ecopolis

South Korean workers are being sent on “well-dying” courses to encourage them to assess their priorities in life and as a suicide prevention measure. The country has the highest rate of self-inflicted death in the developed world, with 24.7 cases per 100,000 people. Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor are among companies that have booked “fake funerals” for their employees.
Here are some of the steps:

Attendees has to solve questions such as: “If you died today, what would you tell your family”?

funeral portrait

a flower is laid on each person’s chest and then the coffin is closed for 5 minutes

resurrected trainees

Dear friends,

Burma has been devastated by a cyclone—and by the military junta’s failure to help its people cope. Help raise relief funds for distribution by Burma’s monks.

In the wake of a massive cyclone, tens of thousands of Burmese are dead. More than 40,000 are missing. A million are homeless.But what’s happening in
Burma is not just a natural disaster—it’s also a catastrophe of bad leadership.

Burma’s brutal and corrupt military junta failed to warn the people, failed to evacuate any areas, and suppressed freedom of communication so that Burmese people didn’t know the storm was coming when the rest of the world did. Now the government is failing to respond to the disaster and obstructing international aid organizations.

Humanitarian relief is urgently needed, but Burma’s government could easily delay, divert or misuse any aid. Today the International Burmese Monks Organization, including many leaders of the democracy protests last fall, launched a new effort to provide relief through Burma’s powerful grass roots network of monasteries—the most trusted institutions in the country and currently the only source of housing and support in many devastated communities. Click below to help the Burmese people with a donation and see a video appeal to Avaaz from a leader of the monks:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/burma_cyclone/77.php

Giving to the monks is a smart, fast way to get aid directly to Burma’s people. Governments and international aid organizations are important, but face challenges—they may not be allowed into
Burma, or they may be forced to provide aid according to the junta’s rules. And most will have to spend large amounts of money just setting up operations in the country. The monks are already on the front lines of the aid effort—housing, feeding, and supporting the victims of the cyclone since the day it struck. The International Burmese Monks Organization will send money directly to each monastery through their own networks, bypassing regime controls.

Last year, more than 800,000 of us around the world stood with the Burmese people as they rose up against the military dictatorship. The government lost no time then in dispatching its armies to ruthlessly crush the nonviolent democracy movement—but now, as tens of thousands die, the junta’s response is slow and threatens to divert precious aid into the corrupt regime’s pockets.

The monks are unlikely to receive aid from governments or large humanitarian organizations, but they have a stronger presence and trust among the Burmese people than both. If we all chip in a little bit, we can help them to make a big difference.

Click here to donate:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/burma_cyclone/77.php

With hope,

Ricken, Ben, Graziela, Paul, Iain, Veronique, Pascal, Galit and the whole Avaaz team

PS: Here are some links to more information:

For more information about Avaaz’s work to support the Burmese people, click here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_report_back/

For more information about the cyclone, the humanitarian crisis, and the political dimension, see these articles:

New York Times: “A Challenge Getting Relief to Myanmar’s Remote Areas.” 7 May 2008.

BBC: “Will Burma’s leaders let aid in?” 6 May 2008.

India’s Economic Times: Indian meteorological department advised junta 48 hours in advance, 6 May 2008.

BBC: “Disaster tests Burma’s junta.” 5 May 2008

Times Online: “Aid workers fear Burma cyclone deaths will top 50,000.” 6 May 2008.

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ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Paris, Washington DC, and Geneva.

RECORD STORE DAY (Record stores can’t save your life. But they can give you a better one)

Il 19 aprile si celebra in tutto il mondo il “Record store day una giornata interamente dedicata alla salvaguardia e tutela dei negozi di dischi indipendenti.

Moltissime star del rock e non solo hanno aderito all’iniziativa. Come Peter Gabriel: “Ricordo i tempi in cui scoprivo un sacco di buona musica proprio attraverso il negozio di dischi sotto casa mia grazie all’esperienza dei rivenditori”. E Paul McCartney: “I negozi di musica sono la cosa più attraente che ci sia”. Tanta la musica di qualità, le performance dal vivo come l’ esibizione dei Metallica a San Francisco.

Re-mix insieme ad altri negozi italiani ha deciso di partecipare all’evento in modo spontaneo, con la speranza di raccogliere il maggior numero di adesioni.

E dalle 10.00 alle 20.00 del 19 Aprile – porte aperte da Re-Mix : open console per chi vuole mettere dei dischi, fare un piccolo dj set, ascoltare della musica, vedere le novità, partecipare, incontrarsi, bere un drink, progettare insieme.

Live set: Durante la giornata ospiteremo artisti, performance e uno show case di Enzo Varriale e Gianluca Lisco alias LAN videosource : un progetto che partendo dalle tecniche di Vjing, software generativi e Live Media propone l’implementazione di tecnologie analogiche e la fusione dei linguaggi multimediali per la creazione di un videoflusso dinamico di rete e performance audiovisuali

L’invito è di partecipare, di dare visibilità a questo giorno, di comprare un disco, di regalare un disco, di passare a trovarci, di lasciare una traccia, sperando che sia la prima occasione per costruire la giornata nazionale degli amanti dei negozi di dischi anche in Italia.

La piccola distribuzione è l’unico canale diretto e umano per ascoltare, far ascoltare, entrare in contatto e condividere un prodotto. Ma prima di tutto un’opera. Un posto unico da difendere e preservare dagli effetti della grande distribuzione commerciale.

Vi aspettiamo tutti.

Record stores can’t save your life. But they can give you a better one!

