Transparency International Switzerland

An anonymous hotline for white-collar « whistleblowers » is being set up by Transparency International Switzerland, an anti-corruption organisation. The move comes a week after the Swiss Senate demanded better protection for whistleblowers against unfair dismissal and other forms of discrimination. The hotline had taken its first calls on Wednesday (March 03, 2006) and will advise whistleblowers on what action to take.

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Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship

Linked with our presentation of Faith Bandler – Australia.

The Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), were both formed in 1957.

As general secretary of FCAATSI,Faith Bandler led the campaign for a constitutional referendum to remove discriminatory provisions from the Constitution of Australia. The campaign, which included several massive petitions and hundreds of public meetings arranged by Bandler, resulted in the 1967 referendum being put to the people by the Holt government.

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NGO Support Toolkit CD-ROM

Full of practical information, tools and guidance, this toolkit covers a range of subject areas about supporting NGOs and CBOs working in HIV/AIDS. More than 500 resources have been collated and updated from different organisations, with detailed guidance and suggestions based on the experiences of the Alliance. This CD-ROM brings together resources for people who are establishing, managing or studying support programmes or systems for supporting NGOs and CBOs. While the toolkit is primarily designed for programmes that aim to deliver both funding and technical support to local NGOs and CBOs, many of its resources will also be of interest to organisations that provide only funding or only training. (Read the rest on this site).

Order here the CD.

link:

Who we are‘;

Alliance NGO support net.

Rights Action.org

They say about themselves: Rights Action (tax-charitable, non-profit organization in USA and Canada) funds community-controlled development, environmental, human rights and emergency projects in the global south, particularly Guatemala, Chiapas (Mexico), Honduras and Haiti. We do education and activism work with North Americans and help form north-south alliances to address and remedy global exploitation, repression, enviro-destruction and racism.

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Youth Express Network

International Events: exchange of good practice in youth work between Europe and Africa, the Caribbean, Pacific (ACP), Asia, Latin America – This Call aims at supporting projects which promote an exchange of experience and good practice in the field of youth between the European Union, candidate countries and EFTA/EEA on the one hand, and countries of Africa, the Caribbean, Pacific (ACP), Asia and Latin America on the other hand.

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The Rural Agency for Social & Technological Advancement RASTA – India

Linked to our presentation of Thakaraprambil Kochukuttan Omana – India.

From the arid land of Rajasthan to the hilly and forested climes of Wayanad. So varied has been the fields that T. K Omana has covered in her nearly three decades of activities as a social worker.

Omana who is among the 92 women from India nominated for the Nobel peace prize for 2005, is a full-time social worker and Director of the Rural Agency for Social and Technological Advancement (Rasta), in Wayanad.

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Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society

Linked with Ibn Warraq – another Muslim with a Fatwa, also with When Ibn Warraq met Edward Said, and with IBN WARRAQ on the World Trade Center Atrocity.

The Institute for the Secularisation of the Islamic Society, ISIS Publishes on its Homepage:

Our Mission: We believe that Islamic society has been held back by an unwillingness to subject its beliefs, laws and practices to critical examination, by a lack of respect for the rights of the individual, and by an unwillingness to tolerate alternative viewpoints or to engage in constructive dialogue.

The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS) has been formed to promote the ideas of rationalism, secularism, democracy and human rights within Islamic society.

ISIS promotes freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief, freedom of intellectual and scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience and religion – including the freedom to change one’s religion or belief – and freedom from religion: the freedom not to believe in any deity. Continuer la lecture de « Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society »

The 'Pastoral' of the Child / Pastoral da Criança – Brazil

Linked with our presentation of Zilda Arns Neumann – Brazil.

And linked with our presentation on Improving Children’s Environmental Health.

The Pastoral da Criança is regarded as one of the most important community organizations all over the world working with health, nutrition, and children education, since antenatal and to six years of age. It also works stopping preventing violence in the family environment, where the participation of families and communities is a requirement.

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The Andalus Publishing House

Linked with our presentation of Yael Lerer – Israel.

And linked with our presentation on The Word in Times of Crisis.

Homepage of the editor, publishing Arabic literature, translated in Hebrew:

Bridging over the Conflict … by Hannah Amit-Kochavi, she writes: Arabic literature has been translated into Hebrew by Jews, Arabs and Druze for over a century. However, Hebrew target culture, which has always welcomed translations from a variety of foreign languages that enriched it and provided models for its development, has assigned Arabic literature a minor position. This is mainly due to political circumstances – the ongoing century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs as well as between Israel and several Arab countries has been but partially resolved through peace contracts. Arabs and their culture have been perceived by Western-oriented Israeli culture as either arch-enemies or as abstract figures representing attractive oriental images and even as the Biblical forefathers of the Jewish people. Arabic language and culture are little known to most Israeli Jews, with the exception of those many Israeli Jews who are natives of such Arab countries as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Yemen and those relatively few who have studied Arabic at the high school and university level.

Translations from Arabic into Hebrew, then, have been relatively few and they have failed to exert any long term influence on Israeli Hebrew literature and culture. And yet, since the advent of Zionism and up to the present, there have been attempts by Jewish individuals and groups to reconcile Jews and Arabs and in the process mastered and cherished the Arabic language and culture. Translations of Arabic literature into Hebrew have been incessantly made, disseminated and used in an attempt to bring about Jewish-Arab mutual understanding and coexistence in the naive belief that literary translation could help bring about peace between Jews and Arabs on an individual basis as well as between Israel and the Arab neighboring countries. (Read the rest ofthis long article here).

