Where is the Community Spirit!

Where is the community spirit?

If one has a brilliant idea for a community project, is it important we look for recognition/

hierarchy or the bigger picture! I guess each one has its place but what matters is which one overpowers the other or should all elements gel in to find a balance itself. That would be ideally the best solution. Why am I talking about this? Any particular reason or there is none...Just trying to reason out and make sure that I am in sink with the reality...

When we say I do not care , is it that I really do not care. Or is it because I care so much that I want to say I do not care to make sure I do care for other entities and perhaps I wish I could care for this one too...

A children's rhyme or is it really?!?

I wish I had a little red box to put the bad girls and boys in....

Now why would we want our kids to learn that bad girls and boys should be put in a little red box...is it right or perhaps it is...perhaps we are training the little minds that the place for bad girls and boys is not within the society...but what if this bad girl or boy is not really bad and has some problem...so why not say

I wish I had a little red net to save the bad one from drowning in...

Perhaps something along those lines, just something more positive, thats all!

A culmination of series of events led to the post...

Another natural disaster. Lessons learnt?

While people are still trying to bring their lives together in Christchurch (New Zealand), an earthquake recording 8.9 on Richter scale hit Japan on friday, 11th March, 2011 followed by devastatingly terrible tsunami that not only hit Japan but reached all the way to San Francisco, California...Yes, Fiji too was on alert along with more than 20 countries. Friends in Japan described their experience and fear through various social networks, this was really heartbreaking! Nature seems to be testing our patience but it is very very sad. My thoughts and prayers are with the people who have been affected by this twin disaster in Japan and the ripple effect of tsunami in other countries.

And if that was not enough the cooling systems in the nuclear reactors in Fukushima goes kaput..Solution - Release steam slowly (which comprises radioactive vapours) in order to bring the pressure down and this would technically save the reactor from exploding...so they said! Few hours later, explosion in one nuclear reactor... so how and why did that happen? What does it matter! But what matters is that already a number of people have been confirmed to have absorbed radioactive radiation and I shudder to think 'how many more...' And with this , electricity is also going to be in short supply. 55 Nuclear Power plants in Japan must have generated a huge amount of electricity so far but then how do we deal with it when there is a problem!

On the other side of the world, Germans were protesting in Stuttgart against extending the life of its nuclear reactor; with the news of nuclear reactor chaos in Fukushima, many more people joined the protest in Germany! Well they expressed their views loud and clear. Some 60000 people formed the human chain clearly indicating they meant business.

Have we learnt any lesson? I wonder! I have never been a great fan of nuclear energy but events like this compel you to express your views.

Food for thought- At least something positive has to come out of all this tragedy, why can't all Governments concentrate on Renewable Energy - solar or wind or geothermal which is much more cleaner and safer than nuclear! I wish and hope they would.

International Womens Day Centenary - 8th March 2011

To all you wonderful Women out there , Happy International Women's Day! Together, We Can Make a Difference!! Cheers to Women Power!!!

As we celebrate 100 years of IWD, I think of all those women who made this possible and dedicate this blog to them. Listening to a talk on Rosa Luxemburg, on BBC radio while driving to University yesterday (8th March), I could not help think how fortunate we are to have come such a long! And then, I stumbled upon what I would consider an over-confident response to IWD by a person who commented and questioned on web, "if the women's day celebration should now be a thing of past". I certainly do not think so! We have come a long way no doubt but we do have to cover many more miles...

Sharing with readers how some of my friends celebrated IWD and their thoughts/ reflections from around the world:

"...Clubs in Wales South ran an exhibition about 'Wonderful Welsh Women' and show-cased sorop projects from our clubs. We also held a bridge event there..."

"...We had a wonderful speaker from Botswana at the IWD Breakfast here yesterday..."

...

"...Greetings and Best wishes on this Women's International Day - 'Educate a Boy and you educate an individual; educate girl and you educate a community'(African proverb)..."

"...We ARE making a difference..."

Indeed, we ARE making a difference...

Saturday of Service

For Soroptimists all over the world, the first Saturday of March every year is dedicated to provide service to any one community/ institution/ organisation depending on the need. A noble cause indeed. I have been a soroptimist since 1999 and have been involved in the community work even before that. But the kick you get by the service provided on the SOS day is unparalleled! It personally gives me great joy and satisfaction to realize thousands and thousands of women all over the world are working towards one 'call'. As the SI Suva member and the program director, our club carried out the task of cleaning the walls of the passage to 'Children's Ward' at the 'Colonial Memorial Hospital' in Suva despite the low membership (we are facing this year). Our membership has reduced to half for various reasons and it is now a huge challenge to increase numbers not just in our club the rest of the six clubs in the country. We then cut the cake to celebrate the 'International Womens' Day' in advance with the nurse and other medical staff from the CWM. It was time well spent!

More on 'what', 'when', 'where', 'how' and 'why' on the Saturday of Service for all soroptimists can be found on the link below

http://www.sifounderregion.org/service/fr-Saturday-Service.html