Kabul—Last week, here in Kabul, the Afghan Peace Volunteers welcomed activist Carmen Trotta, from New York, who has lived in close community with impoverished people in his city for the past 25 years, serving meals, sharing housing, and offering hospitality to the best of his ability. Put simply and in its own words, his community, founded […]
July 2014
“Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children,” said United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. At first Israel denied targeting the Abu Hussein girls’ school in Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City. More than 20 were killed, all of them civilians, all of them in a United Nations designated safe zone. “In the name of […]
Western desert-living Martu Elder, Thelma Rawlins said that many of her people remain opposed to the “go-aheads” given to uranium mining on Martu Country. “Kintyre should be left alone, our Country left alone.” “This is really bad stuff in the ground, and it will be really bad stuff if it comes above the ground. We […]
I wrote you a song. It’s for all you ‘token people’. Not just people with disability, but anyone who has ever been asked to ‘be part of a working group/focus group/committee’ to provide ‘a voice for your people’. That’s us. The guys sitting around the table, day after day, passionately advocating on behalf of our […]
I am unsure what it will take to convince our authority figures in this country and in the state of Western Australia. About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article for The Stringer that addressed what I thought was going to be “the next big issue”. I postulated the following “However, if […]
Patents and the profit motive have combined to aggregate 73 per cent of the world’s commercial seed market to ten agrochemical companies. As a result 93 per cent of seed varieties are now effectively extinct. Monsanto is one of the leaders in the privatisation of what was once presumed free-to-all. Monsanto seems to be able […]
There’s a war going on. You might not see the war, because it is a complicated political war, with nuances deep within the disability and government sectors. Wars are organised conflicts that are characterised by social and economic disruption. There are often prisoners, who are held to isolate them or exploit them for their labour. […]
Afghanistan Analysts Network reported on 9th July that “he ( Abdullah Abdullah ) told the crowd that he had received phone calls from both US President Barack Obama and State Secretary John Kerry and had been told that Kerry would make a stop-over in Kabul on Friday. It was clear he wanted to see what […]
While NAIDOC celebrates, one in 54 of all First Peoples are in jail today, when we include youth, it is one in 46 of all First Peoples in jail or juvenile detention. One in 16 to one in 24 of all deaths each year are by suicide. More than one in four of all First […]
What do you do when the disability community is outraged about being charged for parking at public railway stations? Label the decision an ‘oversight’, of course. And remedy the situation by stinging members of the general public with a two dollar a day parking fee, but letting disabled passengers park for free. It’s not an […]
General News
- March 9, 2021
Australia’s governments must end health discrimination in its prisons. An incarcerated child must not be a second-class citizen. Nor any adult. We must ask, why are our governments dishing the vulnerable jailed, second-class healthcare? When evaluating the nation’s carceral system, we are […]
- February 2, 2021
When will the cries of the homeless be heard? Is there some sort of grotesque caste system in Western Australia? The anti-humanism is a brutal public spectacle. On the last day of January, the Western Australian Government actuated five days […]
- December 3, 2020
West Australia is the nation’s backwater. It is the mother of injustices, inequalities and the draconian. West Australia and the Northern Territory leave the have-nots that far behind, for many their lot appears irreparable. If there is a Mason-Dixon line […]
- September 22, 2020
There are many faces to homelessness. A 51-year-old woman walked into my Perth office. She has lived thirteen consecutive years street-homeless. Not long ago, she spent eighteen months sleeping her nights in the same park. She is weary, harrowed by […]
- September 3, 2020
Often beleaguered by international aid work I have lifelong been involved in; the increasing unmet needs, the mongrel injustices, I have argued the horrendous lie of our generation is that poverty is being reduced around the world. There are countries […]
- March 10, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – In 2014, I disaggregated to the Kimberley’s First Nations peoples, the nation’s highest suicide rate, one of the world’s highest, at over 70 suicides per 100,000 population (First Nations), thereabouts seven times the national rate. Fortunately, although […]
- February 18, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – More than 51 months ago I wrote an article on the imperatives of forgiveness and redemption. This remains true. We journey together in one form or another, we can either salt the earth or jag the road, […]
- January 29, 2020
By Gerry Georgatos – Trae lost his eleven-year-old brother to suicide. Nine months later he lost his mother to suicide. Trae was the last to see his brother. Half an hour later he went looking for his little brother. In the […]
- January 21, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – Children as young as 9 years have been lost to suicide, three in fact in recent years. Australians should ask, why? Proportionally, more children aged 14 years and less have been lost so far this century compared […]
- December 10, 2019
Gerry Georgatos – A mother suicides, a father suicides, their child was a suicide. Not once has this occurred but untold times. Over the years I have warned of mothers and fathers that would be near certain lost to suicide […]
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