Mois : août 2007

Mike Ghouse – USA

Linked with Ziki.com, with World Muslim Congress, with The Foundation for Pluralism, and with Muslims demand an Apology from MIM.

Mike is a Home Builder and a real estate investment consultant … He is Speaker, Thinker, Writer and a Moderator … about Pluralism, Co-Existence, India, Islam, Buddhism, Democracy & Terrorism. (full text).

He says: ”Welcome to my world with an open heart and an open mind. You will be continually challenged to think and incessantly urged to see another possibility. If we can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge ». (on Ziki.com).

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Mike Ghouse – USA

He is also president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He is the founding president of the World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: « Good for Muslims and good for the world. »

His personal Website is MikeGhouse.Net, and his articles can be found on Mike Ghouse for America, and on Sulekha.com (Connecting Indians worldwide).

He says also: « If we can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. I believe knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding to acceptance and appreciation of people with a different point of view ». (full text).

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Lyudmila Pavlichenko – Russian Federation

Linked with Women of the Don Union.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « ‘Forgive me for this war’. Lyudmila often said these words in Chechnya. Once she heard: ‘And you forgive us too’. Only then did she realize that she had done what she could ».

She says also: .

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Lyudmila Pavlichenko – Russian Federation

She works for the Kavkazsky Forum / Caucasian Forum, and for Soyuz Zhenshchin Dona / Union of Women of the Don …
in english: on this page of the Women’s Information Network.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko was born in 1949, in the Rostov Region. Since 1996, she has been actively involved in the activities of the NGO Union of Women of the Don (SZD). She also participated in the projects Women’s Rights, Public Social Reception Offices, Dagestan – the Peacekeeping Center, and others. Since 1998, she has been a coordinator of the international organization Kavkazsky Forum (Caucasian Forum), and she has organized a lot of humanitarian projects in Chechnya and the whole of the Caucasian region trying to promote peace and reconciliation.

Chechnya has been engulfed in a bitter war since 1994. Shocked by what she saw in Chechnya, Lyudmila Pavlichenko does what she can to stop the armed conflict.

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Gus Cairns – England

Linked with aidsmap, information on hiv & aids, and with Asia by DU, Africa by AIDS.

Gus Cairns is a freelance journalist specialising in HIV, sexuality, healthcare, development and related matters and a group facilitator and trainer on these issues. He is also a qualified psychotherapist and counsellor (see separate site). Gus is former Editor in Chief of Positive Nation, the UK’s HIV/AIDS and sexual health magazine. These varied skills have been pulled together to make the focus of a business. Its core aim over this range of activities will be to help other people and organisations survive and thrive. (full text on his personal website).

See: his Kilimanjaro diary.

He writes: A study of gay men with HIV who catch hepatitis C revealed sky-high levels of party drug use, unprotected sex, fisting and group sex among the men who get the virus, considerably higher than among men who don’t. After eliminating other causes for hep C transmission, researchers in three clinics in the United Kingdom found that unprotected group (rather than one-to-one) sex, unprotected anal sex and fisting were overwhelmingly more common in the men who caught hep C than a matched group of HIV-positive men who didn’t. (full text).

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Gus Cairns – England

Read: What is psychotherapy?

In terms of group work, Gus has facilitated the Gay Men’s Support Group at London Lighthouse and the residential gay men’s weeks at Laurieston Hall in Scotland for the Edward Carpenter Community. In an individual capacity Gus has organised training on HIV/AIDS awareness, treatment information and counselling for various organisations including PACE; the Immune Development Trust; Coca Cola Africa; Boehringer Ingelheim; Roche, the Globe Centre, the Media Trust and the African HIV Policy Network. He has also worked for SHAG, a young people’s sexual health education group funded by City and East London Health Authority that provided safer-sex awareness workshops for East London schools and colleges … Last but by no means least, Gus has been living with HIV since 1985, and with an AIDS diagnosis since 1995. He sees himself as a long term survivor of HIV and says that one of his motivations in the work he does is to equip people both with the skills to avoid HIV and to thrive with it if they do become infected. (full text).

See also: his Zanzibar beach photos.

