Peacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
Children Inspiring Peace (ChIP) is a character education project by students in Grades K-6 at Leslie Park Public School [Nepean, Ontario]. The message of ChIP is that we can come together as a community and get along when we learn about one another and listen to each other’s story. ChIP’s goal is to gather stories from children and youth around the world. Already, ChIP has been shared with students in Israel and in Palestine. We invite classes across Canada to participate in our project and add your story to the ChIP album.
The Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence’s Drawing Peace Contest strives to foster a culture of nonviolence and peace by raising awareness among children ages 6-12 from all over the world, through the medium of art. The objective of this contest is to allow children and youth to appreciate the value of nonviolence, the potential of nonviolent action to address conflicts, the value of social responsibility, the interconnected nature of the human experience, and the planet’s natural environment.. more
A senior United Nations human rights official today called on international troops fighting militants in Afghanistan to follow directives designed to guard against civilian deaths, drawing particular attention to the plight of children caught up in the conflict.
Last year, some 346 children were killed by warring factions in Afghanistan, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy told reporters in Kabul…
Ms. Coomaraswamy noted a “major change in attitude and tactics” on the part of the military since her last visit in July 2008, but stressed that “these ideas and directives have now to be implemented.”
Last Train Home follows the travails of a couple who leave their children to work 2,100 kilometres away in a garment sweatshop.
Filmmaker Lixin Fan’s documentary chronicles one Chinese family’s struggle to make ends meet as employees of a garment factory, and a whole country’s reliance on migrant workers.
War has long been the shadow cast on the backdrop of American life, a part of us, varying in degrees of prominence the brighter or darker it becomes, so it chilled me to read a review of this game titled, “Modern Warfare 2 Kills Well With Others.”
WHEN family mediator Jonathan Toussaint asked a 13-year-old boy recently what message he wanted to give his separated mother and father, the boy replied: “I have two messages. When you speak to each other, use each other’s names [not insults] and don’t use me as a message carrier. It’s not my problem.”
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka said Friday it plans to release all detained Tamil Tiger child soldiers by the end of May and re-unite them with their families.
Government forces defeated the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May last year, ending their 37-year fight for a Tamil homeland in the north of the country.
Over 500 child soldiers surrendered to the army and were produced before a court before being enlisted in a one-year rehabilitation programme.
Tackling poverty in conflict areas is an enormous challenge. But, say an increasing number of fair trade pioneers on the eve of Fairtrade Fortnight, the just economic model used in more peaceful countries can also help to alleviate the problems of conflict zones.
Offering people decent prices for their produce can help to support jobs, improving living conditions for producers, their families and the local businesses they buy from, and diverting young men, especially, away from involvement in militias.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission has today published a human rights framework for the design and implementation of a Forum for survivors of historic child abuse in Scotland.
To Gail Bones and other volunteers at the Mustard Seed Street Church and Food Bank, pastor Tom Oshiro is the inspiration that keeps them going day after day.
“What do I think of Tom Oshiro?” said the volunteer haircutter at the Mustard Seed Street Church and Food Bank. “He’s the most precious person and probably the closest thing to Mother Teresa that I will ever meet.”
Oshiro, honoured with Leadership Victoria’s annual Lifetime Achievement Award yesterday, arrived at the Mustard Seed in 1991, going from counsellor to pastor and director. He has watched the number of hungry people grow from 400 to 7,200 a month — including 1,700 children — and overseen the food bank as it clambered from the brink of financial collapse in 1996 to reach last year’s budget of $1.9 million — all from donations.
“We have never got one cent from government, which is such a blessing — they can’t dictate to us,” said Oshiro, 81, sitting in his Mustard Seed office surrounded by walls of books, children’s paintings, crystal-meth pamphlets and religious symbols.
Oshiro, who was named Citizen of the Year for Victoria in 2002, is slightly bemused by the award, and reflected on his definition of leadership.
Filed under: children and youth — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 09:11 UTC
News source:
World Vision Canada
Have you seen poverty—the flesh and blood of it—in your community? Not just the TV images of the girl who ran away from home and got lost on the street, or the boy who left home at 15 and is now a professional panhandler.
The shame of hungry children in Canada is something we may wish to avoid seeing. The stigma of a single mother with her children waiting in line at the food bank may make us uncomfortable. The appalling conditions in which some Canadians live—poor housing, lack of nutritious food—are a challenge to our own enjoyment of this bountiful country.
Why didn’t the Canadian government do its best to resolve, in some way, the case of a Canadian child held at Guantánamo? Because he didn’t come from a nice family.
Nepal has discharged all of the under-aged combatants from the army of the former Maoist rebels. That is being hailed as the closing of a critical chapter for the peace process in the poor, landlocked country between China and India.
More than 200 former child soldiers boarded buses in the rugged highlands of mid-western Nepal for a ride back into civilian life.
On 20 November 1989, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To commemorate this landmark, UNICEF is dedicating a special edition of its flagship report, The State of the World’s Children, to child rights… full report
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Wednesday that the Harper administration will not seek the repatriation of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr… Cannon said that while the government is considering options to remedy the violation of Khadr’s constitutional rights, it will not press for his return because he faces charges in the US…
This announcement follows last week’s ruling…, which held that the interrogation of Khadr by Canadian officials while in detention violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms… (see Jurist story with links)
KABUL – Over the past year dozens of schools have reopened in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, in part due to an accommodation with Taliban insurgents, Education Ministry officials say.
Canadians remain divided on the eventual fate of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr, and almost half believe the Supreme Court made the right decision in letting the federal government choose its own course of action on this issue, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
The Conservative government will not ask for Omar Khadr to be repatriated from an American detention centre in Cuba despite a Supreme Court ruling that his rights have been violated, the Foreign Affairs Minister said Wednesday…
In a 9-0 ruling last week, the Court found that Canada and the United States are violating Mr. Khadr’s right to life, liberty and security under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but stopped short of ordering the government to ask Washington to send him home.
London, England (CNN) — Three aid groups called Thursday for an immediate halt to any new adoptions of Haitian children after last week’s earthquake.
Save the Children, World Vision and a unit of the British Red Cross said the focus first must be on tracing any family members that children may still have and reuniting them.
“Any hasty new adoptions would risk permanently breaking up families, causing long-term damage to already vulnerable children, and could distract from aid efforts in Haiti,” the agencies said in a joint statement….
Allowing a flood of new adoptions also could open the door to traffickers, said World Vision Chief Executive Justin Byworth.
By Human Security Report Project at the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University.
The Shrinking Costs of War reveals that nationwide death rates actually fall during the course of most of today’s armed conflicts…see abstract and full report
