The following is reprinted with permission from the author, Saundra Schimmelpfennig. The original can be found here on Saundra’s excellent blog Good Intentions Are Not Enough. Imagine that you’re at work when whatever natural disaster is most probable in your state strikes. For me it would be an earthquake, for you it might be a flood, volcanic eruption, or hurricane. The natural disaster has toppled telephone poles and cell phone towers, damaged roads, and collapsed [...]

I’ve just listened to the whole of Barack Obama’s speech on the State of the Union, delivered to Congress on Wednesday 27th. It would be a long speech even if you could remove the all too frequent and annoying standing ovations. (Whatever happened to the practice of listening politely to the end and then applauding?) Like all Obama’s speeches it was extremely well crafted and magnificently delivered. He concentrated on the US economy – unemployment, [...]

David talks about agri-business/technology. Richard discusses TEAR Fund’s projects in Sri Lanka and they explore future development opportunities.

Disasters like the Haiti earthquake provide fertile ground for scammers to work their black magic. Such disasters and the ensuing media frenzy tug at people’s heartstrings and compel many towards wanting to help. With modern technology it’s not too hard to manipulate and take advantage of that desire only to use it for anything but helping. A perfect example is a Facebook application I have seen floating around called “Haiti Click donations” that seems to [...]

Every day I get an e-newsletter from Sojourners called Verse and Voice. It’s a basic newsletter that gives a few verses to consider, a quote and a prayer. I’ve only been getting it for a little while but have already found it to be a profound way to start my working day. As a blogger, it’s very tempting to take the quote or prayer from each day and comment on it here as they are [...]

Greetings from the republic of Aotearoa – a progressive and peaceful nation in the south Pacific which leads the world in caring for its multi racial populace and its natural environment. Yeah, right!  How sad that this statement is so far from the truth. Like so many nations Aotearoa has a shameful legacy of colonialism. The Maori people were cheated and robbed of their land, their culture was repressed and their race nearly destroyed. When [...]

With the major rescue efforts being called off in Haiti and those resources being diverted to the continuing provision of emergency relief and care, alongside efforts to stabilise the country another pressing problem is becoming of increasing concern, child trafficking. Child trafficking in Haiti was already a problem with several NGO’s noting a sharp increase in the number of children being trafficked out of the country into the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas in 2008. [...]

It’s time to enter the discussion about Pat Robertson’s comments relating to Haiti. The comment from the infamous televangelist that has caused much furor in the media and around the internet can be viewed over on Youtube. In the clip, Pat Robertson makes a connection between Haiti’s poverty and suffering and a “pact with the devil” that was supposed to have taken place during the Haitian slave revolt in the 1790’s that removed them from under [...]

As Haitians suffer the devastation of an earthquake that his ripped apart the lives of many and left an already poor nation crippled even further, it was with sadness that I read the Sunday Star Times article regarding the empires of three prominent Auckland churches, revealing their financial situations and their growing wealth. The suffering of the Haitians and the opulent wealth of the three churches examined in that article may seem disconnected and possibly [...]

Forget the arguments and cynicism about aid.  The need in Haiti is massive and urgent.  Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world.  Its infrastructure is completely inadequate to cope with the effect of a 7.0 magnitude quake so close to its capital.  Rapid, effective foreign aid is vital. It’s hard to get an accurate picture of what’s happening.  Communications are disrupted, reports sketchy and varying considerably but it’s likely the death toll [...]