It's Global Week of Action for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - and today's feature is a video from UNICEF about how rape and sexual violence have increasingly been used as a weapon of war against thousands of Congolese women and girls:
In 2006, the first global call for citizens of the world to Stand Up against poverty mobilized 24 million people in 87 countries, setting a Guinness World Record.
In 2007, that record was shattered when 43.7 million people in 127 countries joined the Global Call for Action Against Poverty in the "biggest 24-hour mobilization ever recorded in history on any one issue."
1) Hub user Radiowalker brings us Internews Radio for Darfur Refugees and Displaced Chadians, the story of three community radio stations in Chad in which the news stories are produced by refugees and internally displaced people themselves. By helping spread vital information that might otherwise not reach those living in the camps, the radio programs have helped protect some women from violence and attacks, says reporter and refugee Houzna Arabi. Definitely worth watching:
Starting today, more than 100 million people in at least 98 countries are expected to Stand Up, Take Action, and join voices in one global call against poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs):
Today I woke up at 8am - the beginning of morning peak hour in Mumbai, and for some reason I couldn’t help dozing off to the alarm and enjoying the blissful state of a mini-vacation in this chaotic city. My room faces the main road which is off the Western Express highway, and usually even with the windows shut, I can hear the beeping and thumping of cars and bikes and the plethora of autorickshaws chugging along the roads.
As I gained consciousness, it hit that today there is a strike! And all the autorickshaws are parked away and abandoned..millions at a time!
A brief post on a busy day for Blog Action Day, to highlight the video aspects of it, which we hope to see grow next year. And here's their list of 88 things you can do to alleviate poverty - to which I would add one... Read one of these three posts:
Several interesting items uploaded to the Hub this week! Be sure to check out these three:
There are 3309 inmates on death row in the US today and up to 20% of them may have undiagnosed mental illnesses, estimates Renny Cushing, executive director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR).
Today is Mental Health Day and World Day Against the Death Penalty and our Editor's Pick takes you to Texas - the state that executes more inmates than anywhere in the US while ranking in the bottom three in mental healthcare spending.
--- "Adults can stand the hunger. Children should be spared the agony." (Josephine) ---
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While we're on the subject of Demos, they've also released reports on privacy in a society filled with technology and surveillance, and on the new politics of personal information. Peter Bradwell, who wrote the latter, "is starting a new project looking at how the public can drive personal information policy and shape how identity technologies work.
