From Wikipedia Gandhi is a 1982 epic biographical film which dramatises the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, an Indian lawyer and activist who was a leader of the nation's non-violent, non-cooperative independence movement against the United Kingdom's rule of the country during the 20th century. Gandhi was a collaboration of British and Indian production companies and was written by John Briley and produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. It stars Ben Kingsley in the titular role. The film covers Gandhi's life from a defining moment in 1893, as he is thrown off a South African train for being in a...

From Wikipedia   Cry Freedom is a 1987 British drama film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. It was written from a screenplay by John Briley based on a pair of books by journalist Donald Woods. The film centres around the real-life events involving black activist Steve Biko and his friend Donald Woods, who initially finds him destructive, and attempts to understand his way of life. Denzel Washington stars as Biko, while actor Kevin Kline portrays Woods. Cry Freedom delves into the ideas of discrimination, political corruption, and the repercussions...

From Wikipedia: King Leopold's Ghost (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the atrocities that were committed during that period. The book aims to increase public awareness of crimes committed by European colonial rulers in Africa. It was refused by nine of the ten U.S. publishing houses to which an outline was submitted, but became an unexpected bestseller and won the prestigious Mark Lynton History Prize for literary style. It also won the 1999 Duff...

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources...

John Pilger is a very unusual journalist. He writes about people on the receiving end of grisly western policies - whether bombs or economic "advice" - and then exposes the motivations of those who are responsible. One might think Pilger is just doing his job. In fact, it is an indictment of western journalism that this way of working is rather unusual and Pilger unique. He opens by writing: "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorised versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and...

From Wikipedia   Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a book written by John Perkins and published in 2004. It provides Perkins' account of his career with consulting firm Chas. T. Main in Boston. Before employment with the firm, he interviewed for a job with the National Security Agency (NSA). Perkins claims that this interview effectively constituted an independent screening which led to his subsequent hiring by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (and alleged NSA liaison) to become a self-described "economic hit man". According to Perkins, he began writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man in the...

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many readers, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the earth's living matter-air, ocean, and land surfaces-forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit...

In this powerful book, journalist and film maker John Pilger strips away the layers of deception, dissembling language and omission that prevent us from understanding how the world really works. From the invisible corners of Tony Blair's Britain to Burma, Vietnam, Australia, South Africa and the illusions of the 'media age', power, he argues, has its own agenda. Unchallenged, it operates to protect its interests with a cynical disregard for people - shaping, and often devastating, millions of lives. By unravelling the hidden histories of contemporary events, Pilger allows us to read between the lines. He also celebrates the eloquent...

It is possible to believe that the many problems that Africa faces - war, genocide, poverty, famine - are the faults either of Western governments and financial institutions and/or the result of natural disasters. How is that an entire continent, pretty much, can be in such dire straights? Why is it that it is afflicted with so many deep-rooted and intractable problems? Martin Meredith's 'The State of Africa' seeks to explore the recent history of the continent, throwing much light on the answers to these difficult questions. Meredith's work has an enormous scope, covering as it does the entire continent,...

From Wikipedia   Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet is a non-fiction book by author Mark Lynas about global warming. The book looks and attempts to summarize results from scientific papers on climate change. The first chapter describes the expected effects of climate change with one degree (°C) increase in average global temperature since pre-industrial times. The second chapter describes the effects of two degrees average temperature and so forth until Chapter 6 which shows the expected effects of six degrees (°) average global temperature. The effects are also compare to paleoclimatic studies, with six degrees of warming...

W ho will teach? The programmes at CICD demand out-of-the ordinary teachers. The school’s teachers have a wide range of experiences and knowledge from travelling and working in many different countries. They are a diverse bunch, of different ages and nationalities. The teachers at CICD have as their biggest passion to create a life changing and high quality programme, teaching and training adults to make a difference in the world. You will find the teachers living at the college and engaged in every aspect of the school and the programme. You will find them active in their teaching and leadership...

O n teaching and learning The school’s learning and teaching is a rare bird and definite¬ly out of the ordinary. It has each student and the student body in the middle of everything and playing the leading part. This is deepened through a collectively based organisation of the school’s programme. The content and methods used within teach¬ing and learning demand that all, students and teachers alike, act together both theoretically and practically within the programme topics and their elements of life and learning, as well as within all matters of running the school and its everyday. A sprightly programme and...

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience. Beauty is the greatest seducer of man. Every blessing ignored becomes a curse. Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.   If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it. Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.   Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only...

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they...

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” “I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up...

Secretary General's Envoy has been to Southern Africa. ......"there is no question that the pandemic can be defeated" Notes for Press Briefing United Nations, New York, Noon, January 8, 2003 Stephen Lewis, Secretary-General’s Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa: "Last month, I spent two weeks touring four countries in Southern Africa: Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. The primary purpose was to view the link between hunger and AIDS. I want to look back at that visit, because little will have changed between then and now (except, perhaps, that things will have deteriorated further), and then look forward to the prospects for...

The Imperative of Investing in Adolescence From the UNICEF website   Among the multitude of issues, goals, targets and priorities on the international development agenda, adolescents – defined by the United Nations as those between 10 and 19 years of age – seldom come first. Particularly when development budgets are constrained, as now, conventional wisdom might dictate devoting most resources to children in the first decade of their lives. Investment in health, nutrition, basic education and protection for younger children has in recent years secured a significantly better start in life for many.  With this achievement, however, comes a responsibility...

Grameen Bank – a bank for the poor From Wikipedia   The Grameen Bank (Bengali: গ্রামীণ বাংক) is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. The name Grameen is derived from the word gram which means "rural" or "village" in the Bengali language. The system of this bank is based on the idea that the poor have skills that are under-utilized. A group-based credit approach is applied which utilizes the peer-pressure within the group to ensure the borrowers follow through and use...

The charter of Humana People to People We quote from the website of Humana People to People: “Through the 80-r and 90-s Humana People to People grew in size and scope with more countries, more development projects, more activities within the projects and many more people involved. The Charter was written to sum up the status of the organization and to preview, anticipate and herald an even more vivid, active and magnificent future. The Charter of Humana People to People is a piece of art. It is an example of how it is possible to write the history of the...

Malaria Communities Program In Zaire province, Angola – started 2011 The Objective The overall objective of the program is to establish a school based community malaria control network in Zaire province in the northern Angola. The specific objectives are, through the network, to promote: - Increased use of bed nets in the target population, particularly by pregnant women and children under 5 years. - Improved ability in communities to recognize symptoms of malaria. - Increased health-seeking behavior in target communities The Strategy The strategy is to establish a network of 200 teachers, who are specially trained in the key project...