Mois : avril 2008

Index April 2008

Rafael C. Lopa – Philippines

Linked with The Resource Alliance.org.

Rafael C. Lopa looks at emerging social enterprises and how to engage the business sector in building social capital at grassroots level. Introduction by Mal Warwick (Newsletter of the Resource Alliance.org).

World Forum, Introduction and essential information … in Edinburgh, Scotland from September 2nd to 5th 2008. (full text).

Billionaire venture capitalist Sir Tom Hunter is to be a keynote speaker at the UK’s first annual social investment conference, Good Deals, in London on Tuesday 6th May, 2008. Presented by the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in partnership with NESTA, Good Deals will bring together a wide range of high profile contributors to debate and learn about new opportunities for financing social change … (full text).

ASA Philippines Foundation/about.

..

Rafael C. Lopa – Philippines

Employment and skills for disadvantaged people, Social Firms: a solution. Conference 23 – 24 June 2008, Reading University – Background and event objectives: This conference is relevant for Social Firms, social enterprises and service providers who have an interest and active involvement in helping people furthest away from the labour market into employment and training opportunities … (full text Social Firms.uk).

What is the future of social enterprise in ethical markets? By Dr Alex Nicholls MBA, a social enterprise think piece for the Office of the Third Sector, November 2007, 26 pages.

Rafael is currently involved in promoting Social Entrepreneurship in the Philippines. Concretely, he sits on the board of ASA Philippines Foundation, a Non-governmental Organization involved in Micro-Financing for poor enterprising women. He is also on the Board of the PINOYME Foundation, a foundation that is in the process of setting up a Social Investment Banking Operation geared to further strengthen the Micro-Finance Institutions in the Philippines. Rafael serves as Chairman of MicroVentures, Inc. MVI, a Social Business Enterprise geared to be the leading business partner of MicroEntrepreneurs. To date, MVI has pioneered the establishment of a network of small village /community based stores (or what we refer to as « Sari-sari Stores) owned by women micro-entrepreneurs catering to the Bottom of the Pyramid Market. He will be a featured speaker at the International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation (IWRM) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 22-25 May 2008 … (full text).

Welcome to the Social Enterprise Network.

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Rani Bang – India

Linked with SEARCH.org.

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

Rani Bang’s work in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra has changed the face of the tribal pockets in the area. Where healthcare was once nonexistent, there are now a friendly hospital, experienced healthworkers, and trained traditional birth attendants. Rani also worked actively towards reviving traditional medicine, realizing that community mobilization combined with the optimum use of existing facilities is the only way to solve the crises in the interior areas, largely overlooked by policy and planners alike. (1000peacewomen).

She says: « Rani Bang’s forte is her responsiveness to what the people identify as priority areas of concern. She uses research to understand their needs, and then uses community-based solutions to solve them ».

National Award for Women’s Development through application of Science & Technology Conferred on Dr. Rani Bang.

Like many great medical breakthroughs, Drs. Abhay and Rani Bang’s discovery of how to reduce child deaths in the developing world as much as 75% came from a deceptively simple premise … (full text).

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Abhay and Rani Bang – India

She works for the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (Search).

Two hundred kilometers to the south of Nagpur lies Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra. It is located on the borders of Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. This area is known to be one of the most backward regions of Maharashtra. In this forlorn place, a brilliant doctor couple, in their fifties, has been working for over two decades, taking medical care to the poor people … (full text).

Her profile on Ashoka.
Dr. Rani Bang comes from a family with strong commitment to medical and public service. She is also the daughter-in-law of well-known Gandhian Takurdas Bang. She completed her medical degree in India with several gold medals, and went on to Johns Hopkins University in the US for a Masters in Public Health.

Having obtained the degree, Rani returned to India. In the early 1980s, she and her husband, Dr. Abhay Bang, decided to relocate to the internal tribal pockets of Maharashtra. Abhay and Rani set up the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH) to provide community healthcare to the tribes in Gadchiroli district.

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Karen Silkwood – USA (1946 – 1974)

Linked with Tony Mazzocchi – USA, and with List of Trade Unions worldwide.

Karen Silkwood (February 19, 1946 – November 13, 1974) was an American labor union activist and chemical technician at the Kerr-McGee plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, United States. Silkwood’s job was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. She died under mysterious circumstances after investigating claims of irregularities and wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plant … (wikipedia).

Her Union activities.

