Welcome to the ezine produced by SGI Buddhists that prompts the positive, kindles the constructive, highlights the hopeful and leaves you feeling - well, up!
Published on Thursday, 05 March 2009 18:00 | | 
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After 21 years as a
successful art dealer, Gregory John Smith auctioned off all his business and
belongings and moved to Brazil to work with Sao Paulo’s street children.
writes Geraldine Royds.
Gregory had never forgotten the economic disparities he had
seen while traveling with his family during his childhood and in 1993 he
established the Children at Risk Foundation (CARF). Initially, Gregory lived on the streets with
the children, getting to know them and the circumstances that brought them to
the streets. Many of them came from backgrounds of extreme poverty and violence
and many had special needs.
Published on Thursday, 05 March 2009 06:04 | | |
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In many hospitals, animals have become an important part of the healthcare service, helping patients to experience dramatic improvements in their symptoms.
Experts have found that the comfort and friendship provided by animals helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and is particularly effective in stroke rehabilitation. There have been cases where the first words spoken by a patient on a stroke ward was during a visit by a pet dog, taken into the hospital by the charity, Pets As Therapy.
Published on Thursday, 05 March 2009 04:47 | | |
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Lord Malloch Brown, the UK Minister for Africa,
Asia and the United Nations, talks about how the changing nature of violent conflict in different parts of the world poses new challenges to government.
Thank you and congratulations on having organised the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues, and to ministry for peace for providing its secretariat. I am somebody who doesn’t have ambitions in British government beyond my present job, but if I did, I’d like to be the First Minister for Peace [laughter and applause].
Published on Sunday, 01 March 2009 18:00 | |
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In 1969 John Rendall and Ace Berg saw a lion cub for sale in London's upmarket department store Harrods.
He weighed 35lbs and was huddled miserably in a small cage. They bought him and took him back to their flat. One year later he weighed 185lbs. Here's what happened after that.
And now take a look at another love story...
Published on Saturday, 28 February 2009 19:00 | | |
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With the banking system in disarray and many savers fighting for their financial lives, now is the time to look at different ways of doing business.
Tom Hodgkinson argues that we must look back to the Guilds of the Middle Ages, when trade was carried out under the principles of co-operation rather than competition. To this end he has stopped dealing with shareholder-owned companies and switched to co-ops. Co-operatives share their profits with their members (the dividend) and are he claims, staffed by more intelligent, courteous and humane people than the `brutal capitalist monsters’ that run our PLCs.
Pic: Worker owned and managed Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco, CA
Published on Friday, 27 February 2009 19:00 | |
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Lack of sleep, which affects one in five of us, impairs our health, work performance and psychological well-being. Anxiety is usually the culprit, but the less we sleep the more anxious we become.
The Sleep Council offers some tips on how to break this cycle and enjoy a decent night’s kip.
Published on Thursday, 26 February 2009 19:00 | |
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One cold January morning in 2008, at a subway station in Washington DC, a man wearing a baseball cap arrived carrying a violin.
He spent the next 45 minutes playing a series of pieces by the great German composer, Johann Christian Bach. During that time 1,097 people hurried past but of these only seven stopped to listen. A three-year-old boy was among the most interested. He would have been happy to hang around but his mother dragged him away. When the recital finished the man was greeted by silence. Nobody noticed him packing up. No one applauded. He left unrecognized. He had made $32. Vida Adamoli investigates