Jaajef wa G-L, I recieved this through another e-mail group I am subscribed to; Action Without Borders. I hope some people might find it worth pursueing and/or subscribing. Yeenduleen ak jaama Tony ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE FREEDOM WE SHOULD ALL HAVE At the heart of the work that many of us do is the belief that there is one basic freedom - the freedom to work with others for a better life - that should be as available to us as the air we breathe. Without it, you can't promote literacy, fight preventable diseases or protect the environment. With it, everything else becomes possible. If we have this freedom and others do not, two questions come up: Why should we care? And if we care, what can we do about it? WHY SHOULD WE CARE? If peace, nuclear safety or endangered species are important to you, you need people to be free in their own country so they too can work on these issues. At a deeper level, though, this basic freedom is simply something we owe one another. Four hundred years ago, John Donne wrote that "no man is an island... any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." Building on this, we can say that any person who can't act peacefully to help himself or others diminishes all of us. WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? Working together, we can define this freedom as concretely as possible, and build a broad coalition to help promote it around the world. At http://www.idealist.org/freedom.html you will find a short draft for such a definition, as well as a searchable database of 1,200 organizations working for freedom and human rights in 85 countries, to help people get involved wherever they are. Until the end of October, we will circulate this draft as widely as we can. Then, by the beginning of January, we will publish a table showing where each government stands on this basic freedom, and invite people everywhere to help promote it country by country. Throughout this process, we look forward to your feedback. Thanks! ************************************************ This message was sent to the subscribers of Ideas in Action, the newsletter of Action Without Borders and Idealist.org, which currently has 27,000 subscribers. At http://www.idealist.org/newsletter.html you can see previous issues of this newsletter, and subscribe or unsubscribe. Action Without Borders is a nonprofit organization that promotes the sharing of ideas, information and resources to help build a world where all people can live free, dignified and productive lives. Idealist, a project of AWB, is the richest community of nonprofit and volunteering resources on the Web, with information provided by 20,000 organizations in 140 countries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------