|
|
A new virtual community and website have been launched for the teenagers of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina and others across the US who want to reach out to them. The website, called Generation Pulse will host writing, art and photos submitted by young people. Essays, poetry, prose, journal pages, digital art, paintings, illustration and doodles will all be contributed, exploring the thoughts and feelings of young people about Hurricane Katrina, and their experiences as well as pieces on any other aspects of growing up and daily life. Prizes will be awarded for the entries best answering the questions: What matters to you? What gives you hope? To express yourself and be involved, Contact: Contact: Generation Pulse Refugee Voices More than 1,700 schools across the UK will stage an assembly focusing on refugees and asylum seekers from around the world. Refugee Voices has been launched by Amnesty International as part of the Protect the Human campaign aimed at giving young people new and easier ways to show support for humanity and human rights. This is the biggest project of its kind ever conducted by Amnesty and it is designed to humanise the issues concerned. The assembly involves students and teachers or groups, telling the stories of several refugees, some of whom are ordinary people and others are well-known, like the Portsmouth footballer, Lua Lua, or singer, Gloria Estefan, “An estimated 300,000 students, including 15,000 in Northern Ireland, will see Refugee Voices,” said Patrick Corrigan, the Programme Director for Amnesty International. “The initiative has been a runaway success, providing an innovative way of addressing important issues through individual stories that students can identify with.” Contact: Amnesty International MDG Awareness Being Raised In Croatia During the past few months several non-governmental organisations and UN agencies working in Croatia have been making an to raise public awareness of the Millennium Development Goals. Instead of engaging into expensive public campaigns they chose to organise activities aimed to help local communities in their everyday lives. One of those activities was the donation of materials needed for a pre-school programme in a Roma village in the North-Western part of the country. Devastated by a flood last summer, the pre-school's old building was unprepared to host 20 children which attend Croatian language programs aimed to help them integrate in the schooling system. One of the aims of the MDGs is to combat HIV and AIDS, something which is being dealt with in Croatian society more and more frequently. Poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, environmental sustainability and global partnership are just some of the themes being tackled with in the daily life of this small central European country, struggling to enter the European Union. Still suffering from consequences of being a country devastated by war during the Nineties, Croatia today deals with problems like minority rights and the treatment of asylum – seekers. The civil society is still seeking its position, trying to influence the political elites towards responsibility in their actions. The published statistics show that half of the world's children are living in poverty; the gap between those who have and those who don't is growing. Every day we are faced with pictures of people whose basic needs like water, food and medical care are not being met. Never the less, we do not help them. At least not as much as we should (or even could). Because of the actions of the growing civil society in Croatia, things might change for the better here. A good start and a good birthday gift to the UN, which celebrates its 60th in October 2005. Only about 3% of the total Croatian population is engaged in some form of civil engagement. That is not a comforting fact. The legacy of socialism, which was all about 'us' and not at all about 'me', is preventing the people from taking action. Yet, some changes can be seen. When laws are broken, the non-governmental organisations are often the ones reacting. Schools win Organic Food Awards Four schools have been celebrated as winners of the Soil Association School Food Awards. Announced at the BBC Good Food Show by TV Chef, Jamie Oliver, the schools were awarded for their efforts in having the best lunches, the best educational approach to food issues or for being the school with the best all-round approach. The four winners are Hulford Primary School, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire (Soil Association’s Food for Life School of the Year Award), Thomas Fairchild Community School, London (The Times Body & Soul School Food Education Award), and Landscore C of E Primary School, Swindon (Highland Spring School Dinner Award). Primary schools from across the UK entered to publicise their schools effort in raising the quality of their school meals. Representatives of the winning schools were treated to a Jamie Oliver cookery demonstration before they received their awards. “There are lots of winners in the Soil Association School Food Awards – the schools which serve healthy, tasty meals, the local and organic producers who provide the ingredients, and above all the kids who are going to grow up knowing what good food is and where it comes from, “ says Jamie Oliver. Soil Association’s School Meals Policy Advisor, Jeanette Orrey said, With resources such as the Food for Life report into school dinners and national TV coverage with Jamie Oliver’s programme ‘Jamie’s School Dinners’, the health of young people and the planet are now on the agenda, creating lasting positive change for the futures of kids across the UK. Contact: www.soilassociation.org Based in Thurston and Mason Counties, Washington State, Good GruB is a grassroots organisation, which dedicates itself to nourishing communities through empowering people to grow good food. GRuB’s Kitchen Garden Project builds raised bed gardens for low-income families, especially those with single parents or large numbers of children. Beneficiaries are able to eat or sell what their garden produces and the scheme has vastly improved the diet and income of its recipients. One single mother said; ‘I am so grateful that I’ve been able to grow vegetables and herbs, with a minimum of labour. As a working single mother, I don’t always have a lot of time for gardening. Having GRuB install my garden has made a big difference!’. Good GRuB aims to help all ages low-income people in society, they run youth initiatives which help hard to reach young people as well as creating community gardens designed to give therapy and bring friendship to senior citizens. The building of the frame beds is carried out by volunteers, including many young people who as part of a summer program work on planting, tending and harvesting the garden produce to be sold at markets. There are full time GRuB staff who monitor the project as well as professional gardening mentors who work with community groups to educate them in horticulture and help increase their garden’s yield. The organisations website has instructions on how to build community and individual raised gardens as well as reporting on the successes the project has achieved to date. Contact: A Peace Mala is a symbolic bracelet that promotes friendship, respect and peace between faiths and people all over the World. It aims to overcome prejudice and celebrate what makes people different from each other. The word ‘mala’ is Sanskrit and literally translated it means ‘garland of flowers’. Each ‘flower’ or bead on the mala can represent a mantra or a prayer but in the Peace Mala each bead is used to represent a faith. The bracelet is comprised of fourteen coloured beads with a central white or frosted white bead strung between symbolic knots. The coloured beads represent the spiritual paths and their peace messages for the world. The central white bead represents the wearer. The final single bead is used as a toggle to bring the mala around the wearer's wrist. This represents unity, harmony and peace. The idea for the Peace Mala came from a classroom discussion at Coedcae School, Wales, when RE teacher Pam Evans and her students realised that something needed to be done to counteract prejudice and religious intolerance. Pam said ‘ I thought of something simple butt effective that would engage the minds of young people; a symbolic bracelet, loaded with messages, that would be fun to make a wear’. Since it began in 2002 The Peace Mala project has enjoyed great success. The idea was embraced by members of many faith communities, who welcomed it as a positive move towards encouraging mutual respect and harmony within communities. It has high profile religious supporters, which have include His Holiness Pope John Paul II and his Holiness the Dalai Lama. In November of 2005 a ‘bespoke’ Peace Mala will become available and the project will also be launching Awards for Youth to encourage young people to cultivate universal respect. To learn more about the project and find out the meaning of the Peace Mala beads visit: www.peacemala.org.uk Contact: (Source: Positive News: http://www.positivenews.org.uk) (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.) |
