Monthly Archives: December 2009

Sunitha Krishnan’s fight against sex slavery

Among the evils that strike women and children, sex slavery is probably the worst.  Experts estimate that human traffic has become the main mafias income provider, even before drugs and weapons businesses.

Sunitha Krishnan talks about her experiences with children and women sold for pornography, prostitution, forced labor…  She witnesses every day torture and exploitation.

Her testimony is hard to hear.  Imagine, how much more it is to experience that situation in your own life…

She’s asking us our support and, above all, to break “this culture of silence” that surrounds these problems.

A newcomer in the Lingua Franca Foundation : Trouve ta voie !

In French, “Trouve ta voie” means “Find your Way“. This is a new blog in French, destined to people in Belgium and France who want to know better about job search, job coaching, business creation, communication techniques, positive thinking and much more.

The Lingua Franca Academy will soon develop activities in Brussels, the Belgian capital, and this blog is aimed to inform Brusselers about our courses, job opportunities, coaching, and the goals of the Lingua Franca Foundation.

We will tell you soon where we will settle our Academy in Brussels.  You can already find this blog by cliking here.

Fruitful future

There is a new project buzzing around the local neighbourhood. I heard this through a contact of mine. We accidentally bumped into each other 2 days ago at one of the Youth & Family Development centres. The last time we spoke, I told her about my idea to propose a project in exposing children to multiple languages at very tender age.

Apparently that somehow caused some sort a chain reaction since, mysteriously out of the blue, she suddenly told me that she (and other colleagues) are in the process of trying to propose some sort of programme to develop children’s mind from birth till they are 4 years old.

Unfortunately we had to cut our conversation short due to appointments we both had to attend (but at different location with different people), but now it gives me a very strong impression that people do think the idea of teaching children and exposing them to new methods of learning, or a new language, etc. is extremely important in order to maximise the potential of the child’s mind and to gear it up to its fullest capacity. I have to say; I got excited! And I fully support this notion.

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Shereen El Feki : creating a gathering place for Arabic people and the rest of the World

Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations showed the war between civilization as unavoidable, something engraved in the core of geopolitics since the beginning of times…  A lucid examination of history shows something rather different : cultures and civilizations always exchange, giving to and borrowing from each other, excluding some elements and integrating some others according to the proper dynamics of their own evolutions.  The Arabic and Muslim world is no exception to this rule and is re-interpreting elements from modernity according to local needs and conditions, “to produce novelties which are neither conventionally Western nor traditionally Arab“.

Shereen El Feki, half Egyptian, half Welsh, is observing these side effects of globalization. “Her passion lies in the many projects in which she is involved which aim to better understand, and surmount, the social challenges facing Arabs, particularly young people”.

In this video, published by Ted India, she is showing some examples of these borrowings.

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A brief tragic encounter

A dying rose

I was in the city centre when I first met Mea Pia. She was actually a friend of a friend’s. By the look in her eyes, I could see that she was suffering intensely. I predicted it had everything to do with relationship but the subject was never brought up. My friend briefly introduced her to me, but most of my conversation were mostly engaged with my friend instead, until at one point she felt like talking.

“I found out you went through a painful divorce,” she said to me, trying to stir a conversation. All I did were raised my eyebrow and smirked. I didn’t feel like elaborating that topic so I kept silent. I guess because of my ‘cold shoulder’ she decided not to continue the conversation.

Suddenly, until, we met again in the city centre.

“Hi, remember me? Mea Pia…” she touched my shoulder and I quickly turned around. “Ahh.. yes! I remember you. How are you?”

“Not so good,” she sincerely told me. “I’m sorry but I need to talk to you about something. Do you think we could talk privately?”

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The Safety Net Project chronicles

Many people are wondering about the progress of the Safety Net Project. Is it fully running? What are the steps the Foundation has taken to achieve its goals? Did we get any response at all? If so, how far?

As the Secretary of the Foundation, a huge part of my duty is networking. Yes, people! Networking. I have to say, these are one of the busiest times in my life – having to juggle my time and fulfill all my responsibilities, inside and outside the scope of Lingua Franca Foundation.

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Languages in Europe : a free tool to evaluate your command of a language

The European Union is made of 27 members states and has no less than 23 official languages… That means that languages are an important matter for the European Institutions.

Measuring the language skills of their public servants is also a matter of importance as they have to cope with so many complex topics in so many languages.

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Ban on minarets construction in Switzerland : the extreme right used “irrational fear” to reach its goals

minaret

minaret

The entire world was  abashed when the results of a poll against the construction of new minarets in Switzerland have been published.

The extreme right party – Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – launched such a gross campaign against the minarets, using posters showing a woman with a burqa facing a Swiss flag covered with missile-shaped minarets, that everybody expected a defeat of the populist party.

But inf fact a majority of 57.7 % voted for the ban of minarets construction in Switzerland.

The Swiss People Party clearly exploited the irrational fear of “extensive islamisation” of the country and wanted to stop the Muslim tsunami…

But what tsunami ?  There are 400.000 Muslims in Switzerland, out of a total population of 7.739.000 inhabitants. Most of them work and are perfectly integrated in Swiss social life.  There are about 400 mosques in Switzerland and… 4 minarets!

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