For children's sake

A Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly dedicated to the children and adolescents of the world will be held September 19–21 at the United Nations in New York. A follow-up to the 1990 World Summit for Children, it will report on areas of progress as well as those where more work is needed, and will outline plans for the future.

At the 1990 meeting, 71 heads of state and government, and other leaders signed the World Declaration on Survival, Protection, and Development of Children. They also agreed to help improve living conditions, reduce sickness, allow more children to be educated, provide better sanitation and more food, and protect children from danger.

In the years since, significant progress in disease eradication and increased education has been made, but the goals outlined in the original plan have not been met. According to a preliminary report, a major reason for the shortfall has been the unwillingness of nations to commit resources for that purpose.

To read the full report, which is entitled "We the Children: End-decade review of the followup to the World Summit for Children," go the the United Nations Web site for this special session: www.unicef.org/specialsession/. Click on the heading "Press Centre." When you get to that part of the site, go to the right side of the page, under the menu, and download the Secretary-General's report.

You can make a difference

"Our Cultural Tendency for immediate gratification often blinds us to our own effectiveness. A person can volunteer in ways that will make small changes over time, affecting the long-term greater good of the community and the world. Taking a longer look at voluntarism can help the person contemplating becoming a volunteer understand his or her small role in the greater scheme of making this a better world for everyone," writes Douglas M. Lawson, a professional fundraiser, who is also author of More Give to Live: How Giving Can Change Your Life.

"Did Mother Teresa's life as a volunteer among the oppressed make a difference? Did Princess Diana's life as a volunteer really touch the lives of other people around the world? Did Viktor Frankl's search for meaning in the concentration camps really prove useful to mankind? We know that these well-known people of different faiths ... did make a difference. Volunteers can make a difference in their own lives of service to others. This is a very important motivational tool.... Will what I do really make a difference? The answer is, 'Yes,' regardless of who we are and what our circumstances are in life."

Voluntarism: The Secret to Happiness,
Health, and Longevity"
Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology
July/August 2001

Biblically wired

No, It's Not a joke! If you'd like to respond to quizzes about Noah's ark and a host of other subjects, visit www.biblequizzes.com. The site is maintained by a small church—the Saanich Peninsual Christadelphians—in Sidney, British Columbia. They say, "For about the last four years we have undertaken the mission of helping people read the Bible more effectively and have seen it blossom into a huge operation."

In addition to games, music, crossword puzzles, and other activities, this site includes a Bible reading system. It offers selections that will enable the dedicated reader to cover the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in the course of a year.

Another site, this one sponsored by Bible Gateway, features a word and passage lookup system for ten different versions of the Bible and translations in 11 languages. The purpose of the site is to provide a tool for reading the Scriptures online as well as allowing for advanced searching of translations in English and other languages. The address is http://bible.gospelcom.net.

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST LIMITS

"Economies or a War? Whether we reason from scarcity or anti-scarcity makes a huge difference. If scarcity governs economies, then we have to grab as much of the pie as possible or die off.... Limited resources and unlimited desires meet as opposing forces in economies, making conflict inevitable....

"But if economies challenge us to manage creatively what we have, then economies can develop away from scarcity. True, a struggle ensuses, but not against others in a win/lose battle. The struggle is against ourselves—against the limits we impose on creativity by harboring too narrow a vision."

Denise Breton and Christopher Largent
"The Soul of Economies:
The Power of Philosophies to Transform Economic Life"
Business Spirit Journal Online
Issue #27