The dots between the letters tell you, undoubtedly, that I’m using P.E.A.C.E. as an acronym—a word made up of the first letters of additional words that spells another word altogether. This one comes from the brilliant mind of the luscious Iyanla Vanzant, a spiritual teacher based in Maryland. It stands for:

Please Excuse All Crazy Experiences

Is that not phenomenal? I think it is. So very often when we hold out an ideal for our world, we dangle the ideal. Dangle it? Lambast with it is more like it, but we forget one vital piece of the puzzle. And that is the indubitable how question.   Read more...

Teenage pregnancy is a problem in South Africa. Young single mothers are ubiquitous in my village and the surrounding communities. Sometimes when I visit the post office I find a colorful queue of mothers that stretches far outside. They often have babies wrapped on their backs and some are pregnant. It’s grant day, and they are waiting to collect the monthly allowance provided by the government. Each month on the post office wall a new hand-written sign appears with three dates designated for child grant distribution. A range of years is listed after each date; mothers collect the grant based on their own birth year. Initially it troubled me to see that girls born more than ten years after me were collecting grants for their children. How could a 16-year-old possibly be a mother? I’m 27 years old and don’t feel prepared for that responsibility!

Despite my personal lack of present maternal instincts, I recognize that many women do feel those instincts at a far younger age. But an instinct alone cannot—and should not—explain the alarmingly high rate of pregnancy.   Read more...

Would you sugarcoat your words?

When conversing with one another we try to project truth but how often is the bitter truth disguised as what they say, “ sugar coated pills?” In a direct conversation, the energies are fully conscious, regenerative and articulate, but there is a set of laws that contributes to the archetypal structure of talks.

These set of laws are about being polite, being discreet, politically correct (in some circumstances) and being diplomatic in one’s speech. For example if I need to say something unpleasant to someone I would use the “ indirect speech” such as “ I think we must ‘reconsider’ our relationship, it is hurting both of us.” Rather than “I have stopped loving you, and I want you out from my life.” When I imagine myself at the receiving end of both the ways, I know which one I would prefer!   Read more...

While on a quest for weight loss, we often search for every small advantage we can find. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it leads us to make emotional food choices rather than choosing healthy foods based on proven facts. Emotionally, the following list of foods may sound like great options, but read on to find out why they may fool you:   Read more...

It's late, and dark. We're in one of the many suburbs of Dar, more than an hours drive from the center. The roads are more potholes with some little road on the side then anything else. Houses have space here, there are trees and bushes and it doesn't feel like town. Our passengers have fallen silent, or are asleep and only the driver and me are awake. Every junction we guess: right or left, in an attempt to escape the web of dirt roads and get back to the main road. Families sit at their verandas, eating and talking in the fresh breeze. We talk with long pauses, about work, home, religion, the future and how hungry we are. Then the topic changes to politics.   Read more...

One of the fancy places in Dar es Salaam. A fast food chain, a bakery, internet café and little tables host lots of youngsters and elderly sipping their juices, chatting. I'm talking to Athman, a student of banking, working in his sister's duka, shop, and always looking for new challenges. We discuss the differences between Tanzania and the Netherlands. He has been in Holland twice on an exchange project and is well acquainted with a Dutch family who treat him like a son.   Read more...

When I was in my early twenties, Simon and Garfunkel were immensely popular. We would play their tunes night and day, and revel in the idea of being part of the culture they, and others like them, were ushering into the world. One song in particular that stuck like glue was “A Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. It is still with me. Round and round and round it has played in my head and heart over these many years.

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Dropping from the bus my sandal breaks. The repair shop is right in front of me. Dave seizes the opportunity and makes a place on his bench under a tree. While stitching my sandal, the discussion moves back and forth between the six or seven guys around him. Street vendors that keep their tangerines in Dave's eyesight, a guy selling cigarettes per piece from Dave's pack, others seemingly just sitting there advising Dave on the stitching methods.

"Who taught you to fix shoes?" is one of my curious questions to the young Rastafarian. "Njaa, hunger is the best teacher" is his simple answer "I just knew".   Read more...

Lauren Child, one of the world best known children’s authors and the creator of Charlie and Lola is donating the royalties from her best-selling book “That Pesky Rat” for three years to UNESCO’s Programme for the Education of Children in Need.

UNESCO created the Programme for the Education of Children in Need in 1992 to offer a future to vulnerable children through education. Since its creation, over US$33 million has been raised in private funds and these have been fully and directly invested into immediate support for over 332 projects in 92 countries worldwide.   Read more...

More than 300 colleges and universities give degrees in Peacebuilding and Peace Studies. The current spectrum of our peacebuilding expertise includes leading edge technologies in the fields of conflict resolution, peer mediation, post-conflict reconstruction and many other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Regrettably, current policy-making tends toward reactive, not proactive, approaches to reducing violence. We typically wait until violence has occurred and then ask our already over-taxed police and military to address these symptoms of violence through activities such as imprisonment of offenders and engagement in armed conflict. While such suppression of symptoms is vital, it is incomplete and must be augmented by stronger preventative measures, with a specific focus on the identification and treatment of root causes.

Please join us in saying, "I Stand for Peace." Help us save lives, save money, and save our country for future generations.   Read more...