In his opinion piece in the Fiji Times, he said Fiji has the language to move people to heal the crisis in creation.

Chong said the myth of economic development causes widespread impoverishment, poverty and destruction of the earth.

"We need to scrutinise so-called economic development projects in Fiji such as extractive industries, mining, logging, water factories etc.

We need to ask: who gains the most from this development scheme?"

And, he asked, how will such development affect the environment, food, water, air, and peoples' sustenance?"

"The iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) vision of the earth offers us an alternative to the destructive economic paradigm" Chong said.

The iTaukei's vanua framework sees the globe as a network of relationships between the world of spirits, peoples and the land (including all living creatures).

Like other indigenous cultures, they see creation as an extension of their lives. They see human life as part of the whole web of life together with creation.

Chong listed six iTaukei cultural practices that point to the life of connectedness.

He said these practices provide an alternative life-sustaining paradigm to the destructive economic development programme.

He went on to quote Pope Francis: "Indigenous peoples have values that guide greater responsibility to caring for the Earth.

"Indigenous communities have a strong sense of community, readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land.

"They are also concerned about what they will eventually leave to their children and grandchildren."

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: Republika Magazine

Bullying has displaced their concerns about the environment and the importance of healthy eating or owning a computer.

This is surprising since the incidence of bullying does not seem to be increasing.

Definitions of bullying

Perhaps the meaning of the word bullying has expanded in our community.

Taking psychological or medical words which have specific definitions and incorporating them into our everyday speech is widespread.

Nobody is sad anymore, we are depressed; if someone is neat and tidy they have OCD; nobody gets a cold anymore, it's the flu.

Perhaps bullying is now so broadly defined and even carelessly used that it has lost the specific meaning it had.

So what is bullying? That depends on who you ask.

Researchers' definitions

Researchers say bullying is a complex social relationship problem, which is deeply embedded in our society.

The behaviour of the person bullying has to have three fundamental properties.

First, the person must intend to harm the victim; bullying can't be accidental.

Some researchers even go as far as saying that the person must feel harmed; if not, it is not bullying.

Second, the bullying behaviour is usually repeated.

A one-off spiteful remark would not be called bullying, but if it is constantly repeated, it would be.

Third, bullying is not fighting among equals; there is a power imbalance in the relationship.

Kids', teachers' and parents' definitions

In one study I did I asked groups of kids and parents and teachers what they thought bullying was.

All three groups said that an imbalance of power was central to saying what bullying was, different from fighting. Continue reading

Source

• Marilyn Campbell in The Conversation

Marilyn Campbell is Professor in the Faculty of Education, School of Cultural and Professional Learning at Queensland University of Technology.

Much of the humanitarian work currently taking place in Syria and neighbouring countries would not be possible without networks of dedicated organizations which understand where need is greatest and how best to respond.

One of the key lessons from the Mali crisis, earlier this year, was that local people held an overwhelming advantage over their international counterparts in bringing aid to communities suffering both drought and conflict in rebel-occupied areas.

The immediate response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010 by Haitian organizations - many of whose staff had themselves lost family members and homes - showed just how important local action is in meeting urgent, life-or-death needs.

But, despite the lessons of successive emergencies, and though some international agencies do work in partnership with local actors, local and national organizations are repeatedly sidelined by the international humanitarian system as a whole. Read more.

Source: New Internationalist

Image: Response to the Haiti Earthquake by Caritas in January 2010, N Fischer/Caritas Switzerland

Her perspective has a lot of intuitive appeal in an era where millions of women have children outside of marriage, serve as breadwinner moms to their families, or are raising children on their own. Dads certainly seem dispensable in today's world.

What this view overlooks, however, is a growing body of research suggesting that men bring much more to the parenting enterprise than money, especially today, when many fathers are highly involved in the warp and woof of childrearing. As Yale psychiatrist Kyle Pruett put it in Salon: "fathers don't mother."

Pruett's argument is that fathers often engage their children in ways that differ from the ways in which mothers engage their children. Yes, there are exceptions, and, yes, parents also engage their children in ways that are not specifically gendered. But there are at least four ways, spelled out in my new book, Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives (co-edited with Kathleen Kovner Kline), that today's dads tend to make distinctive contributions to their children's lives:

The Power of Play "In infants and toddlers, fathers' hallmark style of interaction is physical play that is characterized by arousal, excitement, and unpredictability," writes psychologist Ross Parke, who has conducted dozens of studies on fatherhood, including a study of 390 families that asked mothers and fathers to describe in detail how they played with their children. By contrast, mothers are "more modulated and less arousing" in their approach to play. Continue reading

Sources

• The Atlantic
• Image: We Made

As mobile phone use sweeps through the Pacific it is bringing a revolution of change in its wake.

"In PNG in April social media brought together thousands of people for a political protest. Islanders have become more literate, more familiar with market prices and their social worlds have expanded," says John Connell who is professor of geography in the school of geosciences at the University of Sydney.

Connell says the Pacific is changing dramatically. To our north Bougainville will have a referendum in a couple of years to determine if it will choose independence from PNG; New Caledonia will contemplate a similar question on independence from France.

"The reason my geological colleagues were investigating the seabed was because it is so poorly explored. Mars and the moon are better known," Connell says.

But, he adds "The human landscape, too, is suffering the same fate. We simply know too little - and perhaps care too little - about this ever-changing and diverse region at our doorsteps."

Sadly, the few news stories in recent months have almost exclusively focused on the latter-day "Pacific solution" utilising Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru.

Source

• Keith Jackson and Friends: PNG Attutude
• Image: The Fiji Times