Source: AlterNet –

Michael McIntosh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had come to visit his son at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility near Jackson, Miss., only to be turned away. His son wasn’t there.

“I said, ‘Well, where is he?’ They said, ‘We don’t know.’”

Thus began a search for his son Mike that lasted more than six weeks. Desperate for answers, he repeatedly called the prison and the Mississippi Department of Corrections. “I was running out of options. Nobody would give me an answer, from the warden all the way to the commissioner.”

And no one bothered to tell his father. 

>> CONTINUE READING AT ALTERNET

Guest post by Malia Everette | Global Exchange

Back in 1997 Reality Tours wanted to offer a tour of a lifetime to India that would inspire our members. When we met Dr. Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and learned about the important work he was doing in the US and India we knew we had a wonderful partner. We developed a plan; Arun would educate our participants about the philosophy and teachings of Gandhi as we journey to historic and cultural sites important in Gandhi’s life, while also witnessing his living legacy in the work of cooperatives, ashrams, schools and NGO’s throughout India.

Exploring Gandhi's Legacy

We’ve been partnering with Arun ever since. Together our Reality Tours have brought to life the importance of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence and self sufficiency. For 15 years we’ve worked together on what Gandhi referred to as trusteeship. Arun taught participants and Reality Tours trip leaders that each one of us has a talent that we have acquired or inherited, and that we can use this gift to achieve our goals, for personal gains or in service to others.

The Gandhi Legacy Tour Continues

Last month, Arun let us know that moving forward the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute (GWEI) will be organizing The Gandhi Legacy Tour on its own, apart from Reality Tours. Though a bittersweet moment it was to hear this news and it will be quite a change for us, we recognize that GWEI has grown and built the capacity to support all the administrative details and logisitcs it takes to organize a tour. Arun and the GWEI have the expertise and the experience to handle the tour. Reality Tours thus congratulates the GWEI! May the next 15 years of the Gandhian Legacy continue to educate and inspire all who participate to truly “be the change we want to see in the world”!

 … and IF applicable, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Very Sincerely, Arun

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY

Note: THIS is what Ms. Bhosale and the AVANI organization stands for: Children have an inalienable right to nourishment and education and to not be prematurely thrust into a premature and exploitive labor market. LB

Days before law professor Michele Goodwin was set to speak in Chicago about why child marriage persists widely in India despite almost a century of legislation, a heart-warming story made the rounds.

Laxmi Sargara, an 18-year-old who was married to another child when she was a baby, rebelled when her in-laws came to take her away from her family. She eventually got the marriage annulled – though that may not be quite the right term for an act that wasn’t legal in the first place.

Advocates against child marriage hailed her bravery. But in the paper that Ms. Goodwin presented last Friday, she noted that the triumphs that catch international attention represent just a fraction of child marriages, which are still extremely widespread in India.

According to a major recent survey by the Ministry of Health, which covered 700,000 households between 2007 and 2008, 43% of the married women in the age group of 20-24 had been child brides. The legal age for a girl to marry in India is 18 – marriages below that age are considered child marriage.

“There is real competition in law in India, between federal law and the law of custom,” said Ms. Goodwin, in an interview last week.

For uneducated girls, the average age of marriage is around age 15, according to the United Nations child rights group Unicef, citing figures from a national survey conducted between 2005 and 2006.

After field research conducted over two years in both urban and rural areas of several Indian states – including in Bihar, where nearly 70% of young brides said they married before they were 18 – Ms. Goodwin said she has come to view child marriage in India as a form of human trafficking.

>> CONTINUE READING AT INDIA REALTIME

Sixty years after his death a portion of Gandhiji’s ashes, stashed away by Madalsa and Shriman Narayan, the daughter and son-in-law of Jamnalal Bajaj, will be immersed at Chowpati Beach in Mumbai. Although I will be thousands of miles away in the United States the memories of sixty years ago will be refreshed and the day will be as poignant as January 30, 1948.

In 1969 when the world celebrated Gandhiji’s 100th birth anniversary many of us who had lived in Sewagram Ashram, Wardha, with Gandhiji were invited for a reunion. The person who organized this event was Shriman Narayanji who was then the Governor of Gujarat. He shared with us a story of his experience with Gandhiji which emphasizes an aspect of Gandhiji’s philosophy that is all but forgotten today. Sometime in the early 1930’s when Shrimanji received his doctorate from the London School of Economics he returned to India full of enthusiasm to change and rebuild the economy of India according to western standards. When he told his parents how impatient he was to begin work his father said: “You cannot begin to do anything until you receive Gandhiji’s blessings. So, if you are in a hurry to begin working you had better go as quickly as possible to Sewagram Ashram and get Bapu’s blessings.”

