Mois : février 2006

Linked to our presentation of Oung Chanthol – Cambodia.

Linked also to our presentation The Fight against Trafficking in Women and Children.

The Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center – CWCC, Tel/Fax 063 963 276, N° 323 Group 1, Stung Thmey Village, Svay Dangkum Commune, Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Oung Chanthol first noticed certain disparities between the sexes as a young girl living in a Cambodian refugee camp on the Thai border. As a teen-ager in the Rithysen camp, she observed hate crimes against women going on around her, as men and women, shell-shocked from surviving the Khmer Rouge, vented their frustrations.

“Even there, there was a lot of rape, a lot of domestic violence,” she says. “So I thought something had to be done.”

She surely wasn’t the first woman to think it. And Cambodia has other intelligent women working towards it. But Oung was one of the first, and her centers are arguably one of the most helpful to women in distress in Cambodia.

Oung, now 35, learned from her experiences in the camp, and during later schooling, that women and girls in her homeland would need sanctuary, as a place to run to when things looked absolutely hopeless.

Continuer la lecture de « Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center CWCC »

Linked to our presentation of Moses Zulu – Zambia.

Also linked to our presentation of Children’s Town Malambanyama Zambia.

The International HUMANA PEOPLE TO PEOPLE Movement

hqchair@humana.org; and
http://www.humana.org.

Africa Contact:

Murgwi Estate, Shamva, Zimbabwe;
PO Box 6345, Harare, Zimbabwe;
Tel: +263 71 7811;
and +263 91 420 420;
Fax: +263 71 6427.

Geneva Contact:

Av. Louis-Casaï 18, CH 1209 Geneva, Switzerland;
Tel: +41 22 747 7540;
Fax: +41 22 747 7616.

Linked to our presentation of Moses Zulu – Zambia.

Also linked to our presentation of The International HUMANA PEOPLE TO PEOPLE Movement.

The Children’s Town is a school project designed to address the plight of street children and other vulnerable children in giving them a chance to get off the streets, to get an education and turn their lives around into productive citizens.

The project provides a supportive environment and basic education to former street children and orphans from major cities and towns in Zambia and the surrounding villages.

The project was established in 1990 with only 2 children. As the number of children grew the physical structures of the project also grew from living in tents to building 4 residential homes. Now the centre serves as a school, a home and sound environment for 300 former street children and orphans.

The children are organised into family units, which provide them with a home environment. Discussing their character and behaviour and offering counselling regularly addresses the rehabilitation of children. All conflicts are followed up and appropriate authorities involved if necessary. A Social Worker conducts home visits to evaluate the situation in guardian’s houses as the project strives to reunite the children with their families in circumstances that are favourable. Files on the social background of the children are regularly updated. The statistics, current accommodation and occupation of those who have graduated are kept to establish the impact of the project.

The children at the project receive primary education, vocational training and learn to be responsible and productive. The Ministry of Education recognised Children’ Town as a community school. The school follows the ministry’s curriculum. The school facilitates a community based initiative of 5000 orphans in an outreach program for orphans in 240 villages around the school in trying to address the education, shelter, nutrition, clothing needs. The school also undertakes HIV/AIDS awareness programs.

Continuer la lecture de « Children’s Town Malambanyama Zambia »

Linked with Rozlana Taukina – Kazakhstan, with Reporters without borders and with Institute of war and peace …

Rozlana Taukina writes about her association: ANESMI (Association for Independent Electronic Mass Media – see Refworld) was formed in 1993 at a meeting of ten television and radio stations in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Today, it is an association of 83 broadcasting television and radio stations representing four of the five Central Asian Republics. (See Association of Independent Electronic Mass Media of the Countries of Central Asia – ANESMI).

The association seeks to develop television and radio business in Central Asia, foster good relations between the media and government, influence legislation on regulation of the mass media, and enhance information exchange among television and radio stations in Central Asia. It has advocated laws on author’s rights and advertising, and issued challenges to the state on the criteria selected for the redistribution of television and radio channels.

ANESMI plans to intensify their lobbying efforts by learning about methods used by the mass media in other countries to influence public policy. It has also organized periods of silence on radio and television to mark the deaths and persecution of prominent journalists and professionals in the media sphere.

