Index for Volume 9, Issue 4
January - March 1998

An unusual meeting of bankers and believers

High-level representatives from nine major world religions meet with the president of the World Bank to discuss religion and development; a new factor in project assessment

Spirituality in Development

PERSPECTIVE - Development, in the Bahá'í view, is an organic process in which "the spiritual is expressed and carried out in the material." Meaningful development requires balancing the seemingly antithetical processes of individual progress and social advancement, of globalization and decentralization, and of promoting universal standards and fostering cultural diversity. In our increasingly interdependent world, development efforts must be animated by universal values and guided by a vision of world community.

At the UN, young girls voice concerns about grown-up issues

UNITED NATIONS - Speaking bravely through her tears, 17-year-old Kemmeh Damba-Danjo from the Gambia told a room full of government delegates and non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives a story as sad as it is common - the tale of her 14-year-old cousin's death from birth complications. Her cousin had become pregnant by a boy who had broken his promise to marry her. She died, as so many teenage mothers do, within weeks of giving birth, from complications in delivery. Her infant died shortly thereafter.

In India's Dang District, new ideas bring an efflorescence of small-scale community development projects

BHISYA, Gujarat, India - Even though he regularly visits this small village in Gujarat State's Dang District several times a year in an effort to promote small-scale, grassroots development, Manohar Patil was nevertheless caught by surprise when he learned that the local Bahá'í community here had, entirely on its own, launched an English class for children and youth.

“Mine are the Orient, the Occident, science, religion, cities, space, and writing a picture.”

Mark Tobey —A retrospective exhibition
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía11 November 1997 to 12 January 1998, Madrid

Except perhaps for the Founders of the world's great religions, no one on this earthly plane can be said to fully understand the nature and composition of the spiritual world. But that has certainly not stopped people from trying to communicate their visions of it.