Karen Silkwood (1946-1974), a nuclear plant laborer who died while investigating safety violations made by her employer, is viewed as a martyr by anti-nuclear activists. Her story was made into a film, Silkwood, in 1983 … (Encyclopedia of World Biography, on Karen Silkwood, About 5 pages / 1364 words – FREE).

Karen Silkwood was a co-founder of the (US) Labor Party.

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Karen Silkwood – USA (1946 – 1974)

She worked for the Kerr-McGee plant, Oklahoma.

Was Karen Silkwood Murdered?

  • Controversy Was Karen Silkwood Murdered Part 1;
  • Controversy Was Karen Silkwood Murdered Part 2:
  • Controversy Was Karen Silkwood Murdered Part 3.

Karen Silkwood, Campaigner.

Silkwood said she had assembled a stack of documentation for her claims. She now decided to go public with this evidence, and made contact with a New York Times journalist prepared to print the story. On November 13, 1974 she left a union meeting at the Hub Cafe in Crescent. Another attendee of that meeting later testified that she did have a binder and a packet of documents at the cafe. Silkwood got into her car and headed alone for Oklahoma City, about 30 miles away, to meet with New York Times reporter David Burnham and Steve Wodka, an official of her union’s national office. She never arrived. (wikipedia).

From the New York Times: The Karen Silkwood Story, An Unexpected Twist At The End – HERE IS THE STORY that answers the basic question underlying the Karen Silkwood controversy, 1985.

In the book: No Nukes, everyone’s guide to nuclear power, page 103.

… Karen Silkwood, who died at age 28, was buried in Danville Cemetery in Kilgore, Texas … (full text).

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Tony Mazzocchi – USA (1926 – 2002)

Linked with Karen Silkwood – USA (1946 – 1974), with List of Trade Unions worldwide, and with The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor.

Last October, Clean Water Action – and all who care about a safer and more just world – lost a close friend and visionary partner to cancer. Tony Mazzocchi was a leader in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW, which merged with the paperworkers in 1999 to form a union called PACE). He was one of the first to call attention to the injustices of an industrial system that endangers workers’ health both on the job and in the community. He believed – and acted effectively on the belief – that the path to solutions lies in building alliances between workers, environmentalists and community residents to transform conditions that ultimately threaten all of humanity. His tireless advocacy over five decades spurred creation of the modern workplace health and safety movement, sparked environmental groups’ increased emphasis on health harm from toxic chemicals, and forged labor-environmental partnerships that produced many of those movements’ most important victories … (full text).

Union Scrapper about: A Review of The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor.

He said: « We’re the only industrial nation in the world where if you strike the employer can replace you with scabs—permanently. That’s not a right to strike. That’s a right to commit suicide. (on ‘We Want to Redefine What Society Is All About’: An Interview With Tony Mazzocchi on the Birth of the Labor Party, » Z-Magazine, February 01, 1997″).

Download the audio-Interview with Les Leopold.

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Tony Mazzocchi – USA (1926 – 2002)

at left/above the book – at right/down honoring Karen Silkwood

Tony Mazzocchi, A Video Tribute, 8.12 min, Nov. 13, 2007.

The book telling the life and times of Tony Mazzocchi, same also on labor notes.

He said also: « When you build a big movement from down below, regardless of who’s in the White House, you can bring about change ». (on Anthony Mazzocchi, 76, Dies, » New York Times, October 9, 2000).

Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Anthony Mazzocchi (June 13, 1926 – October 5, 2002) was an American labor leader. He was a high elected official of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union OCAW, serving as vice president from 1977 to 1988, and as secretary-treasurer from 1988 to 1991. He was a mentor to Karen Silkwood, a co-founder of the Labor Party, and credited by President Richard Nixon as being the primary force behind enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. For his efforts, he was called the « Rachel Carson of the American workplace » … (wikipedia).

And he said: Movements grow in desperate times. We are being born, (on Tony Mazzocchi, 76; Workplace Safety Advocate, Political Activist, » Los Angeles Times, October 8 2002).

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Colin Greer – USA

Linked with The New World Foundation NWF, with Social justice philanthropy from the bottom up.

Colin Greer is president of the New World Foundation in New York. He was a founding editor of Change and Social Policy magazines, a professor for many years in the CUNY system, and has written several award-winning books on education and public policy. His best selling book A Call to Character (HarperCollins, 1995) is a progressive response to William Bennett’s Book of Virtues.