The association has branches in Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Qoqand, Uzbekistan; and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

E-mail:

rozlana@anesmi.almaty.kz, and

muhtar@anesmi.almaty.kz.

links:

IWPR’S CENTRAL ASIA REPORT, No. 130

NIS Media Orgs by countries;

Eurasianet.org;

Analyst;

UNESCO Media Resource Center.

linked with our presentation of Rozlana Taukina – Kazakhstan.

Reporters without borders in different languages, and here the english edition.

They say about themselves: Reporters Without Borders is an association officially recognised as serving the public interest

More than a third of the world’s people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Reporters Without Borders works constantly to restore their right to be informed. Fourty-two media professionals lost their lives in 2003 for doing what they were paid to do — keeping us informed. Today, more than 130 journalists around the world are in prison simply for doing their job. In Nepal, Eritrea and China, they can spend years in jail just for using the « wrong » word or photo. Reporters Without Borders believes imprisoning or killing a journalist is like eliminating a key witness and threatens everyone’s right to be informed. It has been fighting such practices for more than 18 years.

Defending press freedom… every day

Continuer la lecture de « Reporters without borders »

Linked with our presentation of Rozlana Taukina – Kazakhstan.

Sorry, there is no ‘the Institute for War and Peace Problems‘ found by search tools, but ‘The Institute for War and Peace Reporting‘. An interesting site worth to be visited, with actual news about the public life in Central Asia.

Their Central Asian Blog shows actual reports on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. These countries are seen by themselves as the real Central Asian States. (Some Wessies often mix into this Central Asian groupe States going from Mongolie to the Balkans. This has the same logic, as if we would say, America extend from Fireland to Groenland, what the peoples of these countries would not confirm, as we understand as ‘Americans’ the USA).

Reports on Afghanistan are to be found on this separate blog.

links:

hyperlinks for Balkanpeace;

wikipedia;

worldpress.org.

Linked with our presentation of Kailash Satyarthi – India

Also linked with our presentation of 6th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates

South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), works to end forced child labor in South Asia.

Kailash Satyarthi, After successfully freeing and rehabilitating thousands of children, went on to build up a global movement against child labor. Today Kailash heads up the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2000 social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries.

What Does SACCS Do? Since its inception in 1989, SACCS and its partners have liberated nearly 40,000 bonded laborers, many of them bonded, working in various industries, including rug manufacturing. But to free such children without offering new opportunities would, in Kailash’s view, be meaningless.

Bal Ashram in Rajasthan, India is a transition center where newly-freed slaves are taught basic skills. Kailash describes the arrival of a girl recently freed from a stone quarry: « It’s a joyous experience to watch the changing emotions flit across this beautiful girl’s face. She’s like an open book, and her varying expressions tell us a story: the story of transition from slavery to a new life of freedom. When her face lights up, it is clear she is taking her first steps toward freedom and belief in others. »

Since the Ashram can only serve 100 children at a time, Kailash has begun a program called « Bal Mitra Gram » to encourage Indian villages to abolish child labor. In order to be a part of the program, an entire community must agree that no child will be put to work and every child will be sent to school.

While changing India village by village is a worthwhile pursuit, such a strategy could take centuries to achieve Kailash’s goal, and he is not prepared to wait that long. So he has begun attacking the problem by harnessing the immense power of market forces.

Many rugs from South Asia are manufactured using child labor. Kailash believes that if consumers around the world knew how their expensive and colorful Indian rugs were made, they would no longer think they were so beautiful. He started « Rugmark, » a program in which rugs are labeled and certified to be child-labor-free by factories who that agree to be regularly inspected. Kailash plans to extend the labeling program to other products such as soccer balls, another popular product that is commonly made by children. (Read more on The new Heroes).

reported during an Interview given by Kailash Satyarthi to Speak Truth to Power.

Continuer la lecture de « South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) »

Linked with our presentation of Nuclear Weapons and Non-Proliferation – the Russian Perspective.

Also linked with our presentation of Alla Yaroshinskaya – Russian Federation.

4th Annual Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies:

Big Lie: Chernobyl twenty years on, by Dr Alla Yaroshinskaya (Moscow).

A member of Boris Yeltsin’s President’s Council from 1992 to 2000 and a former member of the Congress of Peoples’ Deputies, Alla Yaroshinskaya spent the last years working on ecological issues and nuclear disarmament. She has been a member of the Russian delegation to the United Nations to negotiate nuclear non-proliferation, and she continues to be a champion for the survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, which has its twentieth anniversary this year. It was her series of investigative articles after this nuclear tragedy that brought Yaroshinskaya to international prominence and earned her the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1992.

