IMAGINING NEW HORIZONS

It seems that in our world conflict is omnipresent and omnipotent: between countries, groups, people; in the international community, at home, at work, on the street, in business, in organisations. Even...

Context

Discussing women seems no easy task. Poets, singers, philosophers and historians have attempted to do so from ancient times right up to today. Woman has held a unique role in the mystery of primitive deities as well as...

I share this great quote from Miguel de Unamuno: “The woman is the true principle of continuity of a people, the ark of its most prized and most deeply rooted traditions.” These enlightening words regarding the role of women in their environment...

A while ago I saw a documentary on TV about planned obsolescence, a term that was coined after the economic crisis in 1929 and consists of deliberately reducing the lifespan of a product in order to increase its consumption. The report, entitled “buy-throw...

On March 19 Father´s Day was celebrated in many parts of the world. Clay ashtrays, ties, socks, aftershave and wishes from children were given to their fathers, happy with all the attention of their beloved children. It is a celebration that...

If we assume that existence forges a radical bond between us then, what place do all our differences relating to language, culture, religion and political ideas have?

All human beings have the same habitat and we live out our lives in...

The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian History Book

The less we know about someone, the more impersonal the relationship is. And in the midst of a conflict the fact that I have no connection with a stranger can mean that aggression...

The place? Somewhere in Barcelona. It doesn’t matter where. A very modern and welcoming hall- it was almost empty, or perhaps almost full. It depends on how you want to look at it. As far as I could see it was almost full. Others may have seen...

Now is possibly the most appropriate time to reflect on our topic: Science and Peace. The first question is, “Can science contribute to peace”?

Firstly I would like to clarify that we refer to science as a whole set of technologies...

On October 4th, St. Francis’ day, I took part in a panel debate organized by the St. Egidio Community at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. We gathered to discuss the connection between human and environmental ecology and our goal was to think...

The rescue of 33 miners at San Jose Mine in the Atacama dessert in Northern Chile has been at the very centre of global media attention. And this is no surprise because this situation has brought together a series of factors that have put to the test...

Peace should be experienced as a part of every day life, a way of doing things, and even better, as a way of being”. (Salvador Cardús)

In every day life there is a fairly common tendency to justify the use of violence...

The concept of solidarity often comes up in the context of the financial compensation made between different territories within the same state. These mechanisms allow structurally weaker, or poorer, regions to benefit from the relative surplus wealth...

I have always felt suspicious of those who talk about dying for the motherland, the revolution, sovereignty, or whichever the cause may be. Likewise I am unimpressed by invocations to sacrifice ourselves for the future.

Political necrophilia-...

In City of God book 19 Saint Augustine begins to discuss the importance of peace as one of our greatest goods in eternal and mortal life: ‘For peace is a good so great, that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such...

How do you explain what it is like to feel the earth under your feet move so much you can’t even walk? We live atop a living being, indeed the sees, rivers, soil and subsoil are all alive, so too are the vegetation, animals- of which we are just...

This was my tenth marathon. I had been training steadily since December, but hadn’t run enough kilometres in order to be at my physical best at the starting line. Twelve thousand runners, lifted by the support of all the spectators adorned Barcelona...

A terrible earthquake, an immeasurable tragedy, has shown us that we are one island, one people, united in the deepest sense of pain and brotherhood. Dominicans and Haitians are one. State constructs, different languages and nationalist chauvinisms...

On Sunday 14th February Chinese people all over the world began celebrations to welcome in the Chinese New Year. According to the Chinese calendar this is the year 4708: the year of the tiger, an animal, which the Chinese zodiac characterizes as a...

The majority of people aim to celebrate a number of milestones in their life. Each person’s existence should be, amongst other things a journey through happiness and pleasure. Happiness comes from declaring the things we want to achieve, a kind...

The word enthusiasm, of Greek origin, means gut emotion, inner agitation, being possessed by the gods. The word enthusiasm was used by the Greeks to refer to the contortions that the oracle experienced on the tripod in Delphi when he received the spirit...

Peace is not a target, a point of arrival or an ideal to be attained. On the contrary, peace is a path, or more specifically, a way of walking. We sometimes associate peace with treaties, laws, and declarations. And, of...

“More than once the p[erverse contemporary insistence on not understanding the context of current dilemmas, has caught my eye, both here and in other countries,; (…) actively trying to forget more than remember, deny continuity and proclaim...

The arrival of a new baby into the heart of the family always comes with a whole host of questions about their education. We start to question our acts as soon as they are born, if not before. I mean questions like, should we use a dummy? Should we...

Just under six months ago we were given the chance to spend a few months living in India, and whilst we were there we got a close look at how the Vicente Ferrer Foundation (locally known as the Rural Development Trust)...

The people of today are not responsible for past events but this does not exempt us from working to improve the negative consequences that we experience as a result of the past. The history of the Franco era, unchangeable, need not be an excuse for...

The current economic crisis is highlighting an issue that has always been very much present in our society: people who are homeless and live in our town, city or street. They are the physical manifestation of social exclusion,...

In 1992 Severn Suzuki, a 12 year old girl, addressed the UN in representation of ECO, the Environmental Children’s Organization, a group of 12 and 13 year olds from Canada.

The child’s speech ...

History teachers are well aware of the importance of the way in which knowledge is passed on. Students like to know who the “goodies” and the “baddies” are, and teachers can easily make a difference...

Working in the media is a highly responsible task. Those of us with years of experience behind us know that confronting reality isn’t easy. Too often have we walked into the lions den for the sake of our beliefs.

The year has got off to a turbulent start. A war is being fought in Israel, political disagreements mean that Eastern Europe is quite literally being left in the cold, the world’s biggest economies started to collapse...

As time goes on we are urged more and more to separate, classify and recycle waste. This is of vital importance and contributes greatly to the protection of the environment. And yet, it always worries me when I am recycling...

People almost everywhere are all talking about the same thing: the new president of the United States. All the newspapers headlines agree that this is a “historical” event. On April 4th homage was paid to the...

In Portugal 1st December is a public holiday. On this day the return to national independence is celebrated. The same sovereign leaders governed Portugal and Spain for 60 years until 1640. Indeed some Portuguese people...

It’s the beginning of September. The start of a new academic year in the most parts of the northern hemisphere. Lots of people have come back from their holidays or are finishing them now. People look tanned and relaxed on the train and tales...

Each person exists due to a sequence of events, decisions; chance happenings that are both negative and positive. There is such a great possibility that we should never come to be in the first place. Therefore, simply being...

China, or Zhong Guo, in Chinese, is a country known throughout the world, above all since the end of the 80’s when Deng Xiaoping was president. He made reforms to improve China’s economy and since then the country...

For us to build a culture of peace, where we work to palliate structural violence - meaning, social manifestations such as, poverty, exclusion, marginalization, injustice or inequality - as well as physical violence, we...

A few days ago an email arrived in my inbox that well and truly caught my attention. I felt the urge to read it rather than discard it immediately because it contained a conversation between...

The term “conditioned” has, amongst others, two meanings. The first is that someone or something receives the influence of internal or external conditions. For example, a “conditioned response” consists...

In 1886 France gave the United Status a monumental statue that was 46 metres high and weighed 32.5 tons to celebrate the centenary of American independence. The monument was carried across the Atlantic in 210 copper sections...

Point IX of the Letter of Peace addressed to the UN states that world peace cannot be built in the heart of society whilst the rights and dignity of all collectives- including the most underprivileged- are not respected...