| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| February 8, 2006 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 21 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Lack of Legal Wood Keeps Tsunami Survivors in Tents |
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Tens of thousands of Indonesian survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami are still living in rotting tents, despite a months-long campaign to rehouse them, because the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) has
struggled to secure legally certified timber, it emerged today. Only 235 out of the approximately 16,000 temporary shelters needed for the 67,500 Acehnese living under canvas have been completed since the program began in September. The Indonesian government, the UN, and had hoped everyone
would have been out of tents by March but officials said today the end of June is the new target, which some aid workers described as ambitious.
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of the government's Aceh reconstruction agency, said none of the timber available within Indonesia could be used because it has not been legally felled from sustainable forests. "We are therefore having to import it all from overseas," he said, "and legal and sustainable timber is not easy to find." More than 600,000 people were left homeless in Aceh. Ports, roads, and other infrastructure necessary to community reconstruction were left in ruins. Of the estimated 120,000 new permanent homes required, 16,200 have been built. The 2006 target is 83,600, in addition to the temporary shelters. Lourdes Masing, the IFRC's temporary-shelter coordinator, said many companies who submitted tenders to supply the wood used harmful chemicals and so were rejected. "We have just found some appropriate wood," she said, "so we hope to see a lot of progress in the coming weeks." Eric Morris, the UN's coordinator in Aceh, said all the other supplies for the shelters are in place. "Once the timber has been supplied everything will move very quickly." But Arian Ardie, a businessman who has been importing wood into Aceh since the tsunami, said the June target would be hard to meet. "They are planning on bringing the timber in over a four-month period," he said, "but it's going to take at least six months in total to clear it, treat it and get it transported to the locations." Source: The Guardian |
| Legislation Would Ban 'Have You Ever Been Convicted?' |
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"It's been a good morning, 'cause we are ending the rampant discrimination that formerly incarcerated people face when they apply for a job," shouted Dorsey Nunn -- of All of Us or None, a project of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children -- from San Francisco’s City Hall steps, "as well as every time they apply for housing, for student loans and for benefits -- when they apply for an opportunity to live again."
The expressions of triumph rolled out of Nunn's mouth at a press conference on January 24 celebrating a new piece of legislation that would "ban the box" from every application in the City and County of San Francisco (SF). The "box" that appears on every City and County job application as well as on housing, financial aid and welfare applications. The "box" that asks you if you have ever been convicted of a crime. I know that box well, and as he spoke of today’s triumph, I reflected on my life inside the confines of the "box" and its power to keep me jobless, houseless, and poverty-stricken for many years of my life. The next speaker on this crisp January morning was Linda Evans, an organizer, also with All of Us Or None. Evans explained that under this new legislation the box is gone and people won’t have to disclose that information unless they are selected as a finalist for a specific job. When they disclose that information the only convictions that can be considered are ones that are directly related to the responsibilities of their new job. Furthermore, they will be allowed to explain those convictions in an interview as part of the finalist process. If they are not chosen and they believe that their convictions played a part in that decision, they can appeal to the human rights commission. "What you don’t see in the press is that the recidivism rate is extroardinarily high," said the next speaker, SF board supervisor Ross Mirakarimi, cosponsor of the new legislation. "Why do we erect so many barriers for folks who are trying to integrate back into the work force?" "This is step one," said Evans. "We are going to cities and counties all over California, LA, San Bernardino, and on and throughout the United States. We are determined to take that box off all job applications!" she concluded to huge cheers. Source: Poor Magazine |
| Also Felled by Pak Quake: Anti-Girl Barriers |
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In the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan near the epicenter of the October quake, many girls used to spend afternoons working the fields, just as their mothers did before them. Cycles of poverty combined with strict religious mores have kept more than 98% of the province's women and girls illiterate.