Sandro Maria Nasonte & Ilari Valbonesi

—————————————————————————————————————

Data: 19 aprile 2008
Luogo: RE-MIX
Indirizzo: VIA DEL FIUME 8 – 00186 ROMA
Orari: 10.00 – 20.00
Info: +39063216514
www.re-mix.it
www.elettronicaromana.comhttp://www.elettronicaromana.com/

This year, World Water Day coincides with the International Year of Sanitation, challenging us to spur action on a crisis affecting more than one out of three people on the planet.

Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of the abysmal sanitation conditions endured by some 2.6 billion people globally. That adds up to an unconscionable 1.5 million young lives cut short by a cause we know well how to prevent.

Poor sanitation combines with a lack of safe drinking water and inadequate hygiene to contribute to the terrible global death toll. Those who survive face diminished chances of living a healthy and productive existence. Children, especially girls, are forced to stay out of school, while hygiene-related diseases keep adults from engaging in productive work.

Leaders who adopted the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 envisioned halving the proportion of people living without access to basic sanitation by the year 2015 — but we are nowhere near on pace to achieve that Goal. Experts predict that, by 2015, 2.1 billion people will still lack basic sanitation. At the present rate, sub-Saharan Africa will not reach the target until 2076.

While there have been advances, progress is hampered by population growth, widespread poverty, insufficient investments to address the problem and the biggest culprit: a lack of political will.

With the right resolve, there are many steps that members of the international community can take. World Water Day offers a chance to spotlight these issues, but this year, let us go beyond raising awareness — let us press for action to make a measurable difference in people’s lives.

Curated by the celebrated artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, the Derek Jarman exhibition presents a selection of work by the leading British film-maker of his generation; it highlights Jarman’s work in film and painting, including his pioneering presentation of the moving image within the gallery context.

Jarman was arguably the single most crucial figure of British independent cinema in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He struggled for Gay Liberation and with the impact of AIDS and lived as a participant observer, recording all that passed before him, from punk to Thatcher, Hampstead Heath to film premiere.

This exhibition is a timely reappraisal of Jarman’s work, conceived as an immersive environment by Julien, featuring rarely seen films from the Derek Jarman Super-8 archive, an installation of his film Blue, 1993, as well as a selection of his paintings.

Julien has also created a series of photographic lightboxes documenting Jarman’s cottage and garden in Dungeness.
The exhibition will mark the premiere of Julien’s new film about Jarman, Derek, the centre of which is a day-long interview Jarman recorded.

Derek Jarman Curated by Isaac Julien
23 February – 13 April 2008

Performance For Blue
Friday 14 March
7 pm
by Simon Fisher Turner
with Black Sifichi

For Blue is a new reworking of the film’s music and sound with narration by poet and musician Black Sifichi presented live in the Serpentine Gallery.

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/

In Africa’s rural areas, many poor families rely on their land to survive. But with such barren earth to farm and unreliable rains, they struggle to harvest enough food to stay healthy.

Through a FARM-Africa goat project, you can transform life for a poor community providing poor families with goats and training in how to care for them. Also give one member of the group Toggenburgs to breed with local goats, so the hardier offspring produce lots of nutritious milk. This can be drunk or sold to help pay for medicine and schoolbooks. Plus, the goats’ manure is a great fertiliser for the family’s crops.

Please buy from FARM-Africa Living PRESENTS
Chicken
Goat
Beehive
Camel

or from Growing PRESENTS
http://www.farmafricapresents.org.uk/buy/item/5

It is also possible to choose from an amazing range of quirky and memorable gifts which represent just some of the ways that your donation can be used to make a difference to the lives of poor African farmers.

See how it works here and how we use your donations here.

British artist Damien Hirst and Irish musician Bono U2 will host a Project RED auction of contemporary art donated by several artists such as Anish Kapoor, Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Douglas Gordon, Andreas Gursky, Antony Gormley and Marc Quinn.

The Red Auction is expected to raise more than $40 million to support HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs in Africa.

More than 100 “red” pieces of art will be auctioned at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on 14th February 2008 – Saint Valentine’s Day – the traditional holiday on which lovers express their love for each other or donating to charity.

Love at first sight! — The pieces will be exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York from February 4. to Feb. 13. Proceeds will go to the United Nations Foundation to support Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria programs.

“For a relatively small amount of effort on each artist’s part, we can actually save many lives,” Hirst said.

Bono called the auction a “real moment in art history”

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Do you love me?”

The XO is a potent learning tool created expressly for the world’s poorest children, living in its most remote environments. The laptop was designed collaboratively by experts from both academia and industry. The result is a unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra-low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine with which nations of the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development—immediately transforming the content and quality of their children’s learning.

XO is built from free and open-source software. OLPC commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms and with open-document formats for much the same reason: transparency is empowering. The children—and their teachers—will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content.

The desktop metaphor is so entrenched in personal computer users’ collective consciousness that it is easy to forget what a bold and radical innovation the Graphical User Interface (GUI) was and how it helped free the computer from the “professionals” who were appalled at the idea of computing for everyone.

OLPC is about to revolutionize the existing concept of a computer interface.

The user-interface is tailored to their specific type of knowledge work: learning. So, working together with teams from Pentagram and Red Hat, we created SUGAR, a “zoom” interface that graphically captures their world of fellow learners and teachers as collaborators, emphasizing the connections within the community, among people, and their activities.

If you’d like to donate an XO laptop today, simply click the donation button : A donation of $200 will pay for and deliver one XO laptop to a child in a developing nation.

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time in North America. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.

http://www.xogiving.org