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Monday, January 9, 2012
Dr Kris Rampersad at Brussels Briefings
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Building Capacity for advancing Caribbean Agricultural Development
Grow Safeguard Preserve Create A MultiMedia Legacy
With rapidly changing technologies in media, many of our knowledge resources are fast disappearing or becoming inaccessible. We are in the process of digitising our archives representing more than 30 years of contemporary Caribbean development linked to more than 10,000 years of regional pre and post colonial history and heritage. Make contact.
To support, sponsor, collaborate and partners with our digitisation efforts. Or to develop your own legacy initiatives, and safeguard, preserve, multimedia museum, galleries, archives, make contact
CARDI and the Campaigns for
Grow Safeguard Preserve Create A MultiMedia Legacy
With rapidly changing technologies in media, many of our knowledge resources are fast disappearing or becoming inaccessible. We are in the process of digitising our archives representing more than 30 years of contemporary Caribbean development linked to more than 10,000 years of regional pre and post colonial history and heritage. Make contact.
To support, sponsor, collaborate and partners with our digitisation efforts. Or to develop your own legacy initiatives, and safeguard, preserve, multimedia museum, galleries, archives, make contact
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Culture Challenge pounding at the doors
"Cultural activist, Dr Kris Rampersad and others have suggested the ministry submit the draft policy for public comment" - Artist Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago
Artists Coalition wants national cultural policy soon
ACTT’s interim president, Rubadiri Victor, aired the groups’ views during a Thursday meeting of artists and cultural industry stakeholders, held at offices of the local Entertainment Company on Long Circular Road, St James.
He noted there was a draft policy which was now stymied by the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism’s need to create a multiculturalism language around it. However, he said they don’t seem to know how to do this.
In other countries, he pointed out, a separate agency looks after multiculturalism issues for the entire Government. Cultural activist, Dr Kris Rampersad and others have suggested the ministry submit the draft policy for public comment, all aimed at having a cultural policy by May 2011.
This issue, it was pointed out, was of paramount importance to ACTT members because a national cultural policy was a requirement for “hundreds of millions of dollars of UNESCO funding,” members said.
Victor spoke about the impact of poor communication between Government and cultural organisations on meeting the requirements to access UNESCO funding.
Victor reminded ACTT members of a 2006 meeting between cultural stakeholders, Government and UNESCO officials, which had fizzled out.
The application paperwork, which had to be completed by the State, was given a “failed” mark by the UN and sent back to TT for improvement. However, Victor claimed the document ended up languishing on the desk of someone who was on vacation.
After bringing the matter to the attention of Trade and Industry Minister, Stephen Cadiz, Victor expressed hope that this oversight would not re-occur in the future.
“Hopefully,” he declared, “they understand what is at stake, and it is clear that the cultural sector must be part of the negotiations. We almost lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars in funding,” Victor said.
Grow Safeguard Preserve Create A MultiMedia Legacy
With rapidly changing technologies in media, many of our knowledge resources are fast disappearing or becoming inaccessible. We are in the process of digitising our archives representing more than 30 years of contemporary Caribbean development linked to more than 10,000 years of regional pre and post colonial history and heritage. Make contact.
To support, sponsor, collaborate and partners with our digitisation efforts. Or to develop your own legacy initiatives, and safeguard, preserve, multimedia museum, galleries, archives, make contact
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Go Barefoot for Human Rights
Now leading women in the civil society movement have adopted the metaphor – at least half of it, ‘barefoot’ – and extended it, to remind the world of the violations of human rights around the world. Go barefoot – lose your shoes is the rallying call to the world to remind ourselves of these violations. Led by CIVICUS - a world alliance of civil society interests, based in South Africa and headed by Ingrid Srinath – men and boys, women and girls shed their shoes and trekked barefooted through most of the CIVICUS World Assembly activities in Montreal recently, to signal their commitment to defending the rights of persons around the world.