He says: « The Democratic party isn’t a live political party in most places outside Washington. It’s basically a message and money machine at the national level that organises itself every four years for a presidential election. Without long-term and serious attention to the local and state, it was not ready tactically to do most of the things you need to do to win an election. By tactical, I mean that you can win elections by winning just enough votes to win the Electoral College, and if you’re really careful you can get enough votes to legitimate the victory with a popular vote. The Republicans have been deeply engaged in the tactics of doing that. Democrats haven’t and didn’t. In the Democratic party there’s virtually no relationship between local candidates and the national party, and no relationship between the electoral campaign structure and local multi-issue organisations … (full interview text, Dec. 22, 2004).

… But if we DO want to engage new audiences, we must, as Colin Greer told us today, approach our new allies with a spirit of humility, listening deeply and harvesting what we hear as a prelude to action … (full long text of TCG National Conference 2006 – Building Future Audience).

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Colin Greer – USA

A Call to Character is a unique family reader that brings together a liberal assortment of voices from novels, short stories, plays and poetry – both the well loved and the obscure – to enrich and enliven a child’s imagination. The unusual breadth of readings illustrates lives defined by hign standards of personal character, such as courage, honesty, fairness, responsibility, compassion, empathy, generosity and love. (BAMM.com).

His book A Call to Charakter.

… Formerly, he was Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He is the author (with Herbert Kohl) of The Plain Truth of Things and A Call to Character, Harper Collins. Other books include: What Nixon is doing to Us; The Solution is Part of the Problem; After Reagan What? and The Divided Society. He is best known for The Great School Legend and Choosing Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling (which won the American Library Association’s Eli M. Oboler Intellectual Freedom Award). He was a founding editor of Change Magazine and Social Policy Magazine. He is a contributing editor to Parade Magazine. Dr. Greer participated in and directed several studies of US Immigration and urban schooling policy and history (at Columbia University and CUNY). He wrote briefing papers on philanthropy and government for First Lady, Mrs. Clinton, and on education policy for Senator Paul Wellstone. He chaired the President’s White House Fellows Program (1992-4) and chaired the Funders Committee for Citizen Participation for ten years. He currently chairs Healthcare without Harm (Boston), The LARK Theatre Company (NYC), and The Culture Project (NYC). He serves on the Boards of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative (NYC), NY City Interfaith Center, Tikkun (California), Open Democracy (London, UK), and the American Institute for Mental Imagery. He is currently working on studies of philanthropy and social justice under Ford Foundation grants. (theatre communications group tcg).

Social justice philanthropy: roots and prospect, March 2006.

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Bruno Manser – Switzerland (1954 – 2000?)

Linked with The Bruno Manser Fonds BMF, with The Borneo Project, and with Bruno Manser, Land Rights.

Bruno Manser (born August 25, 1954 in Basel, Switzerland) was an environmental activist. He was well-known in Switzerland for his public activism for rainforest preservation and the protection of indigenous peoples. Manser created richly illustrated notebooks during his stay in 1984 to 1990 with the Penan people, in the jungle of the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, near the Indonesian border of Kalimanta. He stayed with the nomadic band of Along Sega, who became the Penan figurehead for their struggle. He also visited many other settled Penan communities in the Upper Baram district. These notebooks were later published, with some success, by the Christoph Merian press in Basel. Manser, however, was declared persona non grata in Malaysia and had to leave the country with a bounty of $40,000 on his head … (full text).

Bruno Manser’s 1000 photos archive: search in english, (en Francais, auf deutsch). Click on the three pictures, a hidden search tool behind each appears, to help you to select by key words between the 1000 (small) photos. Click on them to enlarge.

See all articles about Bruno Manser (and mainly this photo archive) on Google-News-Bruno-Manser.

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Bruno Manser – Switzerland (1954 – 2000?)

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Bruno Manser – Laki Penan

The engagement and commitment of Bruno Manser in favor of the indigenous people of the tropical forests continues with the work of the Bruno Manser Fund BMF, who resides in Basel. The most important project is at present time the support of the Penan with a « Community Mapping » project, whereby especially trained Penan teams map their homeland and traditional use areas in the forest. The resulting maps serve i.a. as basis and evidence for various land right cases pending before the local courts … (full text).

Rainforest dwellers successfully maintain logging road blockade in one of Malaysia’s last virgin jungle areas, Aug. 14, 2006. (BMW).