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Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg

Linked with our presentation of Ella-Maria Polyakova – Russian Federation.

Its Goal: to provide practical assistance to recruits, soldiers and their families in protecting their legal rights.Information and legal help to recruits and their parents.

Presentation: “Soldier’s Mothers of Saint-Petersburg” is human rights and non-governmental organization protecting the rights of the conscripts, soldiers of the active army and their families. The situation in the russian army is serious and important problem which is symbolizes the state of affairs in modern Russia. Our organization is engaged in educational and legal work. We teach to protect the right to the life, to the health and to the self-respect by themselves. The mission of the organization is formation of the legal culture, relations governed by law. But first of all it is alteration of the human mind, as only people having the new recognition, could make Russia the democratic state.

The NGO is member of Pax Christi International.

The „Civil Rights Organisation Soldatskiye Matieri Sankt-Pietierburga / in english Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg“, founded in 1991, has been awarded the Aachen Peace Award 2004 for its courageous actions and efforts for more than 100,000 Russian conscientious objectors and deserters, as well as for its resistance against the dirty war in Chechnya.

The organisation of St. Petersburg has so far provided legal advice to more than 150,000 individuals. Thanks to the aid provided by the organisation, more than 100,000 conscripts were able to assert their legally chartered right not to do any military service, and thanks to the support provided by the organisation, more than 5,000 deserters were prematurely dismissed from the army.

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The Pacific Institute in California

Linked with our presentation of Jason Morrison – USA.

And linked with our presentation of Economic Globalization and the Environment.

The Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Economic Globalisation studies the effects of the increasingly integrated global economy on the environment and society.

The explosive growth of the global economy threatens the natural systems that sustain life on Earth. Despite some significant successes in reducing industrial pollution and increasing efficiency, globalization is devastating natural habitats, speeding global warming, and increasing air and water pollution. At the same time, due to the increasingly global nature of trade and business, traditional national environmental protection techniques have become less effective.

The Economic Globalization and the Environment (EGE) Program studies the local, national, and international impacts of globalization while developing solutions to support healthy economic growth, protect the environment, and create a more equitable world. (Read more on Pacific Institute).

The International NGO Network on ISO (INNI) is a project of the Pacific Institute’s Economic Globalization and the Environment (EGE) program and has its own website. The INNI website provides timely information on the activities of ISO to network organizations so that they can activate their members, provide guidance to decision-makers, and shape public opinion. (See on International NGO Network on ISO).

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The Communication Initiative Aïna – Afghanistan

AINA = Education, training and information for the development of independent media and cultural expression in Afghanistan.

AINAworld.org was founded on August 2, 2001 by renowned photojournalist Reza. The non-governmental organization Aïna is working to build and develop a thriving civil society through independent media and culture projects.

Over the last three years, within the emerging democratic process and the reconstruction of a national identity in Afghanistan, Aïna has developed far-reaching projects throughout the country: 8 media and culture centers in eight provinces that provide support for the leading news publications of the country as well as video production and training; the first educational mobile cinema; the first Afghan school of photojournalism, Afghanistan’s first women’s radio station; and the first Afghan advertising and communications agency.

To reach our objectives, Aïna brings together a dedicated team of volunteers, media professionals and Afghans, of whom one third are women and a large number are experienced journalists. The training offered by Aïna has thus far benefited nearly 1000 journalists and students. Through our supported publications, over 400 000 readers have been exposed to Aina’s work. Close to one million spectators have taken part in Aïna’s film screenings, and over 3 million listeners have tuned in to Aïna’s radio programs.

Aïna offers specialized audiovisual training to women in Afghanistan (filming, photography, journalism, etc.), encouraging women to speak out, and keeping them informed through national information campaigns about important issues such as health, labour rights and the democratic process to name a few.

Aïna also places an emphasis on children’s education through its bi-monthly magazine Parvaz. This publication acts as a window to the world for Afghan children, teaching diversity and cooperation to those who will become the next generation of Afghan leaders.

Aina is providing the tools of freedom through a Multimedia Training Institute, and offering Afghans access to the latest in technology and multimedia equipment.

The Communication Initiative – Experiences – Aïna – Afghanistan – Summary:

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The MEMRI TV Monitor Project

Linked with our presentation of One of many Muslim Voices.

First of all: I do not agree with all the speaches shown on MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project website. More, there are presentations for me out of any understanding. During the Middle Age we Christians believed that Jewish are eating our babies, today’s Muslim beliefs of our western world are not so hard, but still strange in some way.

But here you have a good place to follow Muslim Voices speaking out what they really think. Some are progressist, even very courageous, many others are not. For any possible dialogue we could have, let’s read and listen to what our Muslim Fellows are telling … speaches coming out of a strange world I was not able to imagine before I had listened to it (Heidi).

The peoples of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) write about themselves: we explore the Middle East through the region’s media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic and Farsi media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East. Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization. MEMRI’s headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, Jerusalem, and Baghdad, and has a project active in Sweden. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, and occasionally Turkish and Russian.

The MEMRI TV Monitor Project: MEMRI’s TV monitoring center operates 16 hours per day, overseeing every major Arab channel. The center has the in-house capability to translate, subtitle and distribute the segments from Arab TV in real time to Western news channels across the world, effectively « Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West. »

MEMRI’s TV monitoring center focuses on political, cultural, religious, and other developments and debates in the Arab and Muslim world and in Iran.

To search any text or speach, go to http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S2.

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