Una Hobday has always loved gardening, cooking, and feeding people. So when she was introduced by Dr John Thorne, a past director of Rotary International and a member of the Rotary Club of North Hobart, Tas, to a new project aimed at achieving long-term food security for communities around the world, she knew she could make a difference.
Belief in one of the major world religions is commonplace throughout Africa but a small but growing number of people are turning to humanism, defined by the Collins Concise Dictionary as the “rejection of religion in favour of the advancement of humanity by its own efforts”.
Each year between November and April, the Southwest Pacific cyclone season arrives leaving crops and livelihoods in its wake.
Over the past four decades, the Camberwell Market, selling secondhand goods and all sorts of knock-knacks, has become a Melbourne icon and tourist attraction, while funding more than $17 million worth of Rotary projects.
Like so many before her, Nepalese woman *Kaya thought she was embarking on a journey to a new country and life with her ‘fiancé’. Instead, it was the beginning of a path of sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Before Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS) began working on a remote island off Papua New Guinea (PNG), the community there hadn’t had a permanent doctor for nearly three decades.
Lorraine Ololia is 10. She lives in Kampala, Uganda. And she recently came up with a new career goal. A TV show about science, produced by teachers from her junior high school, has inspired her. She's watched an episode on computer programming, another where two young explorers visit her country's Lake Victoria to talk about wetlands and learned how to make a model of a digestive tract at home using bowls, crackers, water, food coloring, bananas and oranges.
VOLUNTEERING isn't that common in Ahmed Tohow's homeland.
Humanist weddings are banned in most of Africa. A growing movement in Uganda is trying to change that. The bride wore a white strapless tulle gown with a beaded bodice and carried a bouquet of red and white roses. Red, to symbolize “how deep she loves the groom,” and white, “to give them a spice.” Rings were exchanged. Guests clapped joyously. To an onlooker, the September nuptials of Faridah and Derrick at a hotel in Kampala, the capital of God-fearing Uganda, looked like any other wedding. B
Before her daughter-in-law bled to death after refusing to bribe a government hospital nurse for a safe childbirth, Ugandan Rhoda Kukiriza had never set foot in a court. She had never spoken to a lawyer. She had never been involved in a legal case. Today, the 70-year-old farmer and grandmother is feted in her village as a “victor and a celebrity” after her role in a historic legal triumph for her country and Africa in which she and other citizens stood up to the government in a bid to make the
The first time Gemma Perry tried chanting, she had no idea what to expect. "I was at a yoga studio and everyone was chanting a particular phrase 108 times and I didn't know what was going on," she says. But Perry, who was suffering from severe depression, says she found chanting to be so therapeutic she tried it again the following week. A decade on, she's undertaking a PhD to try to uncover if science can explain it. Despite having been practised for thousands of years by almost every cultu
Therese Krix has been a member of her library for so long that she can't count the time. But these days she isn't only borrowing books.
When Louis Dorval went to Ghana in 2005 as a volunteer, the country was in the midst of a cellphone boom. Only one in 10 residents of the west African nation were mobile subscribers, but that was steadily climbing to the two-thirds it's at today, according to a report by data and analysis firm GSMA Intelligence. This piqued the curiosity of Dorval, a 37-year-old who grew up in Montreal and by the time he started at McGill Unversity in 2000 had bought his first cellphone, a Nokia dumb phone. "
When you think of the northern rivers, you probably think of Byron Bay. Yes, the town has surfing, whale watching and even now a Hemsworth among its attractions. But the others towns in the region, even the small ones, have all of Byron’s charm – with less traffic. From spirits (the drinking kind) and spirituality, crystals and candles to wilderness areas, beautiful beaches and one of the country’s favourite museums, there’s something for all, whether you’re day-trippers from Queensland, weeken
Under an acacia tree, a group of schoolchildren listens to a teacher. They have been brought here, away from the classroom, and with the stunning Rwenzori Mountains in the background, in hopes that an open learning environment will be conducive to open-mindedness. This is just one aspect of learning offered at the Kasese Humanist School. Kids are taught science and critical thinking and are introduced to concepts and ideas that aren’t part of the usual curriculum. And this game-changing school,
Three months ago, Edris Senfuka, 27, a farmer and property broker from Mukono, Uganda, received a curious text on his cellphone: an invitation to play an educational game for free. It piqued his curiosity. “I had not seen anything else like it,” he says. The game, based around financial literacy, had Senfuka listen to a story and make decisions by pushing his phone’s buttons. Each choice led to a different outcome — much like the choose-your-own-adventure books popular in the 1980s. Today, the
Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world. It also has some of the most dedicated soap opera watchers anywhere in Africa. Now a group of enterprising Ugandans is aiming to tackle the former through the medium of the latter. Soap operas are expensive to make, however, so they plan instead to “hack” a Venezuelan import, recutting the existing series and overdubbing it with Ugandan actors. Using content originally from Nacer Contigo (Reborn), the new show has been rescripted and turn
This year hundreds of thousands of children around the world have gone on ‘strike’ over the future of the planet as the issue becomes increasingly critical. Should young children be getting involved?
Legal aid, laptops and motorbikes. These African startups are reducing the wealth divide by sharing resources.
