Commonwealth Uth
Welcome to the Commonwealth Youth Programme!
We are a youth development agency with a single focus on youth in a systematic and decentralised youth governance structure conducted through our four Regional Centres which are located in Zambia, Guyana, Chandigarh and Honiara. We have forged cultural, geographical and historical ties with young people, governments, National Youth Councils, Youth Commissions and civil society organisations.
Follow Us on Twitter
Like Us on Facebook
Official Site
Search
Additional pages
- Intern Programme
- Volunteer Programme
- Young Professionals Programme
- Students Movement
- Youth Leadership
- Uth Networks
- EVENTS
Twitter feed
Loading Tweet...
Find me on...
Apply to intern on our team!
good:
So You Think You Can Be a Social Entrepreneur? Reality TV Meets the Impact Economy
Yoxi TV is taking media-shy nonprofit types and transformthing them into “social innovation rock stars.” What’s the point of making do-gooders hot? To make social innovation trendy and, in turn, inspire a generation,
Read More on GOOD→
wow society..
A woman makes her own social science experiment. First, while very plain looking, she asked for free cake, and free taxi rides. She was rejected on every request but once. Then she got fully made up with heels, make up, and a revealing dress. She basically has everything thrown at her for free.
Just. Yeah. I can’t even.
Oh, society…
(via coeurvolage)
Who from the around the UN System is participating in Davos World Economic Forum activities? Here is a round up of some of the action:
UN Radio interview about Ban-Ki moon’s attendance that explains how the forum is also a platform for UN ideas.
As part of the Every Woman, Every Child initiative, the Partnership for Maternal. Newborn and Child Health side event includes members of the private sector. Speakers include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Archbishop Desmond Tutu and CEOs from Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
Speaking at a forum on Global Risks 2012, Yury Fedorov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), announced the beginning of a comprehensive study on the problem of cybercrime.
Participants at the Increasing Livelihoods by Making Nutrition Accessible and Effective event included World Food Programme (WFP) head Josette Sheeran, David Nabarro from UN, and economist Joseph Stiglitz.
In addition to honouring Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa as a Global Champion in the Battle against Hunger, WFP is highlighting the power of the private sector to help shape the future of the world for the better.
New Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) chief José Graziano da Silva participated in a roundtable on development issues. He said he is confident the whole world can be fed, as the problem is not supply, but access to food, land and water.
UN human rights expert on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, told attendees that globalization should serve human rights and sustainable development.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a US$750 million promissory note for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Facebook Live events:
Nicholas Kristof, from the New York Times, interview of UN Refugees Chief António Guterres
World leaders will convene on 20-22 June 2012 at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development – known as Rio+20 – to build consensus on a more sustainable course for our world.
Today, over one billion people lack access to food, electricity or safe drinking water. Most of the world’s ecosystems are in decline. Climate change and global population growth are predicted to exacerbate these challenges. There has never been greater urgency to secure a better environmental, economic and social future for all.
The private sector has a critical role to play in this endeavour, and is increasingly putting sustainability – defined as a company’s delivery of long-term value in financial, social, environmental and ethical terms – on its agenda. Through the UN Global Compact alone, over 6,000 companies have committed to conduct business in line with human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption principles.
Live from the World Economic Forum at Davos
Good morning from Davos! We’re reporting live at the first official day of the World Economic Forum. Join us on our live blog for the latest news, exclusive interviews, and behind the scenes photos and video.
(via andeasyand)
good:
Upcycling’s Upshot: How Urban Mushroom Farmers Turned Scavenging into a Business
Two Cal grads turned an idea that sprouted up in a business ethics class into a sustainable, waste-free business. Their two main ingredients: mushrooms and coffee grounds.
Lesotho cash grants aid the most vulnerable children (by unicef)
UNICEF correspondent Suzanne Beukes reports on Lesotho’s efforts to build a national safety net for the poorest, most vulnerable children.
For more information, please visit: http://www.unicef.org
(via united-nations)
1. You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.
2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.
3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers™ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”
4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.
5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.
6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People’s Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.
7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.
8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.
9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.
10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 billion small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.
(via gothicfeverdream)
“Recent developments in the Middle East region clearly demonstrate how youth without access to decision-making processes or other key policy can hinder development processes. The UN is in a situation where it can choose to be a beacon for the next generation, but to do this successfully would require a change in the prevalent attitude towards the youth.”
Engage Youth in the UN—an eDebate. What do you think? Speak up! (via yeaplanusa)
![mohandasgandhi:
The high price of gold is child slave labor
The surge in demand for physical gold has not only polished the fortunes of large mining companies, but has also driven a modern-day gold rush: The United Nations estimates there are between 15 million and 20 million gold miners in more than 70 countries worldwide.
