Teenage Mother/Child Welfare Conference

The New York Teen Pregnancy Network upholds the international agreements to protect lives: including the Unborn and the protection of teenage mum and Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy. The most important of which is the 1998 Convention on the Rights to live. The convention recognizes a range of rights related to human protection, and calls upon countries to honor their obligations to uphold these rights.

The Convention is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world. To make further progress on these commitments, The New York Teen Pregnancy Network invites, Youth organizations, Socio-Cultural Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Educators, Scholars, Researchers, Health Organizations, Professionals, Business Organizations, Decision makers in the public and private sector, Representatives of Governmental and Non-Governmental organizations (NGO’S), Religious organizations, Human Right Organizations & Women Groups

Date: 30th June – 4th July 2009
Venue: Herencia Hotel Eastrop Way, Basingstoke, Hants, RG21 4QD Hampshire, London, United Kingdom.

Theme:: ” Teenage Mother/Child Welfare Conference “
This conference will bring together an almost 800 representatives of NGO’s/CBO’s and numerous numbers of interested individual participants from all over the world. The conference will be conducted on participatory bases with satellite plenary and simultaneous sessions followed by general and small group discussions.

SPONSORSHIP: The conference receives financial support from Bank HSBC Bank London, the United Nations Health Commission and Ford Foundation USA. This sponsorship covers the following:
1. Return airplane travel ticket for selected delegates from their home country to venue of event in London (United Kingdom) and back to their home country.
(2) Medical insurance cover for delegates throughout the entire conference duration.
The New York Teen Pregnancy Network will not assume responsibility of any other cost, other than those listed above. Participants will bear responsibility for their own accommodation cost

NOMINATION AND SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS: Intending participants are requested to nominate between two (2) to five (5) active members to participate, age bracket between 21 years and above. In order to foster gender balance, we would appreciate if your delegation includes one or two female participant(s).

REGISTRATION/INQUIRIES:
For purpose of registration to participate in this Conferences, contact: donaldrobert@email.com

The program will include:

• • Gain insights from top experts from around the country;
• Discover successful strategies, interventions, and initiatives
• Learn the latest facts and statistics, and about helpful resources.
• Capacity and skills-building sessions
• Exchange ideas with professionals who share your goals.
• Presentations by our sponsors and donors

In addition to the main program, the meeting will also host book launches, artistic and cultural activities and, as with all NY Teen Pregnancy’s events, plenty of space and opportunity for informal networking and alliance-building.

All sessions will have interpretation into English and French. Meet us in London to assert a new change for a stronger society. Contact me for more details, the deadline for application is as set by the Organizing Committee.

Herencia Hotel Eastrop Way, Basingstoke, Hants, RG21 4QD Hampshire, London, United Kingdom.
0705487541
Email: malcolm.jawal@yahoo.co.uk

Future: George Burns

“I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life,” (George Burns, at age 87; he lived to be 100: Quoteland).

Urban Crowds in History (and Beyond)

An international and interdisciplinary conference to be held October 15-17, 2009, University of Tours, France. Crowds, and more specifically urban crowds, have long been a favorite topic for human and social sciences, before fading out from recent research. Is this due to the fact that we have been moving on from an ‘age of the masses’ to an ‘age of the individual’? Indeed, if there is a wealth of studies of crowds at various turning points in history, we lack studies trying to bypass the canonical chronological boundaries and to develop a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue among the social sciences. Crowds are understood here as encompassing political, cultural and religious gatherings, either in a paroxistical form (riots, collective celebration) or in a more subdued, ordinary, form (social networks), as well as collective practices shared by a score of individuals. These collective practices bring crowds to invest the city as its major theatre; crowd action is an addition of individual gestures, postures, behaviors, slogans, cries, screams…, the modalities and temporalities of which deserve a study in their own right. This conference is aiming at an approach which combines history, sociology, anthropology, social psychology, or literary studies of urban crowds. Possible themes include, but are not limited to: – theoretical approaches of ‘the crowd’ from the angle of various social sciences –anthropology, social psychology, political science… – or literary representations; – when does a crowd become a ‘crowd’, i.e., when does a gathering of people come to be seen – and whom by ? – as a ‘crowd’? Does it change in space and/or time ? – crowds in urban environments, their means of acting, positioning in, and negociating urban space; – the various types of crowds : sports crowd, festive crowd, protesting crowd, consumerist crowd (Christmas shopping, the sales…), etc.; their behaviour, with particular attention to chants, speeches, slogans; – crowd leaders, their means, methods and results; – the influence of ‘populism’ on the masses; – crowd movements relate to social and political passions; – the means of checking and controlling crowds ; – the influence of power institutions on gathering crowds and, in return, the influence of gathered crowds on the powers that created them.