So, what did Rio achieve? Well, at that time we were truly able to build on the upsurge, on the recognition by people and governments who wanted to do something about the state of the planet and the state of the human person. I am not being over-dramatic. It is true; you could feel it in the air at that time. Bruno Manser wanted to protest about deforestation. He had had an operation on his leg, because he had broken it in Switzerland. But in Rio he jumped from a parachute, riding piggy-back on somebody else, just to make his point. So people do go to extremities. You could really feel this atmosphere in 1992, and everybody believed that governments and people were sincerely committed to the issues and commitments that came out of Rio … (full text).

En présence des cinéastes.

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Michael Edwards – USA

Disambiguation: your search tool will bring you out several Michael Edwards.

Linked with Alliance, with the Resource Alliance, and with The 21st Century Trust.

Michael Edwards is the Director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil Society Unit in New York, having worked in international development for the last twenty years, including periods spent living and travelling in Latin America, Southern Africa and South Asia. After a series of senior management positions with Oxfam and Save the Children, he moved to Washington DC to work as a Senior Civil Society Specialist in the NGO Unit of the World Bank. His writings have helped to shape a more critical appreciation of the global role of civil society, and to break down barriers between researchers and activists across the world. Michael was educated in England at the universities of Oxford and London, and now lives with his wife in the center of Manhattan. (Future Positive.org).

His two books:

  • Future Positive, International cooperation in the 21st century;
  • Civil Society;

find their publishing informations on Future Positive.org.

Global Civil Society: Expectations, Capacities and the Accountability of International NGOs, Oxford 28 March – 5 April 2003.

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Michael Edwards – USA

“Just another Emperor? The myths and realities of philanthrocapitalism”, by Michael Edwards, published simultaneously in London and New York, 10th March 2008.

He says: « To me that means three things that I’ll leave you with that in the hope that they provoke some initial questions for our conversation:

  • Bringing social and economic democracy back into the conversation. Democracy requires both freedom and equality, yet (perhaps as a result of US dominance in this debate), freedom gets the lion’s share of the attention;
  • Thinking in terms of participatory and deliberative democracy and not just representation – that’s where some of the most interesting innovations lie, like participatory budgeting and citizens forums;
  • And being open to learning from non-Western experience where many of these innovations are strongest, like Brazil and India (e.g, importing participation in the local budget process by Labor government into the UK last year).

These changes would lay the basis for a different kind of conversation that sees democracy as something we co-create together, learning as we go, not something that is exported from one part of the world to another against a standard template or end point in time. And that I think would be a conversation with a lot more intellectual excitement, practical influence, ethical integrity and real purchase on the ground to which all of us as grant-makers could make a central contribution … (full conference text).

CIVIL SOCIETY: Field Statement of Current Programming (October 2003, 7 pages).

GOVERNANCE: Field Statement of Current Programming (October 2003, 7 pages).

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Xiaoliang Li, Sihai Long, Lihong Shi, Zhongxun Liu and Xiuyun Shang – China

Linked with my today’s comment on the China-Occident/France relation: China versus Occident/France = the WE versus the I.

And, to increase the awarness of the big variation of all chinese people, please go also to the China country’s sumary of this blog (scroll down to China).

All five chinese women are a part of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005. Unfortuntely there were provided only some few lines about their work and biography. Regardless here the few we may know:

——————-

1. Xiaoliang Li – China

She says: « Only by understanding why people do certain things, and with their genuine needs as the point of departure, can we change behavior and thinking, and effectively contain the spread of Aids ».

.xiaoliang-li-china-rogne.jpg. Click on picture for greater size.

She works for the Yunnan Medical University.

Li Xiaoliang is Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Junming Medical College, and a specialist at the Yunnan Health and Development Research Center. From 1989 she has been giving extensive training on the prevention and control of Aids. Not only has she worked on training materials for teachers, she has also developed peer training for young people, and aroused much public concern on issues of health and sexuality. Such work represents is a breakthrough in a society where sex and Aids are taboo subjects. (1000PeaceWomen).

any links:

HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Yunnan, 26 pages;

There are links with this name for Machine Intelligence, specific Software, chinese language, maternal health, music … etc.

———–

2. Sihai Long – China

She says: « I believe what I have done has changed the way many women and children look at themselves and the world … We can not only master our own fate, we can also change the environment in which we live … ”.

.sihai-long-china-rogne.jpg. Click on picture for greater size.

She works in the Bureau of Justice in Yunnan province.

