For A Change articles from October 2004

For A Change archives from October 2004

Harmony and agony.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Svetlana and Maja Kutlaca, mother and daughter from Serbia, give a harpsichord lecture recital at last July's Renewal Arts Forum at the Initiatives of Change centre in Caux. Svetlana traces the history of ideas about harmony from the Crusades...

Khasi comeback.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Khasi musicians and singers from Shillong in north-east India tell me that they are grateful for the Welsh missionaries who in the 1880s brought the Gospel and education to their people. However, they also suppressed the Khasi language and...

Haunting sounds.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Catholic chapel opposite the front door of the conference centre is the setting for a recital by two remarkable musicians--Markus Stockhausen from Germany and Tara Bouman from the Netherlands. Markus plays the flugelhorn, the silver trumpet...

Origami marathon.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Origami workshop, led by three women from Japan in traditional dress, is supposed to meet from 9 to 11 each morning. I look in at 8pm and it is still going strong. Not a Japanese lady in sight. Laura Noble, 11, from England is doing the...

Individuals matter.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Why did Russian theatre director Viatcheslav Dolgachev bring an American play, Twelve Angry Men, from his New Moscow Drama Theatre to Caux? He replies that he looked for a play that would show that the choice of the individual does matter--set,...

Red Thunder.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... On the first evening we are treated to a colourful pageant of Plains Indian dance by the Red Thunder troupe from Alberta, Canada. On the final morning they reappear in entirely different costume to perform two Maori dances from New Zealand. The...

Beginnings.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Young German composer Uwe Steinmetz's Genesis combines imagination with vision. His seven movements for strings and wind instruments are preceded by readings from the Qur'an in Arabic, the Bhagavad Gita in Hindi, the Torah in Hebrew and the New...

Caux 2004: narrowing the gaps.(From The Editor's Desk)(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... For many of our readers, the overriding news image of the summer of 2004 will be the agonies of Darfur, Sudan, where tens of thousands died in ethnic attacks and hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes. The harrowing pictures of...

The human face of security: peace is more than the absence of war.(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... In an ideal world, everyone should be able to enjoy a general sense of 'security'--dignity and freedom, personal safety, access to basic services and resources. Sadly, the world is far from ideal, and millions of people suffer and die in...

The door, the hinge and the handle: the summer started off with a perfect introduction to the spirit of Caux.(Service, Responsibility And Leadership)
October 1, 2004... The opening conference of this summer in Caux, called 'Service, Responsibility, and Leadership' (SRL), was much more than just an ordinary conference. In the United States, there is a programme called the 'Giraffe Project', which promotes...

Intern for change: Jose Carlos Leon Vargas from Mexico describes his first experience of Caux, as one of the interns who ensured the smooth running of the conference centre.(First Person)
October 1, 2004... CHANGE RESTS in the hands of those who have the courage to make a different future come true. I started believing in Initiatives of Change this summer after I took part in its internship programme at Caux, Switzerland. As an intern, I was...

Phuong Nguyen & Miho Sanou: accordion & piano con brio: a London-based former Vietnamese boatperson and his Japanese wife tell Kenneth Noble of their love of music, teaching and freedom.(Profile)(Biography)
October 1, 2004... 'Stunning! Technically brilliant,' was the verdict of a top-flight professional musician after a concert by the husband and wife duo, Phuong Nguyen (accordion) and Miho Sanou (piano) during the Renewal Arts session in Caux this summer. Even I,...

Businesses urged to close the world's poverty gaps.(Business & Industry)
October 1, 2004... India and China have achieved enviable rates of economic growth over the past two decades, said Prabhat Kumar, the Director of an independent Centre for Governance in India and former Governor of Jharkand State, but 'there is a palpable crisis...

Lech Walesa calls for agents of change.(Business & Industry)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... 'YOU CAN change a government in a night, and laws in the life of a parliament, but a change of mentality is vitally important, and is very hard to bring about,' Lech Walesa, President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, told the conference. The former...

