Village Connections is a virtual forum for all who want a world of creative, inclusive and sustainable localities where all can meet their needs (material and aspirational).  Your contribution is most welcome.

Ladder Awards: Geoffrey Palmer & John Key re UN Gaza Inquiry

With Geoffrey Palmer’s appointment to head a UN inquiry re the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, New Zealand’s even-handed Middle East policy becomes something more than sitting evenly on both hands

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Costs of modern violence at global and local levels

How sustainable is this form of modernity, beset as it is with economic and environmental crises?

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Ladder Awards: effective Restorative Justice and publicity

Ladder award: St Thomas’s of Canterbury boys school for a highly effective Restorative Justice programme and to The Press for publicising it

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From an Iranian nuclear standoff to a nuclear free world

World leader and villager roles to make diplomacy work – an update

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Awakening grassroots energy by Richard K Moore

Richard Moore defines some obstacles to dialog in localization movements, and shifts the focus from problems to solutions.

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This is a spontaneous meeting space for Villagers - step onto the virtual Soap Box and share your top-of-brain notions and passions, opinions, knowledge or a story.
The brewing of ideas will help the whole Village to better understand itself and its possibilities.
It can also help generate everyday material and reality checks for academics and policymakers to collaborate in brokering robust solutions that the Villagers want.

The Soap Box

Framing coherent, flourishing community, economic and foreign policy

Awakening grassroots energy by Richard K Moore

The Emergence of Localism by Richard K Moore

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When down a hole, it is essential to distinguish a shovel from a ladder – one gets you out, one digs you in deeper. So too, with society’s opinion- and decision-makers. You are invited to nominate any of them for a Ladder or Shovel Award, explaining to fellow Villagers why they should endorse your Award.

Ladder and Shovel Awards

Ladder Award: Gareth Morgan for refreshing insights on welfare reform

Ladder Awards: Geoffrey Palmer & John Key re UN Gaza Inquiry

Ladder Awards: effective Restorative Justice and publicity

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Here Bloggers draw on an eclectic mix of news and comment from around the world to clarify contexts which can support, or impede, people building local connections that enable them to better understand and (sustainably) fulfill their aspirations, both within their localities and in relation to the wider world beyond them.

If you come across relevant items yourself, please send them in to share.

Happenings

Global economy – noticing there's an elephant in the room

Costs of modern violence at global and local levels

From an Iranian nuclear standoff to a nuclear free world

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"Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?"
- William Lloyd Garrison

 

Feature Projects - See

The Unworthy Tree – a creative filmed story of a successful local development project

Trailer of “The Silent Connectors” – a film-based methodology for the local co-exploration of desirable futures

Thought for the week

"Nothing Fails Like Success" ... "The moral of evolution is that nothing fails like success because successful adoption leads to the loss of adaptability ... This is why a purely technical evaluation can be disastrous. It trains people only in thinking of things that have been thought of and this will eventually lead to disaster "

Kenneth Boulding