User:Book/BlogEntry: 2008 March 23 10:33:19 EAT

From KLAMediaWiki

Some encouraging news from friends in Korogocho:

 Hi, hope you are fine,we are fine too.  Things are fine here, life is
 back to normal and people are smiling again though not all of us.
 I. is back to school again we tried to find some help and he is 
 doing well, he is also attending piano classes and is doing really fine,
 S. too is fine attending computer classes too, i have been busy too
 working as a volunteer in a children center and attending the college
 too. We are waiting for R. to finish his high school this year and we
 pray he perform better.  We wish you, your family and friends a happy
 Easter holiday

Season's Greetings from me, too.

In January 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005 Porto Alegre, the capital of the Rio Grando do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil, hosted World Social Forums (WSF). In January 2006, the city was host to the Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The following is a quotation from the address to the Assembly of the WCC, which was delivered by Yash Tandon, the economist from Uganda, who directs the South Centre in Geneva:

I hope that from here the churches will go with two messages: how to deliver the world from the

curse : of Neoliberalism, and how to strengthen the hundreds of alternatives (TAHA) of the

people for a different world. In the words of the World Social Forum: Another World is Possible!

We can make it!

In my humble opinion, the IFLA and library associations everywhere in the world should do what the WCC and so many churches have done. In other words, they ought to join the World Social Forum.

The library, being in its essence a public institution, is incompatible with a doctrine that postulates the privatisation of all public service, including schools, universities, scientific research and knowledge, public broadcasting companies, museums, archives and public libraries.

In addition to being a public institution, the library is universal. Like the Internet, which is the most recent extension of itself, the library has no geographical or spiritual borders. It is Cosmopolitan; it speaks all languages. And, like the World Social Forum, the library strives to be an open space.

Another world is possible! It is virtually there, in the library.

- Mikael