Interview with Paul Raja Rao
Women at a BIRDS community immunisation clinic
Katherine and I visited the Bharti Integrated Rural Development Society about six hours by car outside Hyderabad (unlike much of India, there is no train service) in rural Andhra Pradesh. BIRDS addresses a host of needs in the area from health to water management to micro-finance loans.
I interviewed Paul Raja Rao, the director of BIRDS, one night on the veranda of their organic farm (they are attempting to re-introduce organic agriculture into an area mostly given over to chemical based farming).
Interview with Katherine Welch
Here is a rough cut of my interview with Dr. Katherine Welch who I was travelling with in India (this is a 26 minute long-form cut of what will become 10 minute piece). She speaks concerning her work internationally on the health needs of trafficked or prostituted women and their children.
See more about Katherine’s organisation Global Health Promise
McIntosh at the Big Tent Festival
This is a lecture presented to a packed out audience (at the Big Tent Festival) by Alastair McIntosh on his new book Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition. It’s published by Birlinn Press and can be ordered from their website or Amazon. I’m reading the book right now and will comment after finishing it; Alastair introduces the book and provides some context for the writing of it. It’s worth listening all the way through the end questions; his last comment is simultaneously inspirational and haunting.
Listen to the MP3 here—it’s about 40MB but should open in your browser.
Sorry for the slightly dodgy audio quality; I was tied into a PA system and the line feed was a bit overmodulated at times.
Several months ago, Alastair presented a similar lecture at the Centre for Human Ecology AGM; I recorded it and you can listen to the MP3 here.
Hell and High Water
I attended the Annual General Meeting of The Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh last night. Prior to the AGM, Alastair McIntosh spoke on his forthcoming book Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition (due out in May from Birlinn Press).
Alastair’s critique of the human condition in this book pulls us out of the technical realm of “fixing” the environment and into a larger discussion of the moral, social, and spiritual causes of our situation. From the publisher:
Climate change is the greatest challenge that the world has ever faced. In this groundbreaking new book, Alastair McIntosh summarises the science of what is happening to the planet – both globally and using Scotland as a local case study. He moves on, controversially, to suggest that politics alone is not enough to tackle the scale and depth of the problem. At root is our addictive consumer mentality. Wants have replaced needs and consumption drives our very identity. In a fascinating journey through early texts that speak to climate change – including the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, Plato’s myth of Atlantis, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth—McIntosh reveals the psychohistory of modern consumerism. He shows how we have fallen prey to a numbing culture of violence and the motivational manipulation of marketing. To start to resolve what has become of the human condition we must get more real in facing up to despair and death. Only then will we discover the spiritual meaning of these our troubled times. Only then can magic, new meaning, and all that gives life, start to mend a broken world.
I recorded his talk and the Q&A following (right before he starts speaking in the recording, he removes his jacket and jumper. The venue for the AGM was The Melting Pot in Edinburgh):
click here for the .mp3 podcast
Update: Okay, somebody has already asked—a few minutes into the lecture, Alastair uncorks something and pours a glass. Just to clarify, this is a glass of WATER not a glass of WHISKY!
Note that, after this cover was designed, Alastair considered the ultimate message and aim of the book. The word Hope was then added to the title—as hope is one of humankind’s most enduring and energetic abilities.
Podcast on Arts Education
Mention of BuildaBridge on WHYY (well, sort of a mention…I mean, we mentioned it)
Natalie Payne from Buildabridge International was a caller on WHYY’s Radio Times this morning; the show was about using the arts with at-risk youth.
You can listen to the podcast on WHYY’s site here
Nancy Good Sider (podcast)
Interview with Dr. Nancy Good Sider from Eastern Mennonite University on her work in conflict resolution and trauma healing.
Dr. Nancy Good Sider from Eastern Mennonite University is here at Atlantic Bridge for a few days between assignments in Rwanda and Bosnia. She is Associate Professor of Trauma & Conflict Studies at EMU where she lectures on healing and resolution. She also actively works in field locations where people have experienced significant trauma and are seeking to sort out the resulting personal and social issues.
The interview took place this morning in the downstairs café of De Vierslag. We discuss her personal and professional background, her methodologies in trauma healing, and the challenges and rewards faced by practitioners in the field.
The EMU Center for Justice and Peacebuilding can be found here.
Dr. Good Sider’s contact info is here.