Social causes, activism, and projects
I phoned the Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions. The switchboard operator asked me to please hold. Finally the director, Jessica Keebler, came on. “Yes, Mr. Barlin.”
“It’s been two years since we put in our application—”
“There are still no Jewish children available, Mr. Barlin.”
Continue reading Building a family in White America — by Paul Barlin
To achieve organizational cultural competence within the health care leadership and workforce, it is important to maximize diversity. This may be accomplished through:
• Establishing programs for minority health care leadership development and strengthening existing programs. The desired result is a core of professionals who may assume influential positions in academia, government, and private industry.
• Hiring and promoting minorities in the health care workforce.
• Involving community representatives in the health care organization’s planning and quality improvement meetings.
Continue reading Cultural Competence in Healthcare – by Dr. Joseph Betancourt
I have a passion for promoting standards formulation, standards adaptation, standards implementation, Indigenous development and working for a sustainable technological base in developing countries. It is due to this passion that I work with Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, Pakistan Engineering council and other professional forums. My HRD project aims to empower deprived woman and their children in order to give better human beings to this world. I operate in Pakistan, but I plan to expand to other countries. Women in this part of the world are very deprived; they do not stand equal to men (male- dominated society).
Continue reading Helping Pakistani Women — by Riasat Ali Changazi
A high school classmate of mine recently posted a notice on a Facebook webpage to which we both subscribe about the passing of her younger brother, Peter. Peter, as it turned out was a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. After serving for four years he attended college as a radio broadcast major. He graduated as valedictorian of his class and became involved in the administration of his college alma mater for thirty years, many of those years spent in financial services as the bursar. His sister and his colleagues noted that he always had a special concern for those who had given service to their country in the armed forces. “Peter really felt that it was not just his job or the college’s job,” remarked one of his colleagues in her reflections on his life, “but the job of all of us really, to make sure that veterans are taken care of when they come back.”
Continue reading By All Means, Ask What You Can Do For Your Country — by Yvor Stoakley
I’m aware that there are quite a number of groups and organisations that provide networking opportunities, support, training and work related opportunities for women. As a result when it became international news that over 200 hundred girls had been kidnapped in Northern Nigeria, I thought that there would be messages of concern and support added to our #BringBackOurGirls campaign from women’s groups across the world. When I mentioned this to a friend, she said that it probably didn’t happen because most groups focus primarily on women at the professional level.
Continue reading Roots, Shoots, Flowers, and Girls — by Susan Popoola
My transitional experience from the tough life of a new immigrant to become a college graduate, as a new U.S. citizen, a volunteer for CARE International, a private humanitarian aid organization, and now my charitable organization the Global Paint for Charity, I feel very grateful and blessed to be here especially in Atlanta Georgia. But it’s important, as immigrants living in the Diaspora, that we don’t forget what we can do to help people back at home. It’s not good enough for us to complain about what other people aren’t doing for us. It’s important that we all need to group and regroup together, to discuss ways to make a difference in those in needs back at homes and our community in here.
Continue reading New Citizen Launches Global Charity from the South – by Rony Delgarde
For those of you who have not yet heard the story of the Maayan Babustan/Ein Bustan kindergarten, this is a Waldorf school, a kindergarten that is run in two languages – Arabic and Hebrew. The kindergarten is situated in the Arab village of Hilf, within the municipality of Bosmat Tab’un, 7 minutes drive from the nearby Jewish town of Kiryat Tivon. The kindergarten is attended by 27 Arab and Jewish children, in two age groups. The staff is also comprised of Arabs and Jews: in each class there is a Hebrew speaking teacher and an Arabic speaking teacher. In addition, we are pleased to have two interns, two young Bedouin Arab women who are fulfilling their “Year of Service” by working as assistants in the kindergarten, one in each age group.
A requirement for my medical school was to participate in health teaching. I chose to provide an informal session on alcohol, sex and drugs for a small group of freshman girls, the next generation of diverse women. I find this subject so important, because the issues confronting teenagers are numerous and can create a significant generational gap between them and their parents. It’s not as simple as just staying clean and not having sex to avoid pregnancy. The reality is that most teenagers at some point will drink alcohol and take drugs and/or become sexually active.
Continue reading Teenage Girls and Sex Education – by Dr. Roslyn Gerwin
A fellow student recently equated being a medical school student with bumpy downhill skiing. You rocket down a hill and you jump, making some of the jumps, and missing many others. However, you can’t look back because you’ll fly into a tree. Of all the descriptions of being a first-year medical student, this is my favorite. Unfortunately, at the time all I could think about is how I hate downhill skiing. It terrifies me. Is hurtling down a hill on thin strips of metal to be considered fun? So, how do I, and all of us, get through this experience, and do it together, without flying into a tree?
Continue reading Why I Chose to Be a Doctor — by Dr. Roslyn Gerwin
The 1974 Vatican document on Catholic-Jewish Relations is primarily known for its emphasis on the need for Catholics to come to understand Jews as they define themselves or, in other words, to refrain from creating what I would call “straw Jews.” The 1985 document focused its attention on the correct presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic religious education and preaching. The 1998 document on the Holocaust emphasized the importance of Holocaust education and tried to come to grips with Catholic responsibility during the Shoah. On the latter point some, including myself, have judged it incomplete even though it moved in the right direction on the question of Catholic collaboration with the Nazi effort at Jewish annihilation. Beyond the actual points made in these Vatican statements they helped immeasurably in creating a positive ethos for constructive scholarly work on the question on the part of theologians biblical exegetes.
Continue reading Catholic Views of Jews and Muslims — by John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D.