The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.
The Story of Stuff is a great little film [...]

Journey to justice - action tip

Ten years ago the global debt crisis campaign was thrust into the mainstream as thousands of people formed a big human chain in Birmingham - ten years on and the the anniversary is being marked to:

CELEBRATE ten years since the Birmingham human chain
DISCOVER the impact of debt cancellation so far
DEMAND a lasting solution to the [...]

Just People: the Micah Course - action tip

On Saturday I went to a training day for the Just People? course, otherwise known as the Micah Course. It’s a six-week course for churches wanting to explore integral mission, and in particular social justice issues and how they can respond to both global and local poverty. Here’s the blurb:
The course brings together down-to-earth theology, [...]

Zambia’s lost copper wealth - action tip

It’s been a while, but here is another action tip…
Having lived in the Copperbelt in Zambia we know that one of the central questions about Zambia is always: why is this once middle-income country so poor, when it is so rich - £2bn worth extracted from its mines last year - in copper?
As things are [...]

Bombs by Faithless - action tip

I came across the video for Bombs by Faithless months ago and keep forgetting to blog about it. The video and song would be a great tool for a creative look at injustice and the world – it would work well for a church service talk or reflective meditation. The images and lyrics talk of [...]

Black Gold Movie - action tip

A new documentary film about the impact of the coffee trade called Black Gold, is about to be released, so I am making it an action tip.
The film exposes the injustices of the international coffee trade industry by following the journey of Tadesse Meskela, General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co. in Ethiopia, [...]

stop vulture funds - action tip

Yesterday the vulture fund, Donegal International, that has been targeting Zambia for $55 million (we have talked about it before) was told it will only get $15.4 million. The fact Zambia has to pay anything to this company is still too much, but it is progress! The judge back in February found Donegal’s full claim [...]

the slave tree - action tip

I have mentioned Freedom Day before. Recently, anticipating that this day to mark the end of slavery is just around the corner (25th March), we went in search for the famous slave tree in Ndola town and a local history lesson.
Swahili slave-traders used to frequent the area around the tree - meeting under the shade [...]

vulture funds: action tip

Last week a high court judge in London ruled whether a so-called ‘vulture fund’, Donegal International, could extract more than $40m from Zambia for a debt which it bought for less than $4m.
In 1979 the Romanian government lent Zambia money to buy Romanian tractors. Zambia was unable to keep up the payments and in 1999 [...]

Action Tip no 1: Freedom Day - 25th March

The 25th of March 2007 is Freedom Day, which this year will mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Today twenty-seven million men, women, and children are still enslaved around the globe, so I am kicking off the Action Tips series with a look at the things planned to commemorate the [...]