What consumers need to be aware of is where the gold and gold jewelry they purchase originates from. For the most part, gold comes from large-scale industrial mining operations which require skilled labor. Large mining operations in developing country can spur economic growth for the region.
But some artisanal and small-scale mining operations, known as ASMs, operate in poorer regions and places where child exploitation and human trafficking is common.
Because these ASMs do not have the oversight and regulations that the industrial miners do, child labor and slavery make up a large part of their work force, experts say. The International Labor Organization, the labor agency of the United Nations, estimates that tens of thousands of children work in gold mining and considers any child labor in mining as a “worst form” of labor because of the dangerous conditions.
This sector of mining represents up to 20% of the gold mined each year, according to Solidaridad Network, a non-profit organization working to help end the practices of enslaved labor and child labor.
The number of artisanal and small mining operations has risen dramatically since 2007, said Jennifer Horning, a coordinator for the Solidaridad Network.
Human Rights Watch estimates more than 20,000 children work in gold mining in Mali. The ILO estimates as many as 50,000 in Peru. In one township alone in the Chocó region of Colombia, 776 child slaves were found working in ASM gold mines. Overall the ILO estimates an increase of child labor by 35% between 2007 and 2009.
“If children are trafficked, they can suffer terrible physical and mental abuse and are literally enslaved,” Horning said. “Boys frequently work under harsh conditions in the mines and girls are forced into prostitution or domestic service.”
Many of the children are forced into the mines after having been promised jobs in a tourism-related industry. Or, due to economic need, many work willingly alongside their parents despite the dangerous conditions.
(Continue reading….)
This is for Sound Money aka Ron Paul, who wants to return to the gold standard.
[Image via HRW]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly7pm6DSq01qzhl7go1_500.jpg)
The high price of gold is child slave labor
The surge in demand for physical gold has not only polished the fortunes of large mining companies, but has also driven a modern-day gold rush: The United Nations estimates there are between 15 million and 20 million gold miners in more than 70 countries worldwide.
What consumers need to be aware of is where the gold and gold jewelry they purchase originates from. For the most part, gold comes from large-scale industrial mining operations which require skilled labor. Large mining operations in developing country can spur economic growth for the region.
But some artisanal and small-scale mining operations, known as ASMs, operate in poorer regions and places where child exploitation and human trafficking is common.
Because these ASMs do not have the oversight and regulations that the industrial miners do, child labor and slavery make up a large part of their work force, experts say. The International Labor Organization, the labor agency of the United Nations, estimates that tens of thousands of children work in gold mining and considers any child labor in mining as a “worst form” of labor because of the dangerous conditions.
This sector of mining represents up to 20% of the gold mined each year, according to Solidaridad Network, a non-profit organization working to help end the practices of enslaved labor and child labor.
The number of artisanal and small mining operations has risen dramatically since 2007, said Jennifer Horning, a coordinator for the Solidaridad Network.
Human Rights Watch estimates more than 20,000 children work in gold mining in Mali. The ILO estimates as many as 50,000 in Peru. In one township alone in the Chocó region of Colombia, 776 child slaves were found working in ASM gold mines. Overall the ILO estimates an increase of child labor by 35% between 2007 and 2009.
“If children are trafficked, they can suffer terrible physical and mental abuse and are literally enslaved,” Horning said. “Boys frequently work under harsh conditions in the mines and girls are forced into prostitution or domestic service.”
Many of the children are forced into the mines after having been promised jobs in a tourism-related industry. Or, due to economic need, many work willingly alongside their parents despite the dangerous conditions.
This is for Sound Money aka Ron Paul, who wants to return to the gold standard.
[Image via HRW]
(via freefiona)
The Human Rights Report 2010/2011 by the Faith-based Network on West Papua (FBN) documents social, political, economic, and cultural human rights violations against the indigenous people of Papua in 2010/2011. The report aims at documenting what is known to be happening in Papua at present. Local, national and international organizations and individuals provided their expertise on the human rights situation in Papua and made this compilation of articles possible. May it strengthen the cause of the religious leaders in Papua to create a “Papua, land of peace.”
Preventing HIV among sex workers in sub-Saharan Africa
The main focus of this report is to review the risk factors for HIV among sex workers in sub-Saharan Africa, and the interventions that have been successfully implemented in this region. The report suggests components of a health sector response necessary for accelerating prevention of HIV and other STIs among sex workers and their clients. Section 1 summarizes the epidemiology of HIV and other STIs among sex workers and their clients, bringing together evidence from biological and behavioural surveillance, research reports and evaluations of sex worker projects. Section 2 summarizes published evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for reducing HIV incidence among sex workers and their clients, as well as the importance of HIV treatment, prevention and care services for sex workers with HIV. The report concludes with an overview of HIV surveillance and research priorities.