On Human Rights Day, December, 10 – mark the date - the CIVICUS led campaign - Every Human Has Rights – will rally people to focus, even for a few moments, to think about other people whose rights have been violated in the hope of building understanding and to begin to make the fight for human rights part of everyone’s lives. This year’s rally around the slogan Go Barefoot – Lose Your Shoes, will zero in on people living in poverty – people who don’t have food to put on their table, let alone shoes to put on their feet.
In particular, we may want to think of the women and children in the some 20 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago whose existence hover around the ‘poverty line’.
I have found that more horrifying than what is conjured by the metaphor of ‘barefoot and pregnant’, is the statistic – of 20 percent of our population being barely able to afford life’s basics , given that T&T’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per head is said to be some USD 20,000. In lay terms, that means, that if this country’s wealth was more equitably distributed, every individual will be earning some TTD 120,000 a year.
Human Rights day was introduced to keep focus on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the anniversary of this Declaration with its 30 Articles of the rights of men and women. In printed form, the 9 cm by 12 cm booklet of 15 pages defines human rights as right to life, liberty, security, property, education, equality before law, freedom of thought, religion, opinion, peaceful assembly, political participation, equal pay for equal work, right to join trade unions, right to a standard of living adequate for health and well being.
Other less known, are ‘right to nationality’, family, equal access to the public service, free development of personality and right to protection of moral and material interests from any scientific, literary or artistic production.
Trinbagonians, with the endemic liming culture would be pleased to know it also includes the right to participate in cultural life, enjoy the arts, share in scientific achievement as well as – note this –“rights to the freedom to rest and leisure and periodic holidays with pay.”
It is clear that many of these rights still point to the unequal status of women in many parts of the world where women still do not enjoy right to property, freedom of thought, equal pay for equal work, and right to enjoy adequate standard of living for health and well being and access to social and public services and utilities, and many have no prospect of experiencing “rights to the freedom to rest and leisure and periodic holidays with pay.”
Go Barefoot, lose your shoes, is based on the belief that the world would be a better place if every person walked a mile in another person’s. Wouldn’t it? Try it and at noon on December 10, take off your shoes, step out onto the street and walk around the to reognise that Every Human Have Rights. Some details in the box on what you can do.
Dr Kris Rampersad is a media, cultural and literary consultant, and author of Through the Political Glass Ceiling – Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female.
What you can do:
1. Raising profile of rights
Lose your shoes and walk around your office, church, school etc, barefooted. Take pictures and videos to upload onto the Lose Your Shoes website.
2. Raise awareness
Stories and case studies online and used in digital promotions will help demonstrate that violations of human rights are one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating poverty and people action to uphold Universal rights.
3. 12 steps for human rights
Take the pledge to take the12 STEPS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS by starting with actions on the day and then throughout the year – one each month, simple actions from signing a petition, to attending an event or watching a video and sharing with friends.
For more actions, see http://loseyourshoes.org/
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Women's Action Mandate
Women’s action mandate
International Relations Director of the Network, Dr Kris Rampersad said the Network is demanding these issues be integrated into all policies and decision making, budget design and implementation and action.
The release stated that the Women’s Mandate for Action presents women as a political constituency as has labour, the private sector and religious groups.
“Our constituency is one to whom political parties can make commitments for action and to whom they can be held accountable,” she said.
Rampersad noted that their goal is to transform the culture of politics in the country by ensuring all persons have equal opportunity to participate in public life and to ensure there is no discrimination either direct or indirect, on the basis of gender, ethnicity, class, age or sexuality.
She explained that women have been excluded from political decision-making at the highest level but they are confident of the positive impact their contribution will have on the development of our society.
“Our mandate for action which has emerged from our work of women’s organisations over many years and from commitments agreed to by successive governments as the Convention of the Elimination of All Rights and the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies. These provide the basis for a comprehensive framework for the advancement of women and the enjoyment of basic rights to gender equity, the principles of which must further inform the national gender policy,” she said.
Rampersad added that a gender policy must reaffirm the commitment in the constitution to gender equality and social justice and provide a framework to guide and inform transformation of existing inequitable gender relations.
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