The Gandhi Legacy Tour 2012 is on!

This will be a piece of cake, Shrimanji thought, and still bubbling with enthusiasm Shrimanji arrived in Sewagram and relentlessly poured his enthusiasm into Bapu’s lap and said: Now give me your blessings so I can get to work.” “Not so fast,” Gandhiji said. “If you want my blessings you will have to earn them. Tomorrow morning you will join the group and clean the ashram toilets.” These were not the modern water closets. The ashram toilets were primitive with buckets to collect urine and feces. The buckets had to be carried into the fields and emptied into holes, washed and replaced for use. It was the meanest kind of work that is responsible for untouchability in India.

Gandhiji wanted to teach us the dignity of labor. Shrimanji was aghast but did not argue. He had no enthusiasm for this kind of work but to satisfy Gandhiji’s whim he had to do it. After the morning ordeal and a refreshing bath he rushed back to Gandhiji and said: “I’ve done what you asked me to do. Now give me your blessings.” “Not yet,” said Gandhiji. “You will get my blessings only when you satisfy me that you are capable of cleaning toilets with the same enthusiasm as changing the economy of the country.”

The moral of the story was that we must be willing to do any kind of work that is necessary and break the stranglehold of the master-servant relationship that persists in India even to this day. It is the feeling that those of us who are rich and educated are superior and those who are poor and uneducated are inferior that breeds arrogance in us, instead of the humility that Gandhiji sought to instill. I am often asked in India and in the United States if Gandhiji’s philosophy can be relevant today.

My answer is that a philosophy that is based on Respect, Understanding, Appreciation and Compassion has to be relevant at all times. If we conclude that nonviolence is not relevant today we are saying in effect that the positive attitudes of Respect, Understanding, Appreciation and Compassion are not relevant. If that be so then we cannot claim to be a civilized society.

Over the years many have concluded that nonviolence is a “negative” philosophy because we insert a hyphen in the word and make it the opposite of violence. In reality it is the other way around. What we forget is that to practice violence we have to be arrogant, hateful, angry and capable of dehumanizing people so that we can hurt and even kill them.

These and more are negative emotions and attitudes that dominate our psyche to such an extent that we have now become victims of a Culture of Violence that controls every aspect of human life. On the other hand, to practice nonviolence one has to be dominated by positive emotions and attitudes like love, understanding, respect, compassion and so on. It is only when we learn to respect people as human beings that we will be able to truly practice nonviolence.

We cannot and should not be selective in whom we respect, it has to be unconditional and all pervasive. For centuries human beings have been working to create peace and we fail more often than we succeed. The reason is that peace is not the absence of physical violence.

No country can claim that they are at peace because they are not at war with anyone. Human nature has learned to practice violence in many ways – both physical and passive, or non-physical. It is the non-physical violence that is more insidious because we commit it knowingly and unknowingly and it leads to anger in the victim and the anger results in physical violence.

Gandhiji’s Talisman was: “Ask yourself if the action you contemplate will hurt or harm someone.” The Culture of Violence has resulted in the erosion of relationships across the board. Everyone has become selfish and self-centered. If we have no relationships based on mutual respect, understanding and appreciation there will be no harmony. And, if there is no harmony in a home, office, neighborhood, society or a nation there cannot be peace.

When Gandhiji said: Peace begins with you he did not mean the selfish peace that we seek through Sadhana or meditation but the peace that we need to bring about through love and respect for all living creatures whatever their economic, social or political standing in life. Can we become the change we wish to see? Of course, have we ever found anything to be impossible when we have the determination to get it?

The exploitation of children and lack of education they are receiving is appalling. Tell government officials to stop this injustice. In India, 12.6 million children between 5 and 14 perform labor with about 20 percent working as domestic help, according to the International Labor Organization. 

After being rescued, the 13-year-old girl was placed in government care and her employers, Dr. Sanjay Verma and Dr. Sumita Verma (show at right), were arrested when they returned from Thailand. They are facing charges for violating child labor acts but Ravi Kant, a lawyer with Shakti Vahini, a nonprofit group that combats child trafficking, says courts rarely place harsh rulings in cases involving domestic help.

Although the girl’s employers were arrested, this 13-year-old should never have been sold for work in the first place. Laws and regulations are not detailed enough or enforced regularly allowing for this injustice to continue. Ask the Government of India to create new laws and enforce them so children do not face mistreatment or harsh conditions.

From the New York Times -

Maid’s Cries Cast Light on Child Labor in India

NEW DELHI — The girl’s screams were brittle and desperate. Neighbors in the suburban housing complex looked up and saw a child crying for help from an upstairs balcony. She was 13 and worked as a maid for a couple who had gone on vacation to Thailand. They had left her locked inside their apartment. 