Now for their first time, hundreds of girls are attending school, learning math and science, Urdu and English in tents at the Maira Camp, a relief center where some 20,000 people live. Many parents, when presented with the option, eagerly agreed to send their daughters. "Whether they send their girls [to school] is largely an economic reason," says Sara Lim, an education adviser for Save the Children USA, which is teaching nearly 2,000 girls throughout the quake zone. She explains that many parents were not sending their girls to school before the earthquake because they needed them to work. But life in the camps has lifted many of those economic restraints. Another reason they were kept out of the classroom before the quake was the "lack of female teachers," Ms. Lim adds. She explains that parents would not allow them to be educated by male teachers in classrooms where boys were present. The fault line of October's quake encompasses some of the most conservative areas of largely Sunni Muslim Pakistan, where the rigid observance of purdah, a segregation of the sexes, has deprived many women of education, healthcare, and their own means of livelihood. Thousands of women have now been widowed or maimed by the quake, thousands of girls injured and orphaned, so thousands are each confronted with an even harder time building a new life. A silver lining is emerging. Many relief agencies have begun highlighting the "unexpected dividends" afforded to women and young girls in the wake of the tragedy. The earthquake, they say, has opened up the nearly impenetrable systems of gender segregation. Across the quake-affected areas, girls are seeing their first schools, while their mothers are learning sewing and math. Many women are visiting doctors for the first time, learning how to take better care of themselves and their children. But perhaps most important of all is the growing sense of self-reliance among the women, many of whom will have to cope on their own. Source: Christian Science Monitor |
| City Life Gets Meaner for US Homeless |
City ordinances frequently serve as a prominent tool to criminalize homelessness. Of the 224 cities surveyed for a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP):
While most cities throughout the country have either laws or practices that criminalize homeless persons, some city practices or laws have stood out as more egregious than others in their attempt to criminalize homelessness. The NCH and the NLCHP have chosen "the top 20 meanest cities" in 2005 based on one or more of the following criteria:
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| Afghan Media People Get Help With Skills |
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A course on television news production, funded by UNESCO Kabul Office and organized by Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), took place from November
21 to December 16 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "It has been a great experience, but I wish the program could have been longer so that we could learn more" says Deena Rahman through an interpreter.
Deena was part of a team of 12 Afghan television professionals -- eleven men, one woman -- who attended the one-month training to improve their journalistic skills and technical competence according to acceptable international standards. The training was organized in two phases: One, a three-week intensive course from Nov 21 to Dec 9, conducted by two experts from Canal France International. Two, a one-week (Dec 12 to 16) attachment to the newsrooms of RTM, TV3 and ntv7 in Kuala Lumpur. The group included journalists, directors, cameramen, video editors, radio sound editors. Most of them had attended basic courses in journalism and production over recent years conducted by various organizations in Kabul. All participants were highly motivated. The journalists were very interested in the techniques viewed. The cameramen learned new aspects of their work, e.g. how to enhance framing and composition; they also had good practice in outdoor filming using both tripod and shoulder camera. The editors were excited as they learned about non-linear editing, and they learned the importance of mastering both technical and narrative aspects of editing. Emphasis throughout the course was placed on teamwork, like tandem cameraman/journalist in preparing and filming the story, or video editor/journalist in editing and writing the final story. Every participant learned to better appreciate the work of other team members. Source: UNESCO |
| Long-Time Homeless Woman Hosts TV Talk Show |
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A plaza in a residential neighborhood of the Argentine capital has become "Stellita's Living Room" for the first TV show in the world hosted by a homeless person. Stella Cros, 70, has lived on the streets for nearly two decades. Now she is interviewing special guests, columnists and an astrologer, and presenting live music, as a talk show host.
The program, En el living de Stellita, is taped in a square in the fashionable Belgrano district of Buenos Aires. The set basically consists of park benches and two sofas brought in for the occasion, as well as a doorframe, through which the guests arrive. "Welcome to my living room," says Stellita as the cameras begin to roll and her guests arrive. "I am here in this plaza which has already given me shelter before." "The show plays with a paradox: A homeless woman can be so warm that she generates a home-like atmosphere, welcoming her guests to her 'home'. And since her home is often a bench in a city square, that's where she receives them," said Alfredo Olivera, a psychologist and the creator of the program. "I never imagined that I would be doing this," Stellita commented. The opportunity came her way through the La Colifata program, a community radio station that broadcasts from a psychiatric hospital. "On one hand, the program generates recognition and consideration of Stellita," said Olivera, "and on the other, respect for society. It is therapeutic in terms of 'destigmatization' -- in other words, it shows that the person who we see panhandling on the street corner actually has another set of values, which we can now see." Nearly 15 years ago, La Colifata created the world's first radio show wholly produced by patients in a psychiatric hospital, the José T. Borda hospital in Buenos Aires. Its latest initiative is the program hosted by Stellita, "so the future of crazy people will not be the street," according to the show's stated objectives. "Through the radio, La Colifata has discovered a method for healing," said Carlos Ulanovsky, a well-known Argentine journalist invited to Stellita's program, "but I suspect that more than the radio -- or in this case, television -- what is therapeutic about it is the consideration and respect given to the other." "A show like this gives Argentine television a level of truth and stripped-down reality that is like a balm in a parched wasteland of ideas," said psychologist Tom Lupo. In addition to themes like mental health, the environment and social justice, the program addresses homelessness. "Even if we don't talk about it directly, this issue is always going to be present," said Olivera. "But we want to treat it with total respect, and not portray it as an oddity." "Stellita's Living Room" premiered late last year, and in response to the enthusiastic reaction of TV viewers, the special "pilot" episode was rebroadcast almost 20 times. Beginning in March, the program will be broadcast monthly, according to the producers' plans. Source: Inter Press Service |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| From A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer |
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From a book by Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Call to Renewal:
The evangelical Christian world I had grown up in talked incessantly about Christ but never paid any attention to the things that Jesus taught. Salvation became an intellectual assent to a concept. "Jesus died for your sins and if you accept that fact you will go to heaven," said the evangelists of my childhood. When it came to the big issues that cropped up for me as a teenager - racism, poverty, and war - I was told explicitly that Christianity had nothing to do with them: they were political, and our faith was personal. On those great social issues, the Christians I knew believed and acted just like everybody else I knew - like white people on racism, like affluent people on poverty, and like patriotic Americans on war. Then I read Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, which relied heavily on the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount and the idea that our treatment of the oppressed was a test of faith. Believing in Jesus was not enough, said Bonhoeffer. We were called to obey his words, to live by what Jesus said, to show our allegiance to the reign of God, which had broken into the world in Christ. Bonhoeffer warned of the "cheap grace" that promotes belief without obedience. He spoke of "costly discipleship" and asked how the grace that came at the tremendous cost of the cross could require so little of us. "Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship," he said, "and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth." At the time, I had just experienced a secular student movement that had lost its way. Without any spiritual or moral depth, protest often turned to bitterness, cynicism, or despair. Finding Jesus again, after years of alienation from the churches, reenergized my young social conscience and provided a basis for both my personal life and my activist vision. Here again Bonhoeffer showed the way, by providing the deep connection between spirituality and moral leadership, religion and public life, faith and politics. Here was a man of prayer who became a man of action - precisely because of his faith. Bonhoeffer will appeal today to all those who are hungry for spirituality. But his was not the soft New-Age variety that only focuses on inner feelings and personal enlightenment. Rather, it was Bonhoeffer's spirituality that made him so politically subversive. And it was always his deepening spiritual journey that animated his struggle for justice. Bonhoeffer will appeal today to all who are drawn to Jesus Christ, because at the heart of everything Bonhoeffer believed and did was the centrality of Christ. The liberal habit of diminishing the divinity of Christ or dismissing his incarnation, cross, and resurrection had no appeal for Bonhoeffer. But his orthodoxy has demanding implications for the believer's life in the world. He refused to sentimentalize Jesus, presenting him as the fully human Son of God who brings about a new order of things. During a stint at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Bonhoeffer's response to theological liberalism was tepid, but he became inspired by his involvement with the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Meeting the black church in America showed the young Bonhoeffer again that a real Christ was critical of the majority culture. Source: SojoMail |
| What's Jewish About Protecting the Environment? |
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Protecting human health and the diversity of life is a value emphasized in Torah, Talmud, and rabbinic literature throughout the ages—beginning with the commandment in Genesis for Adam and Eve to serve and protect the Garden of Eden. Despite the richness of Jewish teachings related to our responsibility to protect the environment, few Jews have been introduced to them.
The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) seeks to expand the contemporary understanding of such Jewish values as tikkun olam (repairing the world) and tzedek (justice) to include the protection of both people and other species from environmental degradation. COEJL seeks to extend such traditions as social action and g’milut hasadim (performing deeds of loving kindness) to environmental action and advocacy. And shalom (peace or wholeness), which is at the very core of Jewish aspirations, is in its full sense harmony in all creation. Many mitzvot (commandments) found in the Bible and laws found in the Talmud instruct us to protect what the Jewish tradition views as “God’s creation” -- the totality of the physical world in which we live. Bal tashchit (do not waste) teaches us to conserve resources. Shiluach ha-keyn (chasing away the mother bird) teaches us to safeguard all species. Shmita (sabbatical year) teaches us that economic justice and ecological sustainability are intimately related. And Shabbat (Sabbath) reminds us that we are but one strand in the web of creation. When we consider the state of the environment today in light of these mitzvot and values, it is clear that we have an urgent Jewish mission to establish a more healthy and sustainable relationship between human beings and the rest of God’s creation. "In order to serve God, one needs access to the enjoyment of the beauties of nature, such as the contemplation of flower-decorated meadows, majestic mountains, flowing rivers ... For all these are essential to the spiritual development of even the holiest people." (Rabbi Abraham ben Moses, 1186–1237) Source: Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life |
| Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not |
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