Category Archives: refugees

Jessica, an eleven-year-old activist

You might remember Jessica’s stunning speech on feminism, published here when she was nine years old. This year for her school’s speech competition, she introduced her classmates to the idea of activism – and won! Here’s her winning speech, written just before the election, with an introduction just for us: Hi, I’m Jessica Tuhua. I […]

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Why this New Zealander cares about what’s happening in the United States

During the United States primaries, I had to consciously limit my fascination with US politics and remind myself that it was getting daily updates on the campaign trail shenanigans wasn’t much different to reading about foreign celebrities in gossip magazines. I had better things to do with my time and attention. And then Trump got elected. […]

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Children from the Kachin ethnic group, living in a camp, had no shoes when it started snowing earlier this year. Partners was pleased to be able to supply these terrific boots for them. Read more about that story on the Partners blog: blog.partners.ngo | Sacraparental.com

A Prayer for Myanmar

  Last month, the newly elected Parliament of Myanmar chose Htin Kyaw as the country’s first non-military President since 1962. It was another step towards democracy, and a happy one, but Myanmar’s path to recovery is likely to be long and windy. The military still controls much of the government and has veto power over constitutional changes. They could […]

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How the Maps are Wrong (and Why It’s a Problem)

With friends and family scattered all over the globe, I’d love to have a huge map of the world in our house. When we move to Thailand later this year, it’ll be a priority purchase. The only reason we don’t have one already is my West Wing addiction. What a marvellous show. I rewatched all […]

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The Refugee Crisis: 13 Things You Can Do To Help

Have you gasped or shaken your head or cried over refugees this week? Was it when you saw a picture of Aylan Kurdi, a little boy wearing sneakers just like my son’s, lying dead on a beach? Was it when you saw a picture of him and his brother, smiling on a sofa, before their […]

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A great list of good music for kids and adults. Make a noise and change the world! | Sacraparental.com

Protest is for Everyone: 9 Protest Songs for Kids and Adults

The teachers choosing the song list for my primary schools in the 1980s were clearly a bunch of ex-hippies. We had psychadelia, folk songs and lots of Beatles, and certainly nothing written for children (unless the thoroughly depressing Puff the Magic Dragon counts?) And lots of protest songs. A friend and I (we grew up in […]

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Advent in Art with He Qi: Escape to Egypt

A warm welcome to this year’s Advent in Art series, where we join thousands of others in contemplating artistic works. This week we are in the season of Christmas, and conclude the series. For an introduction to this series, and He Qi, the artist featured in 2014, please see the first post, on the Annunciation. […]

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