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Monika Gerstendörfer – Germany

Linked with Lobby für Menschenrechte e.V., with TERRE DES FEMMES e.V., and with Computer as a place of violence.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I believe in the flap of a butterfly’s wings: the flap of a single butterfly’s wings in China through a process of build-up can cause a hurricane in Texas » … and: « Some colleagues have long ago given up the fight as lost. I have not ».

She says also:

Ihr Buch: MONIKA GERSTENDÖRFER, ‘Der verlorene Kampf um die Wörter’, Opferfeindliche Sprache bei sexualisierter Gewalt, ein Plädoyer für eine angemessenere Sprachführung, (auf ihrer Homepage). Siehe auch ihr Kontaktformular.

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Monika Gerstendörfer – Germany

She works for Lobby für Menschenrechte e.V.

The human rights expert and psychologist Monika Gerstendörfer (47) does invaluable educational work on the dangers of sexual violence in Germany. The co-founder and director of Lobby für Menschenrechte (Lobby for Human Rights Association) has significantly changed attitudes towards violence against women and children.

She has done very useful networking among numerous associations, initiatives, criminal police, journalists, and parliamentarians. Born in Wittenberg, she now lives in Baden- Württemberg.

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Olga del Valle Márquez de Arédez – Argentina (19xx-2005)

Linked with A re-compilation of texts and blogs for indigenous peoples;

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I am the daughter of an indigenous native and a Spaniard. We, the indigenous people, have a mandate: to bury our dead so that they can rest in peace. And peace shall be with us ».

She says also: « Something can always be done. But we have to be united in order to be able to do a lot ».

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Olga del Valle Márquez de Arédez – Argentina

She works for the Missing Persons of the Department of Ledesma.

Olga Márquez was born in Tucumán, a province of Northern Argentina. She married and lived with her husband in Jujuy, a neighboring province. Then, he ‘was disappeared’, by the repressive forces of the Argentinean military dictatorship (1976-1983).

Olga organized the resistance movement in Jujuy. Along with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, she was in the vanguard of the fight for truth and justice, which was essential for bringing down the dictators.A handkerchief, a placard with a photo and great heart ache, those are lethal weapons used against the dictators of Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico .

They are used by the mothers. Nothing or nobody can stop them in their fight for justice, for dignity and the right to live in freedom. They make claims on behalf of their dear, departed ones. Olga Márquez de Arédez is one of the mothers.

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Wenqing Zhang – China

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « A drop of water easily evaporates, yet gains everlasting energy when embraced by the sea. I am willing to be a drop of water so as to make contributions to the peace and health of all human beings ».

She says also: « A drop of water can easily evaporate, although it gains everlasting energy once it is embraced by the sea. I am willing to be a drop of water in the vast sea to make contributions to the peace and health of all human beings ».

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Wenqing Zhang – China

She works in Taiyuan Central Hospital.

In 2003 Wenqing Zhang volunteered to work in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) wards, staying there for two months. In April 2004 she was promoted to head nurse of the gastroenterology department. Her nursing service to over 3,000 people, spanning more than 17 years, has won her love and respect.

The kind, good-looking, good-humored head nurse is Zhang Wenqing, 35 years old. Since the day of graduation from medical school in Taiyuan, she has cared for patients tirelessly, day after day, for over 17 years. Her ideals of devotion to life, healing the wounded and saving the dying have made her determined to devote herself to the medical and nursing work that she loves.

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Luis Macas Ambuludí – Ecuador

Linked with CONAIE, with Natif Web, with PACHAKUTIK, with Globalisation from Below, with Ecuador – Clash of old and new, with Correa’s War, and with A re-compilation of texts and blogs for indigenous peoples.

Born 1951, Luis Macas Ambuludí is a Kichwa politician and intellectual from Saraguro, Ecuador. Macas has university degrees in anthropology, linguistics and urisprudence. (full text).

In Ecuador, where indigenous people represent 45 percent of the population, Luis Macas, a Quichua Indian from the Andean highlands, has emerged as the leading champion of indigenous rights. (full text).

His personal Web-Blog.

He says: “Respect for diversity is the foundation for all social construction. If an individual, nationality or people impose their will on the rest, things will not work. We need to find links that bring us together in a space that fosters respect”. (full long interview text, July 25, 2005).

