman, Carlisle applies the models of organizational...

`India's chance to lead the world': Michael Smith reports on India's information technology revolution which has turned the nation into a `software superpower'.
June 1, 2000... Two mighty rivers flow through India: the spiritual and the technological. They converge in Bangalore. Here one can visit the gleaming International Tech Park, 18km outside the city, or take part in `deep relaxation therapy' at a Swami...

Task for the long haul: (Cornelio Sommaruga elected President of the Swiss Foundation for Moral Re-Armament).
June 1, 2000... The former President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga, has been elected President of the Swiss Foundation for Moral Re-Armament, which runs MRA's conference centre in Caux. `Our society cannot afford to...

Fighting corruption (senior civil servants from Romania take part in a seminar on democracy in Copenhagen).
June 1, 2000... Fourteen senior civil servants from the anti-corruption department of Romania's Public Ministry recently took part in the fifth of a series of seminars on democracy in the MRA centre in Copenhagen. During their visit to Copenhagen, the...

Preparing for peace: (a conference in the Netherlands to deal with the multiculturalism of the Netherlands).
June 1, 2000... In the Netherlands we live in a haven of wealth and luxury. No wonder people affected by war, bad government, poverty and hunger, come here in great streams. `New' Dutch were among 120 people from different religious and cultural...

(John) Wesley rides again (in a concert).
June 1, 2000... The musical, Ride! Ride!, by Alan Thornhill and Penelope Thwaites, brought John Wesley, one of England's great religious and social reformers, to the stage. When it ran in London's West End in 1976, The Guardian's critic called it `one of the...

Crisis of poverty and debt in the Third World.
June 1, 2000... The Crisis of Poverty and Debt in the Third World by Martin Dent and Bill Peters Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 1999, [pounds sterling] 39.95 In this year 2000, the starkest issue facing our conscience is the gulf between the rich and...

Fateful words in the changing room: (Gordon Wise and MRA).
June 1, 2000... It was the visit to the grave of a school friend killed in training during World War II that set Gordon Wise thinking about the fragile train of events which led him to his life's calling. Last year, during a visit to his home town of...

No way to teach a seven-year-old: an English primary school teacher makes a plea that young children should not be crushed in an academic straitjacket.
June 1, 2000... Every day, every minute, of my teaching I am forced to compromise my ideals, and almost every primary teacher I know feels the same. We feel desperate because there seems to be nothing we can do. So we ask ourselves: do we continue working...

What we owe to our blind daughter.
June 1, 2000... Our second child was born on 1 July 1974 in Kampala. She was blind and deaf, and is now totally without speech, but each day we are discovering what an extraordinary privilege it is to have this child in our family. I admit that this...

Lebanon begins to remember.
June 1, 2000... I have had a small involvement with the entry by an Oregonian architectural firm, Murase Associates, in a competition to build a `garden of forgiveness' at the heart of Beirut. Its imaginative design has benefited from consultation with a...

Building amid the waving grass.
June 1, 2000... It's now 30 years. A relationship that has harboured many joys, some grief and quite a few hardships. Discoveries made about each other, surprises shared, three magnificent sons produced. A lifetime sharing, creating and seeking.... In...

South Africa in black and white.
June 1, 2000... When I travel round the world, I am interested by how South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy is celebrated overseas. The common epithet that is thrown around is `miracle'. This romanticization is not all good news for South...