World Touch Archives - Page 22 of 71

Education

Girls are Going Back to School

On weekday mornings in Mingora, the largest city in Swat Valley, Pakistan, the streets are filled with boys heading to school. Among them are smaller groups of schoolgirls laughing and tucking books under their arms, as they, too, head to school. The scene highlights how far the region has come in the past few years: The Swat Valley, famed for its picturesque mountains, saw more than 400 schools destroyed – more than half of them girls’ schools – when the Taliban took control of the region in 2008.

UCA News

Democratic Republic Of The Congo

Nun Wins U.N. Refugee Award

“It is not my work only. It is the Lord’s.” Such was the summation of Sr. Angelique Namaika, a member of the Augustine Sisters of Dungu and Doruma, as she spoke to reporters in an international conference call, upon winning the Nansen Refugee Award bestowed annually by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Namaika has been working for the past four years with women forced to leave their homes in the northeastern Congolese bush because of the ongoing civil strife in the Congo.

www.ncronline.org

Food Crisis

U.N.’s Wake-up Call to World Leaders

Governments in rich and poor countries alike should renounce their focus on agribusiness and give more support to small-scale, local food production to achieve global food security and tackle climate change, according to UNCTAD, the U.N. trade and development body.

Claire Provost

Americas

Comboni Missionaries, 75 Years in Peru

The Comboni Missionaries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of their arrival in Peru, their first missionary field in Latin America. It was on September 11, 1938 that the three pioneers, Fr. Alois Ipfelkofer, Fr. Michael Wagner, both from Germany and Fr. Andrew Riedl from South Tirol, arrived at Callao Harbor near Lima, the capital.

Fr. Roy Zuniga, MCCJ

Water

Hope for Drought Relief in Rural North Kenya

Two vast underground aquifers, storing billions of liters of water, have been discovered in the poorest and least developed area of Kenya. The finds, in Turkana county in the north west, were uncovered using new technology to interpret ground-penetrating radar from satellites.

The Guardian

China

Inflation Worries the “Spirit World”

Deep in China’s “spirit world,” an inflation crisis is brewing that would give central bankers chills. For hundreds of years, Chinese have burned stacks of so-called “ghost money” for their ancestors to help ensure their comfort in the afterlife. The fake bills resemble a gaudier version of Monopoly money, emblazoned with the beatific-looking image of the Emperor of the Underworld.

Te-Ping Chen

World Touch

World Mission Sunday

“Each community is “mature” when it professes faith, celebrates it with joy during the liturgy, lives charity, proclaims the Word of God endlessly, leaves one’s own to take it to the “peripheries,” especially to those who have not yet had the opportunity to know Christ,” Francis says in his message for the 87th World Mission Day which will be celebrated next October 20, just after the end of the Year of Faith.

Alessandro Speciale

Kenya

Countering the Radicalization of Youth

Unemployment, poverty and political marginalization are contributing to the Islamic radicalization of Kenya’s youth, a situation, experts say, that must be addressed through economic empowerment and inclusive policies.

Irin News

Nepal

Prize Goes to Human Trafficking Fighter

Shakti Samuha, a group of former Nepali sex slaves that frees Asian women and girls from human trafficking in India and China, is among the five recipients of the ‘Ramon Magsaysay Award’ for 2013. Viewed as Asia’s Nobel Prize, the award recognizes people and organizations that have distinguished themselves for changing their societies for the better. The Filipino government, which established the award in 1958, announced.

Kalpit Parajuli

Africa

125 Million Mutilated Women and Girls

The true extent of female genital mutilation or cutting is huge, a report from UNICEF last July revealed. It says that a total of 125 million women and girls are now living with the consequences of FGM – and yet the report suggests that the practice continues only because of social convention, while most women and men wish it would end.

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Category: World Touch