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Luis Macas Ambuludí – Ecuador

See this 12 photos on flickr.com, … and also these other flickr photos.

See the following YouTube-videos:

  • LUIS MACAS VISITA ESPAÑA, 10 minutes, July 9, 2007.
  • Luis Macas, 1 parte, 09 minutes, August 30, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 2 parte, 8.30 minutes, August 30, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 3 parte, 9.13 minutes, August 30, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 4 parte, 8.45 minutes, August 30, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 5 parte, 7.06 minutes, August 30, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 6 parte, 9.08 minutes, September 01, 2006.
  • Luis Macas, 7 parte, 6.21 minutes, August 30, 2006.

He was one of the founders of the CONAIE, of the Pachakutik Movement, and was member of the National Congress of Ecuador.

Read: « Indigenous destiny in indigenous hands, » by Luis Macas, Linda Belote and Jim Belote, pages 216 – 241, 20003.

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Alzira Rufino – Brazil

Linked with The Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra CCMN, and with Violência doméstica, Mulher Negra.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « Afro-Brazilian women, they produce the show and take credit for the direction ».

She says also: « In 1990, when we created the House of Culture of the Afro-Brazilian Woman, there was resistance regarding the name. The oppositionists asked: Why Afro-Brazilian women ».

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Alzira Rufino – BrazilShe works for the Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra CCMN, (the House of Culture of the Afro-Brazilian Woman).

Alzira Rufino (1950) is the founder and director of the House of Culture of the Afro-Brazilian Woman CCMN, which has its headquarters in the city of Santos, in the State of São Paulo.

Her life and her social work are references for the feminists and for the Afro-Brazilian female organizations.

In 1992, she received the title of ‘Honorable Citizen of the city of Santos’.

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Loreta Navarro-Castro – Philippines

Linked with The Center for Peace Education, and with The Miriam College.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Loreta Navarro-Castro (born 1948) is one of the pioneers of peace education research in the Philippines and founded the Center for Peace Education, based at Miriam College in Manila. Aside from being coordinator of the PEN, Loreta is the secretary of the Philippine Council for Peace and Global Education, a member of the Executive Committee of Pax Christi International and the International Advisory Committee of the Global Campaign for Peace Education based in New York City. She is also an active member of several Asian and international associations involved with peace studies and research.

She says: « We may not see the results in our lifetime, but we must go on believing that someday that critical mass will be reached and more meaningful change will happen ».

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Sorry, I can not find any photo of Loreta Navarro-Castro, Philippines (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘).

She works for the Center for Peace Education CPE (named on pilipina peacenet.com), and for the Miriam College.

She says also: « Some of our students have not seen a tribal minority, or a Muslim. Through the twinning project, they exchange letters with the Muslim students at Rajah Muda and realize that they have so much in common with one another! When you put a face to a name, it will really break down the barriers ».

And she says: « You have to gather data as a basis for your actions. Research means getting the right information, gathering it, analyzing it and communicating it to others. You also have to be connected with those other groups doing this, so that you will not be educating in a vacuum. This is what makes peace education an important field of work ».

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George J. Borjas – USA

Linked with the United Nations University UNU, and with Do No Evil.

George J. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Borjas received his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 1975. Prior to moving to Harvard in 1995, he was a Professor of Economics at the University of California at San Diego. (full text).

He says: ”Any ‘reform’ that gives amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants without taking care of the underlying illegal -immigration problem is a lemon. After all, what guarantees that the current batch of 12 million illegal immigrants will not be replaced by another 12 million in just a few years? What guarantees that guest workers will not stay illegally in the United States after their visa expires? What guarantees that border enforcement will be taken seriously by the Bush administration in the next two years or by the Democratic administration after that? » (full text, May 17, 2007).

Look at: The Borjas’ Blog, George Borjas’s thoughts on immigration, labor markets, and random stuff.

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George J. Borjas – USA

Contact information.

Listen to his Google video: George J. Borjas, Costs of Immigration, 54 min, 5 Jun 2006. Harvard economist George Borjas details the hidden costs of current American immigration policies.

His CV.

He writes: « It has been a year since Heaven’s Door was published. And it has been an interesting year, both in terms of the reactions to my book and in terms of how the debate over immigration policy has evolved ». (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « George J. Borjas – USA »