December 7 Newsletter
STUFF HAPPENING AT JUST FOCUS
Kia ora koutou!
Welcome to the last newsletter for 2007. You should all be finished, or soon to finish, school or uni and all those nasty exams and tests and now you can look forward to a fantastic summer break!! I’m sure you all deserve it. Living, working, studying AND trying to save the world can get a bit tiring.
We are definitely ready for a break, but before we do we will be taking part in an ethnic youth forum in Wellington, making preparations for our very cool stall at the Parihaka festival and we will be doing a mailout with the latest global bits. If your address has changed since last time then get in touch with Jennie.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
RECENT NEWS AND EVENTS
A visiting anti-poverty campaigner and veteran of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement says New Zealand’s anti-terrorism laws should be challenged. Dr Kumi Naidoo, Chief Executive of CIVICUS, a global umbrella group of 500 civic action groups, says the world-wide reaction to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US has been predictably tragic. You can read the full article or listen to his speech on Scoop.
In the US, public school in two Florida counties are refusing to allow members of a peace organisation to counter the presence of military recruiters, by talking with high school students about options other than joining the service, such as the Peace Corps.
China has enforced rules to restrict family size since the 1970s, in the face of scarce land, water and energy resources, but this restriction is also being blamed for China’s soaring youth crime rate. The one-child policy has created a generation of only children forced to cope with the burden of family expectations alone amidst difficult social change.
UPCOMING EVENTS/ACTIONS FOR YOU TO BE PART OF
International Human Rights Day
December 10
International Human Rights Day marks the anniversary of the Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Find out how you can take action against human rights abuses by visiting Amnesty International New Zealand or check out some of the articles available on Just Focus.
Buy Nothing Christmas
December
Buy Nothing Christmas is not about wanting not wanting to spent a cent over the holiday season, its about thinking about what we are buying, why we are buying it, and whether we really need it at all!? You can still exchange gifts, but you could opt for recycled, homemade, locally produced, or fair-trade items….or focus instead on valuable time with family and friends.
For more information and some great ideas for Buy Nothing gifts go to Adbusters or check out Elisabeth Perham’s Xmas- Trash or Treasure article.
LINKS TO OTHER INTERESTING STUFF
As Christmas madness takes over it’s a great time to stop and think about all the STUFF in the world. Check out Free Range Studios The Story of Stuff. It will take you on a tour of our consumer-driven culture, exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to live. You can watch it here, or in instalments on YouTube here.
Penguins in peril – Guide the penguins to safety across crumbling ice floes and seal-infested water, on the Natural History Museum site.
Give Free rice to those who need it and extend your vocabulary at the same time.
NEW STUFF ON THE WEBSITE
Recently Just Focus member Pip Bennett attended Kaleidoscope, the first event of Oxfam’s International Youth Partnership programme for 2007-2010. 300 young people from around the world gathered for nine days of workshops and networking. Read about her amazing experience and then check out an article written by Gonzalos Garcés, an Oxfam Youth Partner from Chile, who writes about the struggle of the Mapuche, a people originally from the south of Latin America, whose name means people or persons of the earth.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT…….?
….The new Australian Prime Minister
….New Rules Against Protesters
….Men’s Issues
You can have a rant about this stuff and anything else you want on the Just Focus forum!
NEW STUFF FOR YOU
Maria Full of Grace examines the experience of a ‘drug mule’, a teenage Colombian girl who enlists to smuggle heroin into the United States, to escape her plight of poverty.
You can borrow this DVD and heaps of other books, guides and great films for FREE from the Global Education Centre. Email justfocus@globaled.org.nz for info on how to borrow them.
WANNA GET MORE INVOLVED?
Want to add stuff to the next newsletter or the Events Page, or to write an article/review, or take a photo/create an image for the Just Focus website? Reply to us at info@justfocus.org.nz, it’s always great to hear from you.
