For A Change articles from October 1998

For A Change archives from October 1998

Realpolitik of the 21st century.
October 1, 1998... One of the themes discussed at this year's `Agenda for Reconciliation' conference at the MRA centre in Caux, Switzerland (see page 4), was `healing history--remembering, restoring, forgiving'. So many ceasefires and peace treaties in...

Building bridges across the divides: it's not just the ethereal scenery that brings people from conflict areas to Caux in Switzerland.
October 1, 1998... It's not just the ethereal scenery that brings people from conflict areas to Caux in Switzerland. Mary Lean takes part in a remarkable meeting of hearts. Breakfast time at the international conference centre for Moral Re-Armament in Caux,...

Towards a sympathy of civilizations: Paul Williams attends an intergenerational conversation on ethics for the next century.
October 1, 1998... How can we prepare for the 21st century when we don't know what it will bring? One bridge, of course, is those who will live a significant proportion of their lives in both the present and the next centuries. They can, to some extent, prepare...

Pulling people out of the poverty trap.
October 1, 1998... Why does Herefordshire farmer Chris Evans organize a conference on ethics in business and industry half way up a Swiss mountain each year? The most tangible and obvious reason was summed up well by the first speaker at this year's Caux...

Journalists look to their role in ethnic conflicts.
October 1, 1998... Media professionals from Northern Ireland, Bosnia and South Africa spoke of the role that the media plays in conflict situations, at a five-day gathering of the International Communications Forum (ICF) held in Caux. The media in the...

Turning the tide in Kingston: after years of decay, Jamaica's capital city has begun to see its heart restored. Martin Ed Henry meets a man who has devoted the last 12 years to this challenging task.
October 1, 1998... Morin Seymour thrives on `turning nothing into something'. Now 53, he has built a solid reputation for breathing new life into near bankrupt institutions. And he is keen to apply that experience in `new and varied problem-solving...

Mightier than the sword? Choice Okoro attends a symposium in Ottawa on the responsibilities of artists and writers as champions of human rights.
October 1, 1998... A quotation from Montreal writer Louis Dudek, displayed in one of Toronto's subway trains, reads, `My two dogs tied to a tree by a ten foot leash kept howling and whining for an hour till I let them off. Now they are lying quietly on the grass...

Creating a life for Gwion.
October 1, 1998... `What can I tell you but that this boy is subnormal, both physically and mentally?' Although he and his wife Mary had become increasingly uneasy about two-and-a-half-year-old Gwion's slow development, Welsh solicitor R Gwynn Davies was...

Backyard rivers.
October 1, 1998... Since India's market reforms, companies have had to become more innovative to remain competitive, says management consultant Arun Wakhlu. `There is a big need for integration across teams within a company, for example between research and...

Giraffes at work in Yugoslavia.
October 1, 1998... When war broke out in Yugoslavia in 1991 a group of developmental psychologists and educators started to get together to try to stop the violence. Among them was a student, Jelena Vranjesevic, now a lecturer in developmental psychology at the...

Lessons from Stasi files: twenty years after studying in East Berlin, Timothy Garton Ash read his secret police file.
October 1, 1998... Twenty years after studying in East Berlin, Timothy Garton Ash read his secret police file. Pierre Spoerri looks over his shoulder. Today, almost ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germans still speak about the amazing process...

Making a difference: reconciliation, reconstruction and development in Stutterheim.
October 1, 1998... Making a difference--reconciliation, reconstruction and development in Stutterheim by Barbara Nussbaum Vivlia, South Africa, 1997 Why should a book about a small country town in South Africa's Eastern Cape be of significance to people...

Search for Wilhelm Heilmann: Norwegian Resistance veteran Leif Hovelsen travels to Germany to try and make peace with his former Nazi jailer.
October 1, 1998... During the Second World War my country Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany. I was active in the Resistance but was betrayed by a friend and arrested. After six weeks of solitary confinement and interrogations, I was condemned to death and lived...

Healing slavery's hurts in 2000.
October 1, 1998... `The Mayflower that carried the Pilgrim Fathers to religious liberty in America went on her next trip for a load of slaves. The good ship Jesus was in the slave trade for our fathers. Is it to be wondered at that race and colour prejudice still...

Hanging by a thread.
October 1, 1998... I'd just stopped and turned to my brother. `Careful.' I said. `I think there's a crevasse just ahead.' And as I was saying it, the snow crust beneath my feet crumbled, and I was falling into another crevasse which had been hidden without a...

Up, up and away!
October 1, 1998... When I was 12, I had the opportunity to visit the United States, where my father was building a scientific submarine. The aerospace company he was working for also built the lunar module for the Apollo space programme and I met the astronauts...