Index for Volume 7, Issue 4 January - March 1996

Rural learning helps stem urban migration

JAMUNDI, Colombia -- An innovative approach, using a curriculum adapted for country life and delivered via NGOs, provides new opportunities for 15,000 in rural Columbia

Creating sustainable communities

PERSPECTIVE -- Throughout history, urbanization has been associated with human progress. Humanity's coming together in villages, towns and cities has fostered social, economic and cultural development. Many of our greatest religious, political, educational and scientific institutions have been established in metropolitan areas. In short, to borrow a phrase from the Habitat II agenda, cities have been the "incubators of civilization."

NGOs gear up for Habitat II

NEW YORK -- Prepcom for UN Conference on Human Settlements allows greater participation than in the past. Non-governmental organizatioins around the world are gearing up for the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, the last scheduled major UN conference of the decade, hoping it will further establish civil society as a key player in the creation of a peaceful and sustainable world civilization.

Community health workers in Kenya stir broad changes

MENU, Western Province, Kenya -- As the mother of seven children, Judith Soita is well aware of what it means to worry over a sick child. One day they are out playing happily by the road with other children, the next they are lying down quietly inside, their eyes glased with hurt. And in this remote village some 1,000 kilometers from Nairobi, there is always doubt over whether they will get up to play another day.

UN report calls for an end to intolerance against the Bahá'ís in Iran

GENEVA -- Saying that Iran's treatment of the Bahá'í community should be regarded as a violation of a 1981 United Nations declaration on religious intolerance, the Unitd Nation's chief expert on the issue has called on Iran to end the ban on Bahá'í institutions and other oppressive measures against Iran's Bahá'í community.