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WACC Statement on International Women’s Day, 2009 |
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 | | International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate achievements in women’s empowerment in all realms - socially, politically, economically and culturally. It is also a day to reflect on women’s struggles and the structural barriers that continue to impede women’s progress in ways that oftentimes erode gains that have been made. Read more... |
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Peace journalism can challenge impunity! |
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 | | Writing in The New York Times (March 2, 2009), Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu - a speaker at WACC’s recent Congress on the theme “Communication is Peace” - has called on Africa’s political leaders to take sides and support the International Criminal Court (IIC) in its attempt to have President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan indicted for the crime of genocide. Read more... |
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WACC hosts on-line advocacy seminar |
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By Teresia Mutuku, Communications Officer and Web Manager, WACC
 | | Communicators and advocacy practitioners based in Toronto held a seminar on on-line advocacy at WACC office, February 12. They explored various strategic on-line technologies including websites, electronic mailing and popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as effective tools for advocacy and social campaigns. Read more... |
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WACC-Asia Region promotes Communication for Peace |
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 | | WACC-Asia Regional Executive Committee is calling on all churches in the region to observe "Asia Communication Sunday" on June 21. The theme of the Communication Sunday is "Communication is Peace: Taking sides to build viable Communities".
To mark the event, the Region Chairperson, Rev. Dr. Samuel Meshack, on behalf of the Executive Committee, is inviting communicators in the region to share stories, photos and videos expressing their work of communicating peace. Read more...
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Photo competition gets competitive |
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 | | WACC’s annual photo competition is gaining popularity with over 700 photographers already participating in the competition. This year’s theme is “portraying gender”. Photographers are invited to submit photos that portray women or men in ways that offer new perceptions about their roles and responsibilities. Such photos challenge conventional understandings of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ and help break the mould of the male-female ‘divide’.
The deadline is May 1st, submit your entries now! To participate in the competition, click here... |
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Communication rights include preservation of endangered mother tongues |
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... WACC statement on International Mother Language Day - 21 February 2009
 | | A mother tongue is the language a mother teaches her child. It is the umbilical cord linking that child to the community in which she or he grows up. As such, it is a verbal skin of identity, shaping the sounds used to express feelings, meanings, and relationships.
While mother tongue education and multilingualism are increasingly promoted around the world, languages are disappearing. UNESCO’s Atlas on Endangered Languages points out that “the past three hundred years have seen a dramatic increase in the death and disappearance of languages leading to the situation today in which 3,000 or more languages that are still spoken are endangered, seriously endangered, or dying.” Read more... | | | | |  | | |
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Programme Updates |
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Democracy awareness for young people in DRC |
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…WACC supports project on awareness-building about democracy and peace for young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo
By Gisèle Langendries, WACC  | | Following a long period of repeated armed conflict, the Democratic Republic of Congo is going through a democratic process which has led to the legislative and presidential elections. And yet women continue to suffer all kinds of injustices, despite the efforts of the country’s public authorities. Young people are equally marginalized. The country’s reconstruction process is undermined by high unemployment, an impoverished educational system and an absence of organized activities for young people, which has given them feelings of isolation and alienation. Read more... | | | | | | | |
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Feature |
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Rural Internet - Not Online but Still Connected |
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By Katherine Nightingale, SciDev.Net
 | | India: The use of 'asynchronous' internet is being developed to give internet access to remote villages. According to this SciDev.Net article, where there is no possibility of cables or constant online connection, "[a]synchronous connections use software to queue data (such as emails, web searches and requests for specific downloads) and to ready it for transfer. The data are assembled on a device such as a [universal serial bus] USB memory stick, then carried across mountain passes or down rough tracks that have never seen a cable - to a distant internet connection." Read more... | | | | | | | | |
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Pictorial news |
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----------  | | WACC Hong Kong members meet with General Secretary, Randy Naylor (centre).
Featured L to R: Cynthia CR Abdon , Debby Lai, Des Cox, Theresa Carino, the GS, Elijah Fung, Judy Chan, Francis Wong. | | | | | | |  | | Executive Director of CREAS, Humberto Sikiya and Assistant Director, Catarina Bain during a recent visit to WACC office in Toronto. CREAS, a WACC corporate member based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is an interdisciplinary network of Christian professionals engaged in promoting diaconal work as an instrument of justice. It provides advisory services to churches and organizations throughout Latin America - mainly South America and Cuba – in the area of strategic planning and evaluation, diversification of resources, communication and advocacy. | | | | | | |  | | Marilyn McKim, Urgent Action Coordinator for Amnesty International Canada, addressing the “on-line advocacy” seminar at WACC. | | | | | | |  | | Sara Stratton, Campaigns Coordinator for KAIROS, addressing participants at the “on-line advocacy” seminar. | |
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WACC invites Letters to the Editor |
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 | | We are pleased to invite members and subscribers to send us letters in response to our newsletter, Media Action, and articles published on our website. Remarks concerning the publication and the website will be published on our new section of “Letters to the Editor”, in each issue of Media Action.
Writers should include their name, country, postal address, and e-mail address with their submissions. Only the writer's name, country and organization will be published. The Letters should total about 200 words or less and will be further shortened when possible in order to help make space for more letters.
WACC reserves the right to edit for clarity, length and to avoid libel.
Letters should be send to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Letters to the Editor… |
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 | Relevance of WACC competition
Greetings from Soul Beat Africa
We are writing to you to let you know that, due to the relevance of the WACC Photo Competition 2009 - Portraying Gender to the African context, The Communication Initiative has posted this announcement on the Soul Beat Africa website and may in the future also appear in our e-newsletters, such as The Soul Beat.
Please do not hesitate to send us any information on communication for social change. We will make sure that the appropriate team within The Communication Initiative Network receives this information.
Anja Venth
Editor
Soul Beat Africa
Canada
www.comminit.com/africa | | | ---------- | | | Articles in Media Action are well researched Articles in the WACC - Media Action are well researched and well written.
Given my position as a sub-editor with the Tanzania government-owned Daily News, I have always reproduced articles from Media Action in our weekend papers; The Daily News on Saturday and Sunday News. Of course I do credit the source to WACC.
The depth of information in these articles is rewarding.
I always look forward to the next issue of Media Action.
Joel Lawi
Daily News
Tanzania
| | | ---------- | | | Thanks for press releasesI do appreciate all the statements, especially this one which appeals to church leaders. There are many displaced persons living in subhuman conditions. I will share such stories widely.
Eugène Kasongo M.,
Democratic Republic of Congo | | | ---------- | | | The word "media" is plural Thank you for this article entitled “Peace through media advocacy”. The information contained is extremely useful for my class. But please remember that the word "media" is plural. My students are always confused when they get handouts of information from organizations like yours with statement like: Is the Media, instead of "Are the Media" which I teach them to say and write; or when they read "the media has" instead of "the media have". God bless.
Moemeka Andrew
Central Connecticut State University
Department of Communication, USA | | | | | | |
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