“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt With Christmas only just days behind us, we are in what is called the ‘Season
From the cartoon archives, Debt 04 by Bruce Petty. Thinking about using cartoons, photographs, statistics, maps or UN reports with your group? Our guides to exploring issues using resources is back online.
Recent months have seen a storm of criticism and comment of Trócaire’s campaign to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. This piece responds to one such commentator, Ruth Dudley Edwards, who accused Trócaire of disseminating ‘hatred’
The Irish Presidency of the European Council is well underway – but what does this mean for the development agenda and development education? Siobhán Sleeman investigates the opportunities for young people and the public to participate in building the post-Millennium Development Goals framework.
On 4th March Kenyans will be going to the polls to vote in national elections. Memories of the post-election violence that gripped the country in 2007-08 are vivid, and many fear similar violence could occur again when the polls close. But political violence in Kenya is more than just a
“We are Transition Year students from Presentation College, Bray and what we would like to share with you is real and happening now. We and our classmates were shocked and angry upon hearing these facts.” *This blog was written by Patryk Labuzek, Andrew Dore and Conor Davenport as part of
“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held
Recent meetings in Edinburgh (part of the IF Campaign) and elsewhere have highlighted the fact that issues such as ensuring a legal commitment to 0.7% of GNI as aid; climate justice and fair trade have become part of the debate on whether Scotland becomes an independent nation following the referendum
The DEEEP Seminar “Development Education: Responding to the Crisis?” took place in Dublin last month, bringing together over 100 development education practitioners and policy makers from across Europe to consider the role and response of development education in this time of global financial crisis. Co-hosted by Dóchas and IDEA, the
Since 1990 the annual Human Development Report has become THE one stop shop for regular reflection and analysis on one general issue issue year, such as water, cities, migration and human rights. It’s also free online and has become the most accessible and readable of all the international reports you
Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) are those that are not passed from person to person. Often, they are referred to as chronic diseases, in that they progress slowly and have a long duration – think diabetes, stroke, asthma, heart attack, obesity, high blood pressure, cancer. These are not the classic ‘diseases of poverty’
On World Food Day, October 16th, Scottish Minister for Learning Alasdair Allan announced the awarding of £600,000 (€700,700) towards the core costs of 6 development education (DE) centres nationally (Aberdeen, Coatbridge, Dingwall, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) as part of promoting Scotland’s role and responsibilities internationally. In announcing the grant, Allan
The countdown to One World Week is well underway with only 11 days to go before a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action will take place throughout Ireland during the third week in November. Organised by the National Youth Council of Ireland’s development education programme annually, One World
****Note: the consultation has been extended until Friday 17th January 2014. More information at the NCCA CSPE consultation online**** ___________________________________________________________________ The need for citizens to respond to the social, political and economic ills in Ireland has never been greater. Many years of rapid economic growth and political administration over the
The autumn issue of INDEX: the Development Education Exchange magazine is out and can be viewed above. A snappy and interesting read, there’s plenty of commentary and information on global development issues. The present issue is themed on Austerity in Ireland: a Development Education response. The contents give a good
Earlier this month, you may have seen our top 10 good news stories from 2013 we published. What follows covers some aspects of the other side of the coin. In order to understand the context of ‘good news’, we need to situate it alongside its opposite. Here are 10 bad
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘development’? Progress?…the gold rush?… land grabs?…jobs and the economy?…heavy industry at work? Since the publication of the short satirical comic ‘There You Go’ by Survival International in 2006, this little book has been used as a teaching
It’s hard to escape the ‘devastation’ that the ‘adverse weather conditions’ have ‘ravaged’ across the UK and Ireland, to limit it closer to home. Writing from Dublin, we have ‘escaped’ the ‘worst’ of the storms, but the reality of the huge impact of the damage across the country is readily
Tom Roche makes the case that all of us – student groups, teachers, woodwork folk, parents and professionals – should be making online submissions to the European Commission’s public consultation on combating wildlife trafficking, which closes on the 10th April. _______________________________ Events marking the first World Wildlife Day took place in
A date before August 20th 2014 will mark Earth Overshoot Day, the approximate date on which our resource consumption for this year will exceed the planet’s ability to replenish itself. 21 years ago, the date was October 21, by 2003 it was September 22nd and by 2013 it had moved
I can’t find my iPod. I can’t find it anywhere. Did I put it somewhere safe and now can’t remember? Perhaps someone has ‘taken’ it?! I wake up in the middle of the night and search for it. It’s not there. I can’t find it. For days now my mind
In the first of a series of blogs about the impact and consequences of the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, ARI researcher Jamie Hitchen, recently back from a year spent working in the country, focuses on health care. _________________________________________________________________ “Ebola has revealed that there was no system in the first
2015 is an important year for international development. This year, global leaders will hold two remarkable summits focusing on both people and the planet. One UN summit to be held in New York in September will result in a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to replace the previous
The Guardian newspaper captured the essence of the issue in its editorial of April 21st: ‘A proud father who is fleeing persecution, a mother who wants to give her family a chance – every migrant who risks their lives in the Mediterranean has a story that any European would recognise.
“Whatever mourns when many leave these shores; Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.” – Insensibility by Wilfred Owen (October 1917) Wilfred Owen’s poem dwells on the insensibility of civilians to the suffering of the soldiers in the trenches of the First World War. He condemns those who fail to
For the past 8 years, the Global Peace Index (GPI) has been prepared by ‘think tank’ the Institute for Economics and Peace (HQ Sydney with branches in New York and Mexico) focused on the measurement of peace, its causes and its economic value. The Index ranks countries according to their
Ten years after The Economist declared that Africa was ‘a basket case’ it was back with another headline: ‘Africa Rising…the hopeful continent’. If Africa is rising can it continue to do so, or will the many problems it still faces render its rising ‘a false dawn’?
The 20 page briefing paper, Living in the Hollow of Plenty: World Hunger Today and its accompanying support activities are part of the Food Rights Now education and awareness campaign and is designed to provide a set of briefing notes on: different dimensions of world hunger today (definition, measurement, who’s
In supporting Primary Education, DICE have developed a series of downloadable thematic teaching materials to assist teachers and educators in approaching development issues in their class/workshop. Homes Around The World A project using multi-cultural story books to introduce 1st and 2nd class pupils to the many different types of homes
Fancy organising a workshop? Many NGOs have members of staff who do outreach and education visits to schools as part of their education programmes.