Awakener of conscience.(Business & Industry)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... BERNARD CASSEN (above), Director General of Le Monde Diplomatique, architect of the Porto Alegre World Social Forums and founder of the ATTAC movement for economic justice, described 'liberal globalization as a social failure that accentuates...

Fairer deal needed for Third World farmers; Michael Smith attends a farmers' dialogue on tackling poverty.(World Farming)
October 1, 2004... At the end of July, Europe and America agreed to slash their agricultural subsidies, which have been blamed for driving Third World farmers out of business. No timetable was set, and aid agencies and campaigners thought the deal didn't go...

How my farm coped with loss of subsidies.(World Farming)
October 1, 2004... MY WIFE and I have a family farm in the South Island of New Zealand, 100km from Mount Cook. We own 865 hectares. In the summer we have nearly 10,000 sheep, 100 beef cattle and 100 hectares of barley and lucerne crops. We farm with two and...

Middle East peace initiative.(News Desk)
October 1, 2004... FOUR OF the Israelis and Palestinians behind the Geneva Initiative, a civil-society effort to produce a peace agreement for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, spoke together in Caux. Welcoming Avraham Burg, Tsvia Walden, Yasser Abed Rabbo...

The power of dialogue.(News Desk)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... 'PEACE IS possible--though it isn't easy,' Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Rome-based St Egidio Community stated. Drawing on the community's long and successful involvement with the peace process in Mozambique, Riccardi underlined the...

Israel needs the Palestinians, says Knesset member.(News Desk)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... 'WE WILL not have peace for Israel without peace for the Palestinians; there is no future for Israel without a future for the Palestinians,' said Michael Melchior, a former Chief Rabbi of Norway and former Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel. ...

Like a Cork out of a Bottle.(New Book)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... (NEW BOOK) Brian Boobbyer was one of the outstanding sportsmen of his generation. This collection of short pieces reflects his faith, his love of nature and literature, and his passion for sport. Like a Cork out of a Bottle by Brian...

Tackling communal violence in Nigeria.(News Desk)
October 1, 2004... TWO NIGERIANS spoke side by side of their work to reconcile Muslim and Christian in Kaduna, northern Nigeria--after having taken part in inter-religious violence themselves. Imam Muhammad Nurayn Ashafa, the Imam of Kaduna, and the Rev James...

Caux 2005.(News Desk)
October 1, 2004... 7 July-20 August Narrowing the gap between ideals and practice A series of international conferences The annual lofC conferences in Caux, Switzerland, offer opportunities to hear of intiatives already bringing change, and to exchange...

Great Lakes encounter; Frederic Chavanne reports on a meeting of people from one of Africa's most turbulent regions.(News Desk)
October 1, 2004... 'WAR IS born in the human spirit. And it's in the human spirit that the ramparts of peace must be erected,' said Ibrahima Fall, echoing the preamble of UNESCO's constitution. As Kofi Annan's Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region of...

Aid is not enough.(News Desk)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... SADAKO OGATA, President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, spoke of the need for a 'seamless harmony' between 'humanitarian action' and 'development assistance'. Humanitarian...

What is your experience of forgiveness?(Since You Ask)
October 1, 2004... I WAS 14 at the time of the partition of India. My uncle died and my family lost their home and possessions. My parents never spoke about this period or laid blame. However, those events came back to me many years later at an interfaith meeting...

Breaking the legacy of hatred.(Dateline Asia)
October 1, 2004... 'My family is extreme and they find it hard to accept things from other people and places,' says an Indonesian student. 'But step by step my heart is opening and I can accept people from different religions and countries.' Throughout Asia there...

Daybreak.(Reflections)
October 1, 2004... 7.15 AM. A small group gathers in the bay window of the great meeting hall in Mountain House, Caux, looking out across Lake Geneva to the mountains beyond. Afghan, Egyptian, Lebanese, Swiss, Australian, Moldovan, American, British; Christian,...

Engaging with North Korea.(Guest Column)
October 1, 2004... In the Sixties, there were occasional news reports of Japanese soldiers emerging bewildered from the jungle, having not realized that World War II was over. One wasn't sure whether to deplore their foolishness or to admire their dedication....