Author: Vanessa King

Peace Education In Schools

- Vanessa King

The National Council of Education Research and Training in India has started up a program to provide life skills for peace to its students. 35 teachers from across the country will take part in a 6 week training program which aims to educate teachers in conflict resolution, suppression of aggression and coping with stress. Lessons will be taught by example and through respectful guidelines and values taught in class. This will in turn pass on such values from teacher to class and the goal is to positively influence the students and help to shape a healthy and more harmonious society.

Many of the teachers are excited by this prospect and look forward to helping curb violent behaviours in their schools through the program. “The programme aims to arm teachers with skills to promote a sense of harmony in oneself and social environment among students for avoiding conflict with law,” NCERT Director Prof Krishna Kumar said.

NCERT also does a great deal of work in helping to promote gender equality in schools and empowerment and self reliance for girls.

Groove With Humpbacks, Win an IPod!

- Vanessa King

The International Fund for Animal Welfare and stopwhaling.org have put together an awesome song writing contest. They supply the real life whale samples, you supply the creativity and music and help raise a little awareness all at the same time! All the whale song remixes will be voted on by a panel of celebrity judges and the grand prize winner will recieve a brand new 60 GB IPod!

Points will be given for creativity, use of whale sounds, memorable content and overall delivery. If you think you’ve got what it takes to make a radical song for the humpbacks enter soon! The contest ends on June 11th at midnight.

Naomi Watts Encourages AIDS Awareness

- Vanessa King 1 Comment

Actress Naomi Watts has recently joined the UN in their UNAIDS campaign to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. Over 40 million people suffer from the AIDS virus Worldwide and only 1 in 5 people with the disease recieve any form of treatment.

“Given these stark realities, I could no longer stand on the sidelines,” Naomi said in a UN press conference. When asked about the Bush administrations focus on abstinence rather than contraceptives she added “While it (abstinence) is probably the safest way to avoid it, it is impossible for certain people to practice it……So I am a big believer in the use of contraception.”

Though Naomi is a very busy career actress she has vowed to take as much of her free time as is possible to help the cause. As ‘ UNAIDS Special Representative’ she’ll be emphasising the ‘4 for everyone camapaign’ which highlights prevention, treatment, care and support for all individuals affected by the disease.

Non-Plastic, Plastic Bags

- Vanessa King

Around the World nearly on trillion platic bags are produced each year. A vast majority of those bags end up in landfills. Now, more than ever, large companies are noticing how much of an impact they are having on the environment and working to change that. Mountain Equipment Co-Op is one great example. As a company that sells outdoor recreation products it seemed only natural to continue their eco-friendly trend as an organization. So MEC’s national sustainability manager has now helped the company make the switch to corn-based, compostable platic bags in their stores.

MEC alone goes through over half a million bags per year which is a lot especially when you consider that an average plastic bag can take up to 100 years to decompose. The new ones will begin to break down within 2 weeks in a landfill.

Entangled Humpback Thanks Rescuers

- Vanessa King

Last December a crab fisherman working the open waters off the coast of San Francisco spotted a whale that was completely entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots. The whale was a female humpback nearly 50 feet in length and she had rope wrapped at least four times around her tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in her mouth. Rescuers were quickly on the scene and four divers spent about an hour cutting the nylon ropes with a special curved knife, a risky undertaking since a single flip of the gargantuan mammal’s tail could easily have killed any of them. At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow-hole out of the water.
Eventually they freed the humpback, a feat that a representative of the Marine Mammal Center (MMC) in Marin County described as the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, nudged them and pushed them gently around thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The diver who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

“It felt to me like she was thanking us, knowing that she was free and that we had helped her. She stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun. It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you……….I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”

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