The lecture is organized by the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies with the support of Cambridge University Ukrainian Society. It is sponsored by the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.

On: Friday 24th February 2006, Open: 5.30pm.

Venue: Robinson College, Grange Road, Cambridge , CB3 9AN, Umney Lecture Theatre.

Find on map ;

Website: http://www.camcrees.group.cam.ac.uk/ .

Contact: Dr Hubertus F. Jahn, Tel: +44 (0)1223 333253.

First Programm:

The Diplomacy Training Program is holding, in partnership with Migrant Forum Asia (MFA), the « Capacity Building on Human Rights and Migrant Workers in the Asia-Pacific Region – A Training Program for Advocates » on 7 – 11 April 2006 in Petaling Jaya.

The course aims to bring together advocates from the human rights movement, migrant workers organizations, women’s organizations, national human rights institutions and trade unions. The course content will focus on the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Family (ICRMW) in the context of the broader human rights framework, and other relevant standards such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions. It will explore some of the key trends affecting migrant workers’ rights and identify some of the key challenges to implementing ICRMW and other relevant standards in the Asia-Pacific region.

Second Program:

It is also organizing a training program – in Darwin on 3-12 May 2006 – for community advocates working for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. The training provides knowledge of international human rights law and the UN system, with particular emphasis on Indigenous Peoples’ rights; understanding of how international standards relate to issues such as intellectual property, the environment, community development and corporate accountability; Practical training in strategic advocacy and peoples’ diplomacy including skills in working with the media and using the internet for advocacy. This year there will be a special, additional focus on the Right to Health, particularly as it relates to Indigenous health issues.

For further information and application to attend the workshops, please contact: Diplomacy Training Program, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia, ph: (612) 9385-2277 or (612) 9385 2807; fax: (612) 9385-1778;

e-mail: actiondtp@unsw.edu.au;

www.dtp.unsw.edu.au.

The International Human Rights Education Consortium will be holding its regional meeting for Asia on 22 – 24 May 2006 in Taipei.

For further information, please contact: Mab Huang, Chang Fo-Chuan Center for the Study of Human Rights, 70, Linshi Road, Shihlin, Ta i p e i Taiwan 111; ph (8862)2881-9471 ex. 6279 or 6110; fax (8862) 2881- 2437;

e-mail: hrer@mail.scu.edu.tw;

http://www.scu.edu.tw/hr;

or, Theodore S. Orlin, J.D, President, IHREC, Utica College, 1600 Burrstone Road, Utica, NY 13502, USA; ph(315) 792-3267; fax: (315) 792-3381;

e-mail: ihrec@utica.edu;

www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/ihrec.

Linked with

And linked with our presentation of The Origins of the Mainstream JapaNIEs Cultural “Order”.

The International Peace Research Association IPRA hold its next conference “Patterns of Conflict: Paths to Peace” in 2006, in Calgary, Canada, from June 29 to July 3, 2006.

The purpose of IPRA is to advance interdisciplinary research into the conditions of peace and the causes of war and other forms of violence. To this end, IPRA encourages worldwide cooperation designed to assist the advancement of peace research and, in particular:

·to promote national and international studies and teaching related to the pursuit of world peace;

·to facilitate contacts and cooperation between scholars and educators throughout the world;

·and to encourage worldwide dissemination of results of peace research.

IPRA was founded in 1964, and since then it has vigorously promoted peace research and peace education. With over 1300 members from some 90 countries, IPRA is the most respected scholarly association in this field. IPRA has links with more than 200 research institutions and is a member of the International Social Science Council. In 1989, IPRA received the UNESCO prize for Peace Education. IPRA has five regional associations: Asia-Pacific Peace Research Association (APPRA), Africa Peace Research and Education Association (AFPREA), European Peace Research Association (EUPRA), Latin American Peace Research Association (CLAIP) and Peace and Justice Association (North America).

downloads from IPRA:

flyer;

the IPRA path;

The Peace Education Commission (PEC) of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) facilitates international exchanges about peace education and research related to peace education.

The Asia-Pacific Peace Research Association (APPRA) is an international non-governmental organization of peace researchers, peace educators and peace advocates. APPRA, although an independent organization, shall function as a regional branch of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA).