The conference committee will be pleased to welcome 300-word abstracts no later than May 30, 2009. Please include a CV or resume. Selected applicants will be notified by June 30, 2009. Please send abstracts to Dr. Christine Bousquet : christinebousquet@gmail.com, Prof. Philippe Chassaigne : philchassaigne@gmail.com, Prof. Stéphane Corbin : stephmagcorbin@wanadoo.fr.

A selection of papers presented during the Conference will be published in a special issue of Mana. Revue de sociologie et d’anthropologie (University of Caen, France).

Prof. Philippe Chassaigne
Dept. of History
University of Tours
3 rue des Tanneurs
37000 Tours
France
Email: philchassaigne@gmail.com

Storytelling in World Cinemas: Narrative Forms & Contexts

Call for Papers

Chapters are solicited for the edited collection “Storytelling in World
Cinemas”, edited by Lina Khatib (Senior Lecturer, Department of Media
Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London).

The collection will be published by Wallflower Press.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a short biography to
lina.khatib@rhul.ac.uk by April 22, 2009.

Chapters should be framed within the following parameters:
In how many ways can cinema tell a story? Where does this storytelling
come from? And what purpose does this storytelling serve? This collection
aims at locating cinema within a wider cultural framework through focusing
on the theme of storytelling in cinema. In particular, the collection will
focus on how different cinemas tell stories, i.e., with the issue of
narration in cinema. The collection will deal with non-classical
narratives in different cinemas that are influenced by, among others,
aural/oral, literary and religious storytelling traditions. For example,
Ousmane Sembene's films are highly influenced by the griot, or the village
oral storyteller, but are also often adaptations of his literary novels.
Iranian cinema (especially Kiarostami’s work) often tells stories that are
communicated as moments or feelings, not as plots, and is influenced by
Iran’s poetic tradition. And films from the Arab world have been inspired
by the episodic narrative tradition of 1001 Nights. In addition, the
collection will include chapters about the influence of social and
political context on the way stories are told in films (such as the impact
of revolution or dictatorship). This collection is an examination of the
different ways stories are told in cinemas, and the cultural/political
context in which this storytelling exists. It begins with an investigation
into the necessity of cinema narrative, and ends with an exploration of
how cinema can go “beyond” the narrative. In between, it goes on a journey
linking cinema with issues such as (but not limited to) religion,
literature, theatre, music, poetry and oral epics, as well social and
political contexts. So far, there is work done on those different
narratives, but those studies tend to either look at such cinemas in
isolation, or in comparison to the classical Hollywood narrative. This
collection will bring together experts on those different cinemas in order
to highlight how they converge and diverge and to arrive at a well-rounded
examination of the cultural context in which storytelling in cinema exists
and which it is shaped by.

Completed chapters are expected to be 5000 words long and are expected to
be delivered by the end of June 2009.

In particular, chapters on the following topics are solicited:
-          Non-narrative films (like Tropical Malady)
-          Film narratives in Arab cinemas
-          Film and revolution in Latin America

Lord Byron: Laughter

“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine,” (Lord Byron, 1788-1824: The Quotations Page).

Friedrich Nietzsche: Humor

“And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh,” (Friedrich Nietzsche: Wisdom Quotes).

Hans Christian Andersen: Life

“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower,” (Hans Christian Andersen: Quote Land).

John F. Kennedy: Teaching

“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education,”
(John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Quotations for Inspiration).

Heaven: Johnny Cash

“How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell.  There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man,” (Johnny Cash: Quote Land).

Earth Day 2008: Call for Climate

Today, April 22, is Earth Day. The focus of activities mirrors the different challenges we are facing right now. Millions of people around the world are rallying behind a Call for Climate, the global warming action theme. The planet is heating up and with the rising temperature comes the problems associated with global warming (food crisis, rice shortage, changing weather patterns, etc.). What started 38 years ago in San Francisco, USA, has now spread to all corners of the globe. In the Philippines, the theme is “Tubig Buhay Natin, Ating Pagyamanin.” Let us do our part in preserving the Integrity of Creation. Make every day, Earth Day.