An Integrated Approach to Development
The key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals lies in sharing resources, opportunities, and benefits, and in ensuring that those who wield power become responsible and accountable.
Settle the Social Debt Owed to People
Millions of children around the world face the uncertainty of accessing quality education and consequently are left without a choice in what they wish to do with their lives. The goal of making education universal provides a way for governments to begin to settle the social debt owed to populations worldwide.
Youth Leaders Must Be Accountable
Today, there are 1.5 billion people worldwide between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, with 1.3 billion living in developing countries - the largest generation of young people the world has ever known.
Our Body, Our Earth
I remember walking through the fields of the Canadian Plains on many occasions with my father. On one occasion, we were going to pick sweet grass blades that had pink roots and a distinctively sweet smell. I observed that, prior to my father picking the first blade of sweet grass, he reached into his tobacco pouch and grabbed a pinch, laid it on the ground beside the sweet grass he was about to pick, and closed his eyes as he made his offering to Mother Earth. The sincerity of the process was completely natural in that moment.
My Child Shall Be Protected
If a war breaks out, my child shall be protected, said Willson Khama as he lay dying from tuberculosis six years ago. Willson was only thirty-five years old and had spent almost half of his life as a child soldier with a guerrilla group in Liberia during the country's civil war from 1889 to 1996. He wanted to make sure that his son would never have to go through what he had experienced.
The Meaning of Tolerance: Reflections of a Palestinian Girl and Israeli Boy
Sireen Tutunji and Gedalia Gillis are alumni of the Face to Face/Faith to Faith, annual dialogue and leadership programme for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim youth, planned and implemented by the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, in partnership with Auburn Theological Seminary in New York. Programme participants meet biweekly in East and West Jerusalem in order to foster positive relations and tolerance of the other, and to develop dialogue and leadership skills. They also act together to benefit the Jewish and Palestinian communities in the city through volunteer work.
Has Communication Become as Complex as Devices Themselves?
The Times They Are A-Changin' . Or are they? I believe times have already changed. More than we could have imagined. Our ability to communicate has changed dramatically in the last twenty years, from the advent of the mobile phone to the proliferation of laptop computers, and then the marriage of both into smartphones. As technology continues to advance into more versatile and effective ways to communicate, the way we use these methods are almost as complex as the devices themselves. This increases our scope and reach as individuals and, subsequently, as groups of individuals in search of a common goal or ideal. That's why, with the arrival of social media services across new technology sources, activist groups and social institutions alike are finding a changing way to spread their messages and organize their activities.
Adolescent Marriage: Crossroad or Status Quo?
It wasn't an option, murmured a thirty-two-year-old woman with a troubled face who wished to remain anonymous. I felt her emotions so strongly that I wished I had a chance to change her life. I was the oldest girl among my sisters, she said, my aunt came to my father wanting his consent for my marriage to her oldest son. My dad could not let her down -- his politeness resulted in my melancholy. She was married at sixteen. Deep down, I knew she wasn't the only one. Somewhere out there, even in my country, adolescent females suffer from similar situations.
Who Speaks for the Poor, And Why Does it Matter?
The UN Chronicle has evolved over the past years into an increasingly attentive and inclusive journal. The focus of each number on a specific issue, like climate change or disarmament, makes it possible to examine these questions from a variety of viewpoints. Its contributors testify to its broad geographic outlook. Recent issues have featured articles by academics, UN officials, government representatives, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and recently, the fanciful innovation of testimony by novelists. What are largely missing, however, are the voices from people's organizations directly representing those sectors of the population most affected by the issues under discussion.
Education as a Means to Promote Sustainability
One of the myths current today, spread by media events such as Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is that everyone will be equal in facing the ecological and human catastrophe of climate change. This is simply not true. Clear thinking about climate change and its likely impact on cultural integrity, transmission, and diversity requires that one take note of the glaring differences today among people on the planet.
Education for All: Rising to the Challenge
Imagine a school that changes location every forty-five days -- a school that comes to the child, instead of the other way around. This is happening on the steppes of Mongolia where the government provides mobile tent schools for nomadic herder communities. Further north, in the extreme conditions of Siberia, or further south, on the hot, dusty plains of Kenya, other nomadic children are enjoying more educational opportunities than their parents ever did.
Civic Education and Inclusion: A Market or a Public Interest Perspective?
In recent years, we have constantly been reminded that we are living in a knowledge economy. Societies that invest most heavily in training their citizens will therefore be in the best position on the global chessboard. Thus, education is being given a new role in the concept of competition. Not only is this concept of competition encouraged within society, whether in the North or South, the implication is that the primary benefit of an education is economic.