Here some research institutions:

Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung AFK ist eine wissenschaftliche Vereinigung von Friedens- und Konfliktforscherinnen und -forschern verschiedener Disziplinen im deutschsprachigen Raum;

AFB;

Linked with Kinhide Mushakoji – Japan.

ARENA (online) is the Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives:

• ARENA is a regional network of concerned Asian scholars – academics, intellectuals, activists, researchers, writers, and artists – which aims to contribute to a process of awakening towards meaningful and people-oriented social change
• ARENA is a unique ngo because it has chosen to focus on the concerned Asian scholar as its immediate constituency, believing that this sector can play a vital role in the process of social transformation
• ARENA redefines concerned Asian scholar to refer to individuals capable of conceptualising, theorising, analysing, interpreting and articulating issues and concerns as direct participants of or in support of struggles for social transformation in the interests of disadvantaged peoples
• ARENA draws its members from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong sar , China, Australia and the us.

Programme Introduction; Events; Critical Thinking; Fellows by coutnry; Asian exchange; Beyond;
Contact.

ARENA advocates alternative paradigms and development strategies which: Continuer la lecture de « Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives ARENA »

Linked to our presentation of Medea Benjamin.

And linked to our presentation of Leslie Cagan.

Global Exchange is a non-profit research, education, and action center working for global political, economic, environmental, and social justice. Since our founding in 1988, we have worked to increase the US public’s awareness of global issues while building progressive, grassroots international partnerships.

Global Exchange pursues these goals through six program areas:

Political and Civil Rights Campaigns, which complement the traditional human rights organization’s observation and monitoring work with activities aimed at directly empowering grassroots human rights movements within our target countries of Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, and the Middle East;

Economic Rights Campaigns, which struggle for the elimination of sweatshop abuses, monitor corporate behavior, and challenge global rule-makers such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund;

Fair Trade, which helps build economic justice from the bottom up through the sale of handicrafts that generate income for artisans in over 37 countries;

Public Education, which produces books, videos, arti-cles, and editorials and organizes educational workshops and nationwide speaking tours that bring community leaders from around the world to the US to educate citizens on critical global issues;

Exploring California, which engages Californians in solution-oriented dialogue on issues such as immigration, treatment of laborers, and the environment;

and Reality Tours, which educate the public about domestic and international issues through socially responsible travel. (Read more on Orion Grassroots Network).

Continuer la lecture de « Global Exchange »

Linked with our presentation of Dina Abdel Wahab – Egypt.

Linked also with our presentation of ashoka.

The Baby Academy is a chain of preschools for children three months to five years old. The school’s child-centered philosophy is based on love, learning and play and its curriculum is tailored to children’s developmental needs and designed to inspire children to achieve their potential.

Today the business is thriving with a remarkable 20 percent of its preschoolers children with special needs. Abdel Wahab recently opened a new branch in Cairo and plans to open two more schools in the next two years. Eventually she’d like to franchise the concept.

According to a United Nations report, less than four percent of Arab children have access to preschool education. The mission of The Baby Academy is to become a leader in early childhood education throughout Egypt and the Middle East.

Continuer la lecture de « The Baby Academy »

Linked with Dina Abdel Wahab – Egypt, with the Baby Academy, with Hasanain Juaini – Indonesia, and with Paul Rice – USA.

In Egyptian society, as in many societies, brain and genetic disorders are not well understood by the public. People who have, for example, autism or a severe learning disability are shunned, pushed to society’s margins, and written off as burdensome to families and society. Faulty public perception, shaped by ignorance and misunderstanding, is the condemning factor that underlies all others.

Dina, the mother of a five-year-old with Down’s syndrome, sees that to change attitudes and pave the way for societal reform, children are the place to start. In fact, the early preschool years offer an especially promising opportunity to realize important advances in societal integration by setting a different expectation of normalcy early on.

This insight has led to the first of what Dina hopes will be a regional network of preschools that prioritize the integration of children with special needs and children without them.

Traditionally, Egyptian children with special needs have not been well-accepted or provided for in mainstream culture. Already crowded public schools won’t accept children with disabilities and private schools will admit only the brightest students, leaving no place for children with a number of common disabilities. (Red more on pbs.org).

Continuer la lecture de « ashoka »