Projects that are making a difference, improving lives, and building communities.
Guess what readers? It took me 25 hours to go from Dallas to Germany a while back.
But don’t feel sorry for me because that trip was one of my best ever. Now before telling me to get a checkup from the neck up, bear with me for a moment. I’ll get to the rest of the story further down. I first need to come clean with you on a revelation.
Continue reading Learn to Relish the Inconvenience – by Terry Howard
The traffic was fierce on Martin Luther King Boulevard as people flocked to the community-wide interfaith service at Mount Olivet Baptist Church. Olivet, had grown from humble beginning in the 1920s to one of the city’s largest African-American churches. Yet, the church was packed, overflowing with elected officials, police officers and FBI, military veterans, and media among the diverse crowd of Black & White, Christians, Jews, and Muslim. Together, we prayed over the loss of four marines and a wounded sailor, who would die just hours later. We prayed over the trauma to our entire community inflicted by lone gunman, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.
Continue reading Chattanoogans Mourn the Fallen Five – by Deborah Levine
Nine people were killed by Dylann Storm Roof in Charleston’s historic black church and the debate about how to categorize his actions is fierce. Is it domestic terrorism or mass murder? Is it a case of drug-induced mental illness or a hate crime? The debate embraces some of the most controversial issues of our time: guns, race, alienated young men, and the confederate flag. The question before us should not be which of the labels and issues are relevant and correct. Rather, the question should be how to address the volatile mix now surfacing in terrifying blasts with increasing frequency.
Continue reading Was Charleston Terrorism or What? – by Deborah Levine
The recent unrest in Baltimore occurred almost 23 years to the day after the riots in Los Angeles set off by the beating of Rodney King. As many observers have pointed out, the factors that precipitated these events—concentrated poverty, high unemployment, abuse of police power—remain disturbingly the same. And like Baltimore (and Ferguson before it), the Los Angeles riots were treated as a “wake-up call” for the country. What has changed, however, is the nature and scope of the federal response.
Hello there! I sincerely hope that you and yours are doing well and are in good health. I’m being very nice. That’s the stage-setter for where I’m about to take you, some willingly and others, the civility-deficient, perhaps begrudgingly.
Continue reading A Wake-up Call for the Civility-Deficient – by Terry Howard
Nigeria is a great country with lot of resources that can keep the country in a very high standard of economy. Many Nigerians look at these resources and think that they can misuse rather than make use of their potential and make our community a better environment for all citizens. Waste management, the treatment and reuse of solid wastes, is vital. There are various types of solid waste including municipal (residential, institutional, commercial), agricultural, and special (health care, household hazardous wastes, sewage sludge).”
Continue reading Waste Management for Sustainable Living – by Olumide Climate IDOWU
Social inequality is systematically destroying the livelihood of many inner city communities. The threat is not only from unemployment, poverty, lack of social services, homelessness and the effects of gangs, violence and drug addiction, but rather it is an underpinning of the very fabric of society.
Continue reading Social Inequality and the Need for Education – by Natsuya Uesugi
It has been 70 years since I was liberated from a Nazi concentration camp. I was just a teenager then; I’m 87 now. Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 15th, and I have been thinking about what I want you and your loved ones to remember about the Holocaust. I speak frequently about my experiences, and I am able to remind people about what happened, provide them with vivid descriptions, and answer their questions. But I am among the last of the survivors, and one day—sooner than I would like to think—we will all be gone.
Continue reading Please Remember the Holocaust – by Gene Klein (with Jill Klein)
Dr. Fiona Citkin urges minorities and immigrants to work together to bring meaningful, positive change in the U.S. in her Huffington Post article, “Immigrants and Minorities of America, Unite!” Yes, there are many benefits to bringing minorities and immigrants together, but there are also numerous pushes & pulls involved in uniting them, in establishing their local-global connection. I have long maintained that “Harmonize NOT Homogenize” is key to our working together, but today’s highly emotional environment makes even this approach difficult.
Continue reading Can Immigrants and Minorities Work Together? – by Deborah Levine
I was born in Istanbul, Turkey. My father was a retired Turkish naval officer and I grew up on naval bases. My family sacrificed to educate me and my brother who is a medical doctor. Without an education, you can’t do anything. In Turkey, they kill each other to get a college degree. I attended elementary school early and learned to read early, a rarity in Turkey. These were French schools, and I spoke French before I spoke English.
Continue reading The Vision of an International Woman in STEM Education – by Dr. Neslihan Alp