After a firefighter rescued her, the girl described a life akin to slavery, child welfare officials said. Her uncle had sold her to a job placement agency, which sold her to the couple, both doctors. The girl was paid nothing. She said the couple barely fed her and beat her if her work did not meet expectations. She said they used closed-circuit cameras to make certain she did not take extra food. 

In India, reported to have more child laborers than any other country in the world, child labor and trafficking are often considered symptoms of poverty: desperately poor families sell their children for work, and some end up as prostitutes or manual laborers. 

>> Continue reading at New York Times

In early March of 1930, in order to help free India from British control, Mahatma Gandhi proposed a non-violent protest march denouncing the British Salt Tax, continuing Gandhi's national calls for civil disobedience.

Before embarking on the 240-mile journey from Sabarmati to Dandi, Gandhi sent a letter to the the British Viceroy Lord Irwin, forewarning him of their plans of civil disobedience:

"If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil."

As forewarned, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi and 78 male 'satyagrahis' (activists of Satyagraha, truth and resolution) began their 23-day-long journey. Women weren't allowed to march because Gandhi felt women wouldn't provoke law enforcers like their male counterparts, making the officers react violently to non-violence.

Along the march, the satyagrahis listened to Gandhi's favorite bhajan sung by Pandit Paluskar, a Hindustani vocalist; the roads were watered and softened, and fresh vegetation was thrown along the path. Gandhi spoke to each village they passed, and more and more men joined the march.

On April 6, 1930 Gandhi and his satyagrahis reached the coast. After prayers were offered, Gandhi spoke to the large crowd. He picked up a tiny lump of salt, breaking the law. Within moments, the satyagrahis followed Gandhi's passive defiance, picking up salt everywhere along the coast.

A month later, Gandhi was arrested and thrown into prison, already full with fellow protestors.

Gandhi's Salt March started a series of protests, closing many British shops and British mills. A march to Dharshana resulted in horrible violence. The non-violent satyagrahis did not defend themselves against the clubs of policemen, and many were killed instantly. The world embraced the satyagrahis and their non-violence, and eventually enabled India to gain their freedom from Britain.

>> For greater details of Gandhi's Salt March see Wikipedia

Unite to Light is a not for profit 501 (c) (3) corporation dedicated to providing low cost lighting to those without electricity, and eliminating the health and environmental issues associated with existing light sources used by this population, such as kerosene. In doing so, we will allow children the opportunity to study in the evening. 

Unite to Light is partnering with organizations on the ground in communities around the world to distribute lights for purchase with a portion of the money saved by people who used to buy kerosene. One of those partners could be GWEI in the coming year. 

Late last year, after a referral from Rotary International to Arun Gandhi, Unite to Light donated approximately 50 solar reading lights for Kolhapur AVANI students and staff to try out and in furtherance of the students' evening study needs.

Mr. Dorais and Mr. John Bowers head up this nonprofit that was formed as the distribution arm for a solar-powered LED light designed by a collaboration between University California Santa Barbara’s (UCSB) Institute for Energy Efficiency, directed by John Bowers, Walter Kohn, a UCSB Nobel-prize winning physicist, Engineers Without Borders members David Schmidt, Norm Gardner and Jock Bovington and others. 

Unite to Light began with a visit from Pastor Kofi Fosuhene and Osei Darkwa from Ghana Africa to Santa Barbara, California. People living in extreme poverty, who rely on kerosene for reading, suffer health problems and financial hardship perpetuating the problems of extreme poverty. Aware of the work done at UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency on high efficiency LED lights and high efficiency solar cells, Fosuhene and Darkwa asked if the Institute could design an affordable reading light. 

Mr. Dorais shared during a recent interview that among the many benefits of this solar-powered light for combating extreme poverty, the business “system” that is responsible for the lights’ distribution not only provides light to those who need it most but also encourages local enterprise and community involvement through the sale of the light. 

“The capital required for 1000 lights ultimately supports the production and shipping of 19,000 lights,” explains Mr. Dorais. “This is possible due to the sale of the lights at a price that, depending on the local cost for kerosene, within a short time, pays for itself. Unite-to-light also donates its lights where possible.”

“The various stories that have been shared from people benefiting from these lights support the benefits of improved family health and financial well-being. It’s difficult for me to share some of these stories because of the emotions they bring up for me,” Mr. Dorais continues, “but they are also the stories that make it easy for all of the over 50 volunteers to continue investing time and energy into this project.”

The design of these lights has considered everything from price to packaging, shipping and ultimately the recycling of the rechargeable battery. It is a small, but total, solution.

The vision for Unite-to-Light extends to future solar-powered designs that will deepen the positive impact in fighting extreme poverty and improving the lives of people around the world. Africa alone has the lowest standard of living among all continents as a whole.