Continent of hope: respect, democracy, and diplomacy should guide U.S. engagement with Africa.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FORGIVE A TYPICAL AMERICAN if she were to pay a visit to the West African nation of Sierra Leone and be confused by her surroundings. If she had ever heard of Sierra Leone before, it might have been while watching the movie Blood Diamond, which...

Lost are found: child soldiers can reenter, thrive in former community.
Ishmael Beah knows that former child soldiers in war-ravaged African countries can reclaim their lives, because that's just what he did. In 1993, when Beah was 13, rebels in Sierra Leone killed his parents and two brothers, forcing him to join a bloody campaign for two years. Upon his...

Comparative perspectives on the rehabilitation of ex-slaves and former child soldiers with special reference to Sudan.
Abstract: Despite the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, reconstruction of southern Sudan remains a daunting task, which limited resources and unlimited suspicions may derail or delay. Among myriad issues facing agencies and their client communities are the problems of assisting children traumatized by the brutal legacies of Sudan's first...

UN Sec'y General wants action on child soldiers.
Over 250,000 children have been recruited as soldiers in armed conflicts in more than a dozen countries, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports. The practice continues and Ban is asking for additional measures to deal with the issue. The countries cited by Ban include: Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, the...

From militant to writer: Sri Lankan Tamil author Shobasakthi.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Shobasakthi's novel Gorilla, written by a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee and former LTTE child soldier, plunges readers into the village of Kunjan Fields, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. In the essay that follows, Anushiya Sivanarayanan, herself a Tamil whose family left Sri Lanka in the 1980s,...

Worth noting.
* A team of scientists report they have discovered Earth's most ancient rocks. The samples of Nuvvuagittuq greenstone found on the shore of Hudson Bay, Canada, are purported to be 4.28 billion years old--250 million years older than any known to date--and may hold evidence of ancient life forms....

Court convicts over child soldiers.
In a ground-breaking move, the war crimes court for Sierra Leone has handed down the first-ever convictions by a UN-backed tribunal for the crime of recruiting and using child soldiers. Thousands of children were used by all sides during Sierra Leone's brutal 11-year conflict, which ended in 2002. They...

A fireman in Sudan: a bit of Can-do and he's building a school with child soldiers.
I work for the City of London Fire Department and my captain on Engine 11 is Glen Pearson, Director of the London Food Bank and former missionary. Having served for many years in Africa, Glen and his wife Jane Roy are currently assisting the people of South Sudan. This...

The Committee on Teaching About the United Nations (CTAUN).
ACEI's United Nations representatives have attended CTAUN conferences for many years, and have shared the information with ACEI's membership through articles in this column. CTAUN is composed of a dedicated group of representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and interested educators from around the world who provide international resources for...

Armies of the young; child soldiers in war and terrorism.
0813535689 Armies of the young; child soldiers in war and terrorism. Rosen, David M. Rutgers U. Press 2005 199 pages $22.95 Paperback The Rutgers series in childhood studies UB416 ...