"I wasn't born to be a filmmaker. I was a student at the theatre arts dept at UCLA and one day I just stumbled into the film dept. I saw other students screen their final projects and I was thought this is interesting, I should try."

A recent publication by the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service - Voices from Africa 10 - is focused on NGO Responses to HIV/AIDS. It includes country experiences from Burkina Faso, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi and Nigeria. The issue of increasing the involvement of the target group in the design and implementation of the activity is one that comes out strongly in the material. So too does the role of the media. It will be available online shortly.

A visit to Africa turned Duncan Brooker's serious vinyl habit into a mission to rescue Afro funk and its creators from oblivion.

This is the second and updated education of the Human Rights Education Resourcebook. It includes directories of human rights education organisations worldwide, a listing of human rights training programmes, an annotated bibliography, an overview of audio-visual materials and resources on the Internet and a directory of funders that support HRE programmes. 2000, ISBN/ISSN: 0-9706059-1-9.

Museum Africa, Newtown, Johannesburg, 23 - 25 November 2001. The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (Trauma Clinic), in collaboration with Dienste in Ubersee are hosting the Healing Through Creative Arts Conference. The conference aims to create a forum, dialogue and context for the sharing of knowledge and expertise by the professional group of Arts Therapists as well as allied professionals and arts practitioners that utilize the creative arts as healing within traumatized communities.

The peoples of Africa south of the Sahara desert constitute a vibrant cultural mosaic, extremely rich in its diversity. Among the peoples of the sub-Saharan region, interest in creating and exploring forms and shapes has blossomed in diverse cultural and social contexts with such an intensity that with reason, to paraphrase Claudia Zaslavsky's Africa Counts, it may be said that "Africa Geometrizes" as well. Paulus Gerdes demonstrates the influence of geometrical ideas on African Culture with dozens of stories and beautiful illustrations.

The former English teacher Gaston Zossou has just published an essay entitled Au nom de l'Afrique* (In Africa's Name), a fierce indictment of an Africa ridden with corruption, a sterile intelligentsia, and mimesis. The arguments he puts in this interview with Africultures, contrast starkly with many others presented on the site.

Giles Foden recommends ten books on the Afghanistan crisis. Zanzibar, Giles Foden's novel about the bombing of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, is published by Faber next year.

A review of the June 1999 democratic elections in South Africa and has extensive chapters on the role of civil society and voter education and election monitoring.

Eighteen new sites in 13 countries have been added to the United Nations World Network of Biosphere Reserves, and two existing biosphere reserves have been extended. The reserves provide a framework for the study and conservation of the environment and for the sustainable use of natural resources.

The tribes that live along the Omo river in western Ethiopia - the Turkana, the Dassanech, the Nyagatom, the Karo and the Mursi to name but a few - are physically distinct from their compatriot Ethiopians. In their isolated valley they share a rich symbolic culture displayed through body art and adornment. Their survival is intimately linked to the forces of nature and the seasonal flooding of the Omo river.

Africamix, a volunteer-based traveling arts and music festival organized to help combat child abuse and neglect, will commence its tour in California in June 2002 and travel from there to 18 countries around the world.

Big Nelo looks like your typical thugged-out rapper, dressed in designer baggies with several heavy silver chains draped round his neck. But the founding member of Angola's first and most successful hip hop band, SSP, has a social conscience rarely found among his American contemporaries.

Identifies five policy areas in which governments of developing countries can either support or discourage GM crops: intellectual property rights, biosafety, trade, food safety, and public research and investment. Johns Hopkins University Press 2001, ISBN 0-8018-6668-5.

The USAID officer, committed and caring fellow, said to me: "Richard, computers in schools? Uganda is still a bookless society. They need books, not computers!" I had to think about this before replying: "In a bookless society, why start with books?"—a digital variant of Wayne Gretzky's injunction to "skate to where the puck is gonna be!"

Zanzibar islands are famous for many things. Their exquisite beaches and splendid resorts are a haven for holiday makers. Their spices make many chefs around the world very proud of their work and the involvement in slavery adds a dark side to an otherwise illustrious past. The Islands are now home to the Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff) of the Dhow Countries now in its fourth year. The festival, arguably the largest cultural event of its kind in East Africa, has effectively tapped into their rich and diverse historical and cultural heritage.

The WHAT Commissions have highlighted urgent issues in the management and over-exploitation of three of the world’s key resources – fisheries, agricultural bio-diversity and freshwater supplies. The common conclusion is that action is needed now, at both the global and national levels, to improve radically the systems we have for governing the use of these resources.

The Zambian film industry is struggling to find itself, after Touch of the Sun, one of the country's first local productions, was a flop.

The objective of education worldwide, which until the last decade focused on universal access to schooling, is now heading towards a concept of teaching for learning to live together, says the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The first edition of Angola's national theatre festival will take place in October in the far-northern city of Cabinda. The aim of the festival is to promote cultural exchange and a knowledge of the cultural potentials and diversities of Angola.