Her work on advocacy of legal rights led her to set up a support center for women and children of ethnic minorities – particularly those who are abducted or suffering from Aids in southwest China. Long Sihai also organizes touring programs aimed at working to prevent abduction. These involve not only the support center, but also the Bureau of Justice, education departments, the Office of Legal Advocacy, provincial television stations, and arts troupes of the Dai national minority. (1000PeaceWomen).

any links: no, beside being mentioned in the 1000 peacewomen-project.

———–

3. Lihong Shi – China

She says: « All people have ideals. Daring or not daring to realize their ideals is the vital difference between idealists and idle dreamers. In this sense, I am an idealist daring to realize my own ideal ».

.shi-lihong-chine-two.jpg. Click on picture for greater size.

She works for the Global Environment Institute,
and for the Green Plateau Institute.

Shi Lihong, an environmental activist, is responsible for the Global Environment Institute and is executive director of Wild China. She is very active in nongovernmental environmental protection. One of the ways she contributes to the campaign for environmental protection is by making documentary films on the subject. (1000PeaceWomen).

Any Links:

Festival of Nature.org, 2007;

wild screen festival 2008;

There are many texts with the name Lihong Shi, but none seems to fit with our peacewomen.

———–

4. Zhongxun Liu – China

She says: « If we do not fight for our rights, we can never get them ».

.jd800772-redim-15p-rog.JPG. sorry, there exists no photo of Zhongxun Liu, China. Click on the rose for greater size.

Born in 1971, Liu Zhongxun grew up in a village beside the Yangtze river. She fights to protect her rights and dignity as a citizen. She resists the unreasonable rules and regulations made by local governments, and brings the local cadres who tyrannize peasants to court. She has no fear of threats, and with law and perseverance, she wins trials. She speaks from a sense of justice for the villagers, and does her best to disseminate knowledge about laws. (1000PeaceWomen).

any links: no.

———–

5. Xiuyun Shang – China

She says: « Transforming one more person means some more peace for society. This will benefit generations today and in the future. I must commit all my strength and my heart ».

.xiuyun-shang-china-rogne.jpg. Click on picture for greater size.

She works for the People’s Court of Haidian District, Beijing

Shang Xiuyun (62) is a communist party member and Deputy Presiding Judge of the second court in the People’s Court of Haidian District, Beijing. Known as ‘Mother Judge’, she has transformed a large number of juvenile delinquents, encouraging them to study and take part in ordinary activities. (1000PeaceWomen).

any links:

Juvenile delinquency sparks concern;

Judge Mother Shang Xiuyun;

Experts call for more Internet laws to protect teenagers.

Concita Maia – Brazil

Linked with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs, with UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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

Educator Concita Maia (1951) is the founder and president of the Articulated Movement of Women from the Amazon (Mama), a feminist and environmental NGO that unites and strengthens women from the Legal Amazon, a region formed by nine states and with an area of five million square kilometers. There are 117 indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and Caucasian groups with whom Concita discusses themes such as female health, education, violence, environment and income generation.

She says: « Working as a network strengthens us and gives us conditions to propose public policies that contemplate our reality, our Amazonic cultural diversity and our dreams ».

Concita Maia anda toda a razão de tanta satisfação é que esse mês ela é destaque na revista “Naturamov” como uma das 51 brasileira que estão concorrendo coletivamente, juntamente com mulheres de 152 paises, ao Nobel da Paz, o mais importante prêmio do mundo concedido a pessoas que se destacam nas áreas de economia, química, medicina, literatura, física e paz. (UOL.com).

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Concita Maia – Brazil

She works for the Movimento Articulado de Mulheres da Amazônia MAMA (named on Associação Brasileira de Organizações não Governamentais ABONG; on CIRADR; on Table of indigenous organizations in Brazil; on Especial Página 20 … and on many more).

Forbidden by her Caucasian mother of talking about her origins, Concita Maia silently held on to the history of her paternal grandmother. She was an indigenous who was hunted down and marked, on her arm, with the letters FC, which are the initials of the man who stole her freedom. Her grandmother was given as a present to another man with whom she had many children, including Concita’s father.

“My mom denied my indigenous background. It did not matter. It runs in my blood”. Popular education was the means that Concita found to take women like her grandmother away from “invisibility”. “Women who live in the depths of the forest and who are not even a part of the population data of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics)”. In the 80’s, as a graduate and postgraduate in pedagogy, Concita moved to a tribe located along the border with Peru, where she implanted Acre’s first indigenous school.

One year later, when she returned to the capital, Rio Branco, she widened the militancy for the fight for the rights of women from the Amazon.

Continuer la lecture de « Concita Maia – Brazil »