Brooke Fraser is about to get down and dirty in Ethiopia for a cause close to her heart. The Kiwi songwriter, who this week completes a Flags-raising tour of Europe, will return to Africa to visit as many of the Charity Water birthday-funded (she raised US$65,000) projects as possible. ”I recently received a satellite image Read more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D98J3n2oFe0
Vulnerable children from the most deprived communities have become “silent victims” of the recession, often having to go without healthy food, healthcare and clothing, a new report has found. The yearly Children’s Social Health Monitor, released on Monday, examines the effects of the economic downturn on children. Researchers say children with preventable illnesses are being left untreated Read more
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the aid agencies to receive some of the $1 million that the Government has made available for African drought relief. The Foreign Minsister, Murray McCully, has been criticised by aid agencies and opposition parties with claims of “unacceptable delays” in providing the money. McCully issued a statement on Friday afternoon saying that money has been allocated to Read more
New Zealand ranked 28th out of 30 countries using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data on international performance across 20 different aspects of children’s lives. New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of spending on children in the OECD, at $3 billion dollars annually. This information is contained in a report, “1000 days Read more
The rest of the world has watched transfixed and uncomprehending over the last few days as legislators in the United State struggled to come to some agreement to prevent the United States government defaulting on its debts. The spectacle led one commentator, Robert Dallek to say, “Something is at work here that makes you wonder if rational discourse Read more
A five-year doctoral study by Waikato University sociologist Dr Kellie McNeill has found that charities served 25,000 free meals, Work and Income gave out 12,000 food grants and foodbanks gave out 4,000 food parcels in Hamilton in 2006-07. That was at a time when the economy was booming. National statistics suggest the recession may have roughly doubled Read more
The Salvation Army’s Consumer Price Survey of food prices at a South Auckland supermarket released on Wednesday showed increases for the year to June 2011 of 9.1 per cent for a single-parent family with two children and 8.2 per cent for a two-parent family with three children. This contrasts markedly with Statistics New Zealand’s all Read more
Chris Chivers, vicar of John Keble Church, Mill Hill, London and Canon Emeritus of Blackburn writes: “The self-styled “quiet man“, the secretary of state for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, is proving himself a passionate man when it comes to tackling poverty in our communities. …”People like me, following Harvard professor Robert Putnam and Read more
Last week Father Kevin Barr celebrated 50 years of priesthood by celebrating Mass with Archbishop Petero Mataca. He used the occasion to ask for forgiveness. “A few months ago I wrote a little booklet on forgiveness and in it quoted the story of a Jewish Rabbi in New York who in his final sermon in the synagogue Read more