Tragedy in China

As China mourns its victims, so too I mourn those who lost their lives in this earthquake and its aftermath.....It is too much to speak of in words.....the pictures you have seen on the news, on the internet convey more than this blog post ever could. CNN 360's podcast had a clip of the search for survivors as they dug through the rubble of a school. I could scarcely breathe.... So this blog post ends here.....as I think of those children, those victims, those families, communities, and villages that have suffered in the wake of this disaster....

BBC's news on China's mourning....

Cyclone and Related Disasters in Myanmar

I hope that you have been watching the news and seeing what has happened, and is happening, in Myanmar even as I blog. A cyclone recently devastated the country, and as if that is not enough of a disaster in and of itself, the government has been restricting, if not refusing, international aid. While they have been allowing some sort of aid in slowly and little by little, it is not enough. To add insult to injury, there are also some aid that the government has confiscated and is handing out with attached propaganda. Not only that, but today, the military junta has pressed on with the voting for a constitutional referendum - even in the midst of this disaster recovery! It is terrible that in the midst of human suffering, politics are stopping a large part of this relief - and from within the country that suffers, rather than from without!

More stories about this situation can be found on BBC's Burma Cyclone news page here.

Call on the Burmese government to take action now in distributing humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis by visiting the Amnesty International Action Center here.

Food for thought

Rising food costs affect people around the world, not just us here in the U.S. For most of us here in the U.S. it means shelling out a couple more dollars each time we shop or go and eat. For those who live on less than $2 a day, it means a whole lot more. It means hunger for days and dire situations.

And ultimately, those who are young suffer these consequences. NPR has been looking at such consequences - Haiti was today's story. Click here for the whole story.

What can be done? I'm not sure, but I do know that the first step is awareness. So here I am again, blogging as I ponder this situation....

Human Rights and the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The human rights movement is a significant movement around the world and there are always snippets of human rights violation news stories we can catch a glimpse of when we watch the news or read the papers. But human rights is more than the snippets we see.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I think it behooves us to examine what this declaration of human rights states as to our entitlements as human beings on this earth, regardless of ethnic background, socioeconimic status, gender, age, religious beliefs, or any other "categorization".

View the declaration, and see what exactly it states. This is an overview, listing the preamble and the articles of the declaration.

Not too long ago, I attended Social Work Day at the UN, and the opening remarks were focused on human rights. Human rights permeates every corner of our society, and the human rights movement is not solely, as I thought, the work of lawyers. It is the work of everyone, and as someone studying social welfare, the remarks made that day reminded me of that.

Just because we live in the U.S. does not mean that there are no human rights violations here. There are human rights issues with virtually every country. We are not exempt from what goes on in other places nor do we live in a society where those violations do not affect us. So let us be cognizant of that and be involved in the human rights movement that belongs to us, not just lawyers or activists or "them".

Child Labor in Lebanon

Lebanon - a country I visited in 2005 and have fallen in love with has been plagued with long-running political impasse....and as a result, its people have been suffering. Among the suffering are children - some who are as young as 8 years old.... Some estimate the number of child workers in Lebanon to be about 100,000. These children work out of necessity and because situations are worsening due to the political deadlock in the country.

While Lebanon has signed the international convention in 2001 to take measures to curb the worst forms of child labor, there has been no government to implement and enforce these regulations. In the meantime, children are working - painting, welding, and hammering - because their families need money. Some have not been in school for several years. It is a serious and critical situation.

Read the BBC article.