I came across this quote this morning, and it summed up everything one should say on a day like Father’s Day. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty (Author Unknown). Today, many fathers awoke to smiling children excited to give them special gifts–many handcrafted with […]
Today, many children across the globe are beginning to look forward to a break from school for summer vacations. However, for millions of children across the globe, there is no “break” and there is no classroom because they are forced to into child labor, often being denied an education all together. The term “child labor” […]
As mentioned in the post, “UN Campaign Seeks to Give all Children a Shot at Life,” one in five children does not have access to vaccines that prevent deadly diseases, like measles, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Nonetheless, some 2.5 million children under the age of 5 die every year as the result of preventable infectious disease, mostly due […]
It’s an oft-repeated saying that, in the fashion world, “what goes around, comes around”. On a much grander scale, this is what has happened in the South Pacific in a clothing role-reversal. When missionaries ventured into the region in the early 19th century hoping to convert the various island populations to Christianity, they naturally brought […]
As I wrote in the recent post, The Joy and Burden of Motherhood, “The greatest joy of motherhood is seen as the sheer gift of bringing a life into this world and helping to shape them from the moment of birth and then to watch them grow into a happy, productive and successful member of […]
Biogas saves Kenyan school money, conserves nature A school in the rural Rift Valley of central Kenya is a model for successful small-scale response to climate change, according to this article. The school cooks with biogas produced from latrines, eliminating fuel and sanitation costs while reducing harmful carbon emissions and sparing surrounding forests some 150 […]
It’s a pretty provocative title, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, “The very best predictor of how insecure and unstable a nation is not its level of democracy, but the level of violence against women in society” is just not quite catchy enough. Sex and World Peace was published in April of this year (available here), […]
Charles Taylor was sentenced to fifty years in prison today by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. The former Liberian President was found guilty on eleven counts last month including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, […]
When I first came across Mona Eltahawy’s article, questioning “Why do they hate us?”–“they” being the misogynistic rulers of Middle Eastern and Muslim nations, and “us” being the female population–I have to say my instant reaction was one of apprehensive agreement. Apprehensive, because I’ve seen womenfolk suffer cruel injustice in my part of the world […]
Girl Up tour kicks off at Atlanta girls’ school Hundreds of children gathered April 30 at the Atlanta Girls’ School to help launch the Unite for Girls Tour of the Girl Up campaign, the program of the United Nations Foundation that aims to empower American girls to help improve the lives of girls in the […]
The following is a guest post from James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative Strasbourg – The United States government has been trying for close to a decade to hush up what it did to Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen whose story of mistaken identity, abduction and abuse marks one of […]
Today, May 15 is International Day of Families. The day highlights the importance families play in our global world. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 with resolution A/RES/47/237 and reflects the importance the international community attaches to families. The International Day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to […]
The joy of motherhood has long since been praised over and over again. The greatest joy of motherhood is seen as the sheer gift of bringing a life into this world and helping to shape them from the moment of birth and then to watch them grow into a happy, productive and successful member of […]
The following is a guest post by By Zeljko Jovanovic, director of Roma Initiatives at the Open Society Foundations. The United States announced earlier this year that it would become an official observer to the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015. This is an international initiative that gathers governments and international and nongovernmental organizations into a […]
The word immunizations is just a simple vocabulary word to most of us in developed nations, however for those in developing countries the word means a ‘shot at life’ for their child. One in five children does not have access to vaccines that prevent deadly diseases, like measles, pneumonia or diarrhea. Nonetheless some 2.5 million […]