Remembering Rwanda has been receiving increasing amounts of news about the progress of local commemoration committees, as well as increasing offers of cooperation from friends who want to offer their resources to the commemoration of the genocide. Several of these have photographic exhibitions to share, and they can be found in the Resource section of this website. Local progress can be found in Local Initiatives.

DC-Earthworks/Mineral Policy Centre and Oxfam America have announced the launch of "No Dirty Gold," a consumer campaign intended to shake up the gold industry and change the way gold is mined, bought and sold. Gold mining is being targeted as an industry ripe for reform through consumer pressure because of the extensively documented human and environmental costs of gold mining. "Our people have suffered beatings, imprisonment, and murder for standing up for our community rights against multinational mining companies," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, a mining activist from the Tarkwa district of Ghana where 30,000 people were displaced by gold mining operations between 1990 and 1998. "We want buyers of gold to support our rights and demand that mining companies adhere to higher ethical standards."

The Global Campaign for Education is an independent coalition of NGOs and trade unions campaigning for the right to free, good quality education and immediate action on the Education for All goals. Their email bulletin is produced as an information resource for activists and practitioners. To subscribe, send a message with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line to:
[email][email protected]

'The Movement of Movements' charts the strategic thinking behind the mosaic of movements currently challenging neoliberal globalization. Leading theorists and activists - the Zapatistas' Subcomandante Marcos, Chittaroopa Palit from the Indian Narmada Valley dam protests, Soweto anti-privatization campaigner Trevor Ngwane, Brazilian Sem Terra leader João Pedro Stedile, and many more - discuss their personal formation as radicals, the history of their movements, their analyses of globalization, and the nuts and bolts of mobilizing against a US-dominated world system.

The National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) says it has taken its mobilisation and advocacy campaigns on girl-child education to six states in the country. Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr (Mrs) Nafisatu Dahiru Mohammed who made this known in an interview with Vanguard said this was as a result of gender disparity in nomadic schools. Mohammed said the states include Enugu, Bauchi, Taraba, Gombe, Adamawa and Yobe. "The gender disparity in our schools is disturbing. Out of a total of 294,951 pupils in the nomadic schools only 124,797 are girls."

The child rights group, Save the Children, has warned that the children in northern Uganda may suffer most if the International Criminal Court (ICC) decides to prosecute Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels for war crimes, unless questions of child protection are raised before it proceeds to investigate the rebels. In a statement issued last week, the organisation said that since "children are by far the main witnesses (and victims)" of war crimes committed by the LRA, the LRA leadership "might apply even more strict discipline to prevent witnesses from escaping".

Winrock International, a non-profit organisation that works with people around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment, is seeking applications for Urgent Action Contracts (UACs) from interested parties for the Community-based Innovations to Reduce Child Labour through Education (CIRCLE) project under a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of Labour. The CIRCLE project is seeking proposals from community-based, non-profit organisations in developing areas with high rates of child labour to implement initiatives that design, build on, and promote innovative pilot projects.

Are you tired of reading newspapers that portray women as stereotypes? Tired of editors thinking that the average reader believes women are only newsworthy if they are half-naked or the victim of a crime? The South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) has committed itself to get South African newsrooms to evaluate their performance on gender sensitive reporting. In line with SANEF's plans to engender the media, South African gender and media activists propose that all newspapers commit to leaving out their back page or page three "babe" section from the 5th to the 8th March 2004. Instead, content for these pages will be generated by members of the South African Gender and Media Network (SAGEM) around the theme of International Women's Day.

HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly in Mozambique despite heightened awareness campaigns by both local and international agencies to battle the epidemic, a senior government health official said Friday. "HIV/AIDS has affected more and more people despite the campaigns and this means that something could be wrong with the way in which messages are put out," Diogo Milagre, deputy executive secretary of the National Campaign for the Struggle against Aids (CNCS), told AFP.

Survival International has launched a postcard campaign calling on the public to boycott De Beers diamonds and Iman cosmetics. Survival International says De Beers opposes the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in Africa, and its managing director in Botswana has welcomed the eviction of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their land; Iman is De Beers’s ‘public face’.

You can help encourage the President of Burundi to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court without delay. Please send appeals by mail or fax, preferably in French, to President Domitien Ndayizeye at the address available by clicking on the web link below.

Jubilee Debt Campaign says they have learned that the USA and Germany are blocking World Bank-IMF 'top-up' debt relief for Ethiopia and Niger on the basis of a mere technicality. This could cost Ethiopia $35 million per year. They are asking people to visit their website to find out how to take action.

The Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation is supporting research that focuses on the social and human development, and public policy related challenges of technologies facing the developing world. The competition is offering grants at a maximum value of CAD$80 000 to researchers and institutions based in the developing world. For joint proposals where researchers are located in two or more countries a maximum of CAD$160 000 will be awarded. Proposals addressing new technologies in areas other than information and communication technology (ICT) for development will also be considered.

Following the arrest of a number of key figures for corruption related charges, Zimbabwe’s ZANU PF is apparently infatuated with a so-called campaign against corruption. This comes in the wake of a demand by delegates at the late December 2003 ZANU PF Congress that officialdom deals with corruption threatening to bring the country to a standstill. A move to pacify congress attendees resulted in a number of low-key arrests in the post-congress period, culminating in the high-note incarceration of Philip Chiyangwa. Chinyangwa is the Mashonaland West Provincial Chairman and MP for ZANU PF. The arrest of Chiyangwa, the circumstances surrounding it as well as the attempt by ZANU PF to gain political mileage from it are fully consistent with ZANU PF’s self-gratification, deliberate confusion of issues, and propensity to give the people a raw deal, says this commentary.

"We the social movements united in Assembly in the city of Mumbai, India, share the struggles of the people of India and all Asians. We reiterate our opposition to the neoliberal system which generates economic, social and environmental crises and produces war. Our mobilisation against war and deep social and economic injustices has served to reveal the true face of neoliberalism. We are united here to organise the resistance against capitalism and to find alternatives. Our resistance began in Chiapas, Seattle and Genoa, and led to a massive world-wide mobilisation against the war in Iraq on 15th February 2003 which condemned the strategy of global, on-going war implemented by the United States government and its Allies. It is this resistance that led to the victory over the WTO in Cancun. The occupation of Iraq showed the whole world the existing links between militarism and the economic domination of the multinational corporations. Moreover, it also justified the reasons for our mobilisation. As social movements and mass organisations, we reaffirm our commitment to fight neoliberal globalisation, imperialism, war, racism, the caste system, cultural imperialism, poverty, patriarchy, and all forms of discrimination - economic social, political, ethnic, gender, sexual including that of sexual orientation and gender identity. We are also against all kinds of discrimination to persons with different capacities and fatal illnesses such as AIDS."

A new study by the International Labour Office (ILO) says the benefits of eliminating child labour will be nearly seven times greater than the costs, or an estimated US$ 5.1 trillion in the developing and transitional economies, where most child labourers are found. What is more, the study, conducted by the ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), says child labour - which involves one in every six children in the world - can be eliminated and replaced by universal education by the year 2020 at an estimated total cost of US$ 760 billion.

A new report by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions on core labour standards in Gambia, produced to coincide with the trade policy review of Gambia at the WTO, criticises Gambia's lack of compliance with the eight ILO conventions known as "Core Labour Standards". The report notes legal restrictions on the right to organise and, furthermore, that civil servants cannot exercise this right. The Labour Act imposes general restrictions on the right to strike, and civil service employees are completely denied the right to strike. More than half the workforce is employed in the informal economy, depriving workers of necessary protections and making existing legislation hard to enforce.

Visit the link provided for a listing of events related to the Remembering Rwanda campaign.

In Rwanda, a National Steering Committee has been formed to plan the commemoration for the 10th anniversary of the genocide in April. The Committee includes the government, Ibuka (the survivors’ association), Avega (the association of genocide widows), Africa Rights, Never Again (a students’ group), and Remembering Rwanda. The theme chosen for this year’s commemoration is “Preventing and abolishing Genocide through effective universal solidarity”. Remembering Rwanda is recommending that all its supporters adopt this theme as well, to signal our solidarity with the Rwandan Steering Committee. In Rwanda, April 7 is the date on which the 10th anniversary officially begins, and the subsequent week will be spent in a series of events of commemoration.

This generation has seen a mushrooming of the so called ‘Good Will Ambassadors and Advocates’ on issues of both national and international concern. These people have been people of high standing as regards their offices like Presidents, Ministers, Members of Parliament and indeed are a sort of celebrity.

Malawi has also witnessed this trend and recently UNICEF-Malawi office accorded the current ‘Miss Malawi’ and our great musician from ‘Zembani Band’ to be their advocates for this good cause: a fight against HIV/AIDS to encourage behaviour change among youth.

What is of concern to me is that most, if not all, times these so called celebrities and top officials have ‘good rhetoric babblings’ on the issues BUT needless to say that they do not practice what they preach. If we talk about behaviour change amongst youth it is not just a song but a life that those who are on the platform have to start living like that. Remember people see. Let the youth not be taken for granted!

This has not only affected the HIV/AIDS cause, but even issues of child labour. We hear advocates calling for a halt in employing under aged children on a job, but their estates are full of the same.

The message is let us be exemplary in our advocacy attempts: Advocacy without action is a noise of an empty tin.