So often the archetypal leader that one is accustomed to hearing of are the suited and booted CEOs, heads of states and politicians with the accompanying networks, resources and sphere of influence.

However, according to Malaysian author Alvin Ung, one can lead without extensive resources or power; those that do so are…

I was outside a train station on a very cold day waiting for a friend to pick me up in his car when I noticed a  young person about 18 years old approaching different people asking for a dollar. It was a well rehearsed line about  needing a ticket home but as no one bought it.  Just as I was hoping that she won’t come to me, she did. I only had a five dollar note on me but decided that she probably needed it more than me.  Five dollars was not such a big amount to give away but what deterred…

Friday, December 2, 2011 it was a warm placid night.  I could hear an assortment of sounds: the buzz of the fan as it whirred; the faint sing songs of the vicious hungry mosquitoes; the happy chirp of the crickets outside my window; the neighbor’s dog barking and that familiar, happy ring tone of Skype. This is a very intimate conversation with Ryon Rawlins. A young local gay man who is part of the Guyana Community Life Competence, he shares his personal experience of how SALT has impacted…

A blog  by Donnie Maclurcan based in Australia who uses asset based approach in his work. Donnie is from Thanks Donnie for sharing!

The Occupy movement has spread to 2,512 cities worldwide, and its support networks stretch far beyond physical occupations. That it has grown so quickly without specific demands or hierarchical leadership is testament to the creative…

Interview by Alexis Erkert, Other Worlds

December 20, 2011

Iderle Brénus Gerbier has worked with many peasant organizations in support of women's rights and food sovereignty. She is a member of the Haitian National Network for Food Security and Sovereignty (RENHASSA), campaign coordinator for Food Sovereignty in Haiti, advisor of the National Confederation of Peasant Women (KONAFAP), and organizer for the Haitian Social Forum for Food…

Chipo is 15 years old and an orphan. Her father died in 2001 and her mother died six months ago. She is caring for her little sister, Nolly, and two brothers, Farai and Edwin, as there is no one else to look after them. There is no money for food or school fees and the landlord wants the rent they owe. Mr Gift, the store manager, offered to cancel her food bill if she would ‘go home’ with him. Last week she gave in because Farai was crying with hunger and Nolly had fainted at school.…

It’s been a great year at how-matters.org! I am invoking a “shut down” for the holidays as of today and will return on January 15^th. Why the big break?

Because there are ideas to be flushed out, plans to be finalized, proposals to be finished, reflections and connections to be had.

2011 has been a “shake-up” year. With the Arab awakening in North Africa and the Middle East and the emergence of the Occupy…

The PROS....  

1. Dream Building provides a guidance,a pathway to what we want to achieve 



2. Dream Building provides a tool for measurement, measuring where we are to where we want to go, and assessing what we need to get there



3. Provides us with a sense of knowing when we get there , achieve the DREAM 



4. Because it is MY dream , I…

The Guyana Faith and HIV Coalition held a "Capture Knowledge" Session at Cara Lodge on 10 December, 2011 International Human Rights Day! The Session was attended by Rastafari Representatives, Muslim Representative, Christian Representatives, Hindu Representatives and Bahai Representatives! Dr. Ruben F. del Prado had his message read by an ILO Representative and the Master of Ceremony was Ras Ian General Secretary of the Guyana…

Carol Dweck is a professor of psychology at Stanford University. She has carried out a set of experiments with children that make a distinction between appreciating talent (‘You are very good at that.’) and appreciating effort (‘You really worked hard at that.’)

Here are some quotations from her work.

‘In the last 1990s when our country was at the height of the self esteem movement, the self esteem gurus told everybody to praise their children’s intelligence, to…

It is hard to fathom that a society could exist whereby one population can expect to live into their eighties, whilst another population would expect to live only till their forties.

It is this shameful and disturbing reality which authors of ‘The Grandest Challenge –…

4 children aged between 6 to 8 years old approached a colleague who was walking around a neighbourhood as part of his outreach efforts.  They told him that they had something to show him and then led him to the ground floor lift landing of the block where they reside.  There were pencil drawings on the walls and these children told our colleague that they knew exactly who did it. Before our colleague could actually comment,…

“But how will we hold them accountable?” the senior technical advisor said of the proposal from the high-profile NGO. “There’s not even a logframe in there.”

Silently in my cubicle, I thought, “Oh, if only that would only make people and organizations accountable…”

Obviously, the need and the desire to be accountable in our industry are not going away. With foreign aid budgets under fire in many donor countries, accountability perhaps becomes even more…

Here is a good example of how someone has posed a question of the community (KM4dev) and then taken the time to distill the responses to provide a summary and linked to the original discussion and listed resources offered.  

The topic is "How to collect and present Lessons Learnt" but could so easily apply to our discussions.  I suspect they may have learned something from…

Я думаю, что одно из самых больших наших достижений сегодня, это встреча с представителями Интернет- сообщества. Татьяна, Алесандр Афанасади Фидипов и я влюбились в идею СОЛТ и мы действительно хотели опробовать что-то в этом роде. 30 ноября мы пригласили к нему людей, которые известны благодаря своим публикациям в Интернете – журналистов- блоггеров и альтернативных пользователей социальных сетей, так же, как и детей из юношеских организаций.

Мы очень волновались, что они откажутся…

A Time For Change

Human rights film fest in Mumbai takes on a gamut of bêtes noires from violence, fundamentalism and corruption to gender discrimination and homophobia

FLASHPOINT Human Rights Film Festival returns to Mumbai for its second year with a collection of volatile and incisive human rights films from India and around the world.

Following on…